ON BEING WELL BORN

Otago Witness, Volume 1851, Issue 3809, 15 March 1927, Page 81

ON BEING WELL BORN

Why do so many people dislike even the word eugenics, which expresses one of the oldest ambitions in the world—that of having well-born children? (asks Professor J. Arthur Thomson, in John o’ London’s Weekly). The reason that influences most of us is that while we approve of the eugenic ideal, as everyone must, we do not see what can be done towards its fuller realisation. Let us think, therefore, of practicable eugenics. Sir Francis Galton, who invented the word “eugenics,” defined it as “the study of agencies under social control that may improve or impair the racial qualities of future generations, either physically or mentally.” He also used the term not only for the • science, but for the art of good breeding; and he was always careful to qualify his suggestions with the saving clause that they must be consistent with the present conditions of social sentiment. Plato suggested methods of raceimprovement which are not practicable today, such as infanticide. His proposals for the “purgation of the State’’ are too drastic for us.

In reference to all the lopping-off suggestions it must be kept in mind that we do not know enough to be reliable sifters of the race ; that many weaklings, such as Isaac Newton, have been makers and shakers of the world ; and that there can be no satisfaction in methods that merely remove results without getting at causes.

Other things equal, if a farmer is not keen on rearing good stock, he won’t get it; and, similarly, if we do not return to the old enthusiasm for being well-born, we are likely to deteriorate racially. In an age of mechanisms man tends to become mechanically-minded; he loses his sense of the fundamental value of good health and good stock. In any case, the modern Englishman is not at present as biologically-minded as the ancient Hebrews or the old-fashioned Chinese. If men and women are so preoccupied that they do not think about health except in a tiresome valetudinarian way, and do not think about heredity except snobbishly, then for lack of vision the people will perish. (1). As the poet Heine said, half-laugh-ingly, half-bitterly, a man cannot be too careful in choosing parents. This becomes a practical suggestion when we change “parents” into “partner.” Do not marry for hygiene, but go where good health is.

(2). No sensible person can contemplate without grave regret the spoiling of more or less good stock by the introduction of defects like deaf-mutism, or predispositions towards pronounced mental or to certain forms of, say, diabetes and epilepsy. Public opinion, as well as personal conscience, should be educated against —not the marriage, but the parenthood of those suffering from serious constitutional unsoundness.

(3) Obviously undesirable types, who have fallen back on the community for support, should be segregated so that they cannot reproduce their kind. (4) Let every man be fully convinced in his own mind, if he can get it free enough from the inhibiting pieces of mind that he has inherited from his ancestry. No doubt there is something to be said on both sides, but many able-minded men have come to the conclusion that children would often be better forn and better bred if there were fewer of them.

(5) The applications of the economic idea of “criticism of expenditure” are endless and far-reaching. All. expenditure that promotes healthy rather than unhealthy occupations, that helps to multiply desirable rather than undesirable types (e.g., artists rather than “bookies”), that makes for well-paid work and gardens rather than for sweated labour and slums, is necessarily eugenic. (6) Every endeavour that makes for positive health or vigour and lessens wasteful, indiscriminate thinning of the population must in time improve the quality of the race. Not only because good soil and sunshine increase the chances of good seed being produced and sprouting successfully, but because th e healthier people are, the more will thev will be proud of having well-born children. (7) We are all in som e measure the victims of mis-education, which explains much of our apathy or hostility to eugenics When the education of the youth of the country frees itself from anachronistic inhibitions and is readjusted to modern needs in the light of sound psychology and biology, then young people will be instructed in regard to the conditions of health, happiness, and effective work; and then eugenics will hum. . When we are pleading for more attention to eugenics, we must lay. emphasis on what is bred in the bone, imbued in the : blood, and inborn in the mind—on heredity in short. Individual fools may. produce wise men, and individual wise men may produce fools; and so it is with physique; but ten thousand fine parents should have a much'higher average grade of offspring than- te n thousand of inferior’ stock. So the fundamental desirabality is that the fine parents should have more offspring (in moderation) and the inferior ones fewer. But this is only a partial view, for hardly less important than • heredity nature is the environmental and functional nurture. Secure progress is never along one line only. Eutopias, eutechnics, must join hands with eugenics. To, put it in another way* practicable eugenics, must be taken, to include all actions that operate selectively towards, the relative increase of better stock. . But we must be clear in our minds as to . what we mean by. “better,” and •what we are selecting towards.