First steps towards eugenic reform / by Leonard Darwin.

  • Leonard Darwin
Date:
[between 1910 and 1919?]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: First steps towards eugenic reform / by Leonard Darwin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    blood apparently no longer flows in the veins of any living creature. Not only does it appear that some species are destined to die out and leave no progeny on earth, but also that the number of these condemned species, if they may be so described, existing on earth at any one time is probably greater than the number of the species destined to bifurcate in their forward advance and thus to people the earth with new and varied forms of life. In short, the odds as regards any particular species seem always to be in favour of its total extinction, a conclusion which must tend to make us somewhat less optimistic as regards the future of mankind. It is true that the immense relative superiority in certain respects of man over all other animals may justify us in wholly dismissing from our minds the possibility of the disappearance of our species. But how about the different races of man ? Have not some of them become absolutely ex- tinct ? Even if this be denied, it is certain that races have frequently risen to a stage of eminence and renown, and have then slowly relapsed into a position of inferiority and obscurity. And if this retrograde movement has been a common story in the history of the world, what reason have we Anglo-Saxons for believing that that fate is not also in store for us ? doubtless there are many who will say that these dismal forebodings are based on theoretical considerations of such an abstract nature that no practical man need pay much attention to them. But if the practical man confines his attention to actual social conditions of his own country, with all its boasted civilisa¬ tion, will he there find material on which to build assured hopes of the continued progress of his race ? From the Eugenic point of view the most important fact to note in this connection is that that class of the community which may, in popular but un¬ scientific language, be said to be incapable of earning a living wage, is the one with the highest birth-rate of any in the land. Dr. Heron, who has made a special study of this question as regards London, tells us that “ in districts where there is over¬ crowding, where there is a super-abundance of the lowest type of labour, where it is needful to employ many young children in order to earn daily bread for the family, where infantile mor¬ tality is greatest, there ”—to put the matter briefly—most