What is eugenics? / by Leonard Darwin.

  • Leonard Darwin
Date:
1932
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

Credit: What is eugenics? / by Leonard Darwin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    33/100 (page 23)
    EUGENIC METHODS 23 with the word stockyard, we see that they must be repudiated altogether in human affairs. The farmer may kill off his inferior stock ; whilst no one advocates putting both the unwanted kitten and the inferior baby into the tub in the backyard. To argue against such proceedings is a waste of time. Compulsory marriage is equahy out of the question. It is true that both infanticide and the subjection of women have been common enough in many countries and in all ages; but they will never be reintro¬ duced into civilized countries. A highly developed moral sense and great freedom of choice are two of the most precious attributes of man, and the necessity for preserving them rules out these stockyard methods. The main lesson learnt from a study of domestic animals is, in fact, that the descendants of good stocks are always on the whole naturally superior to the descendants of inferior stocks. This is true of all animals, man included. And from this it follows that, in order to improve the breed of our race, we should now take such steps as would result in all who show any natural superiority producing a greater number of descendants than at present, whilst making all who are definitely inferior pass on their natural inferiority to as few as possible. As regards the superior stocks, a reduction in the number of deaths amongst them would, of course, increase the number of their descendants. We may, however, be sure that efforts will continually be made in this direction. The special aim of eugenics is, therefore, to increase the size of the families of such stocks. As to the inferior types, we cannot, as we have seen, reduce the number of their descendants by the simple expedient of murder. All that can be done is to lessen the size of their families. It has often been urged that our scientific knowledge is not now enough to make it right to take any practical steps in the directions above indicated. Certainly further knowledge should be sought in aU directions. But we do know that human beings differ from one another at birth to a very considerable extent. We also know for certain