The limits of eugenics / by Albert Galloway Keller.

  • Albert Galloway Keller
Date:
[1910?]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The limits of eugenics / by Albert Galloway Keller. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    tain others, which are apparently, at times, only rather distantly correlated with the ones assailed. A recent law of Connecticut (reproduced by Dr. Carmalt in his valuable paper on Heredity and Crime) horrifies many sensible people; and to justify such a horror there is always a reservoir of argumentation, illustration, and interpretation, to be drawn upon. As the gross and obvious is left behind and an attempt is made, for example, to insist upon a physical examination of those who propose to contract matrimony, the ranks of the objectors (and so, of course, of the evaders) fill up. Plenty of good women, who would not send flowers to a desperate and condemned criminal and petition the governor to unleash him on society again, would, by reason of the sentiment of modesty implanted in them through the ages, revolt at the idea of the health certificate preliminary to mar¬ riage. Here are, again, the limits of eugenics as set down in the societal conventions or folkways. These limits are, after all, very narrow; and it is not needful to remind the present audience that they are not overcome when once the law is inscribed in the statute book. To sum up: the inevitable limits of eugenics lie in these mysterious conventions, habitudes, and prejudices which seem to rise and to change with something of the elemental delibera¬ tion of the seasons—unhurried by man, and invulnerable to his argumentation. They are not rational in nature and as a consequence do not admit of rational discussion or altera¬ tion. The folkways are a matter of “second-nature”—of feel¬ ing—and the major folkways, i. e., those connected with so elemental a function as the procreative, are very deep-seated. All fruitful agitation for change must confine its aspirations within discreet limits. It must enlist sentiment if it can, rather than reason; and the great compelling sentiment is fear. Fear¬ lessness is not seldom the result of pure ignorance, and the dis¬ creetly fearful man is generally the wise one. By combatting the ignorance of the more highly endowed—the leaders—a be¬ ginning can be made. Now some men are able to fear and worry for the far generations of mankind, but not many of us can get up much excitement over the fate of even our great *