The choice of a mate.

  • Anthony Ludovici
Date:
[1935]
Catalogue details
    11/546 (page V)
    INTRODUCTION T KNOW of few writers in this field whose work gives me greater stimulation and pleasure, even when I disagree with him, than does that of A. M. Ludovici. Our ultimate conclusions about life are poles apart. He is essentially a believer in aris tocracy and conservatism, I in democracy and liberalism. What he calls degeneration and physiological botchedness seems to me part of the inevitable price we must pay, at any rate temporarily, for civilization. One can, of course, say that civilization is not worth the price we have to pay for it, but what is the alternative ? In former times, the unfitter individuals in a community were eliminated by defect or disease or accident. The short-sighted man could not see well enough to avoid some threatening danger, and was likely to perish as a result. Infectious diseases, such as typhoid fever, diphtheria, or scarlet fever, generally proved fatal. If a child was born with a weak digestion, the chances were greatly against its survival. If a man broke a limb or fractured his skull or was mauled by a wild beast, the injury very often meant death. But nowadays, what with advances in hygiene and in medical and surgical knowledge and skill, a great number of these defective, diseased or injured persons are saved. We give the short-sighted man spectacles which enable him to perceive and avoid approaching danger. We cure a large proportion of the sufferers from infectious diseases. We feed the baby, whose digestion is weak, on special artificial foods, and the probability is that it will survive. The humanitarian ideas which are part of our present-day ethic lead us to cherish the weak and sickly, even at the expense of the healthier members of the community. Often the weakness and sickliness is transmitted to their offspring, and the same humani- tarianism leads us to preserve the weakly next generation in its turn. The result is that, among marriageable adults of both sexes, there are undoubtedly a large number of persons who, in more primitive conditions, would inevitably have perished. These are the degenerate and the physiologically botched. 3 ^.