The problem of practical eugenics / by Karl Pearson.

  • Karl Pearson
Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The problem of practical eugenics / by Karl Pearson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    age, lowered birthrate, cacogenic reproduction, race degeneracy and the ultimate race suicide involved in the breach of that principle. Yet of the two statements I do not hesitate to say that the latter is far more fundamental; it is the search-light, which illumines the inmost recesses of history, and explains the fall of great world-civilisations. For those, who are desirous of judging legislation and social habit from the standpoint of practical eugenics, I feel certain that the fundamental questions are: (i) Do they preserve or create economic value for the child, and (ii) Do they emphasise the economic value of the child of fit parentage over that of unfit parentage ? The first affirmed insures that the bulk of men will have children at all; the second affirmed that those children will be progressively better born. The child as a commodity whose supply is regu- lated by economic value may sound a harsh doctrine. But truth—whether of natural selection or of social evolution—is not created by man; he has only to discover it, be it palatable or bitter. Social stability depends upon the extent to which we allow even unpalatable truth to guide our legislation and our conduct. Eugenists have before them at present alternative paths, they can follow the easy course of appeal to popular feeling and untutored human emotion, in which case they will create, like philan- thropic effort, immediate interest, have their day and their fashion, and leave no progressive impress on racial evolution. Or, they can take the harder road of first ascertaining the laws which regulate the human herd, of creating a science which shall dictate an ultimate eugenic art. In the latter case
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