The eugenic predicament / by S.J. Holmes.

  • Samuel Jackson Holmes
Date:
[1933], ©1933
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Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: The eugenic predicament / by S.J. Holmes. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    voted to certain key positions about which the battle between eugenists and their opponents has been con centrated. The smoke of battle is beginning to clear over some parts of the field and it is becoming apparent that the hereditarians have made some substantial gains. Some positions are defended only by a few stragglers who have a very imperfect vision of what is going on. At the same time the fundamental positions of the eugenists are, I believe, much more strongly supported than they were a generation ago. There remain, how ever, a number of controverted points about which the issue is more doubtful. But whatever may be the verdict on matters about which there is still room for difference of opinion, it cannot be denied that people differ greatly in their hereditary endowments. To be well-born is to possess the greatest of all gifts. To the ill-born there is noth ing which this world can afford that will be an ade quate compensation for the lack of a good heredity. In common with other eugenists I am convinced that the physical and mental endowments of human beings can be improved or deteriorated, depending upon the qual ity of the people who provide the greatest number of children who reach the reproductive period of life. In common with most eugenists I am also inclined to think that in our present social and economic régime there has developed an anomalous correlation between success and sterility which tends insidiously to deteriorate the hereditary qualities of the race. The reasons for this