Eugenics in race and state.

  • International Congress of Eugenics
Date:
1923
Catalogue details

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

Credit: Eugenics in race and state. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    373/534 (page 357)
    SOME LIMITATIONS OF PRESENT THEORIES 357 without increasing his capacity for training from generation to generation? If this be so, and if philanthropy and social and educational reforms are idle dreams, the mülenium is indeed far off. There is something wrong with these methods of testing and with the application of their results to economic classification and evaluation. When mental testing includes the careful diagnosis of the educational and medical expert, the observations of the trained social worker, and of the psychiatrist and nerve specialist, with a proper dosage of conservative psychoanalysis, we shall have a better picture of the personality and psychic endowment of an individual than a mere psychological test, as generally understood, can give. But the careful analyst will admit that the best diagnosis will fall short of a final evaluation of human worth and conduct. I appreciate fully the marvellous work done by our indefatigable geneti¬ cists and the tremendous vista of research and knowledge they have opened up. But this a young science. We should be cautious in generalizing our findings, or in emphasizing one factor over and against another. We must go behind the returns. We should admit our limitations. Behind all the great and fascinating facts which careful students of eugenics collect, there are truths hidden which we cannot, perhaps, yet fathom. Things may be very different from what we think they are. It is necessary to reserve judg¬ ment. The final formula by which we can safely solve the riddle of human personaHty has, perchance, not yet been found.