THE VITAL IMPORTANCE OF EUGENICS BY JULIAN HUXLEY UGENICS is running the usual consists of an astounding variety and course of many new ideas. It range of different kinds of men. From E has ceased to be regarded as a savage to Nordic business man, from fad, is now receiving serious study, and hunting pygmy to Chinese sage, the in the near future will be regarded as an race is prodigal in types; and even urgent practical problem. within the single race or nation we It is convenient to pigeonhole our range from imbecile and moron to man ideas, and the usual way of pigeon- of talent or genius; from those con- holing our ideas on eugenics is to divide genitally weak and susceptible to dis- the subject into negative and positive. ease to those born to be champion Negative eugenics is concerned with athletes; from those who through in- preventing degeneration, while positive heritance lack moral or eesthetic feeling eugenics aims at the improvement of to those hypersensitive to virtue or to the human stock. Perhaps a better beauty. And even when we have method of classification is to divide the made all allowances for environment subject into short-range and long-range and upbringing, the major part of these eugenics. Short-range eugenics con- differences in type are due to differ- cerns itself merely with altering the ences in inborn constitutions. Even if proportions of already existing and we leave the rare extremes out of commonly recurring human types with- account, the monsters and the idiots, in the total population, while long- the hypersensitives and geniuses, any range eugenics sets itself the aim of reshufiling of the proportions of the bringing new types into existence. types that are left will be important And both of these, of course, have their enough. It matters a great deal positive and their negative sides. I whether one quarter or three quarters said that short-range eugenics aimed of the community shall have brains of merely at altering the proportions of poor quality or of good quality; existing kinds of human beings. That whether the proportion of those en- merely must be taken in relation to the dowed by nature with initiative be much larger aims of long-range eugen- halved or doubled; whether, when we ics, and to the slow and enormous have made England a home fit for processes of evolution in general. In heroes to live in, we shall find that there relation to human history (itself so far are fewer heroes and more human sheep a short-range process, biologically con- to inhabit it; whether congenital de- sidered), short-range eugenics is of bility and defect go up or down. utmost importance, and may well turn Let us take in illustration the case of out to be the most urgent human prob- mental defect. I am using the term lem of the next few centuries. For do mentally defective in its strict sense- not let us forget that the human race someone with such a feeble mind that THE VITAL IMPORTANCE OF EUGENICS 325 he cannot support himself or look after defectives than exists in the population himself unaided-and not in the loose at large, then we are increasing the sense which would include the much percentage of defectives in the new larger class of borderline types gener- generation. By reducing the rigor of ally called morons by American writers. natural selection, we are allowing an The number of such mentally defective undue proportion of unfit types to persons in Great Britain is now over survive. And as in all probability new three hundred thousand, according to a hereditary varieties towards defective- very careful Government Report pub- ness are. more common than those lished in 1929; in other words, one in towards an improvement of the type, every hundred and twenty of our there is no saying where such a process population is through sheer insuffi- may end. ciency of brains incapable of pulling his What is to be done about it? The weight in the national life; and this, of purely biological method of keeping the course, leaves on one side all those stock up to standard by natural selec- incapable on account of insanity or of tion is, though effective, cruel and purely physical handicap. uneconomical. It involves wholesale That is bad enough. But there is destruction to make sure that the few worse behind it. Another committee types you want destroyed shall be reporting on the same subject twenty- included in the holocaust, thus showing five years previously found a, far lower a resemblance to Elia'staccount of the proportion of mental defectives.* We original method for obtaining roast are making two mental defectives grow pork. It is of the essence of civiliza- where only one grew before. tion to set its face against such hap- The only plausible reason advanced hazard, blind, and wasteful methods. for this state of affairs is that it is There is only one immediate thing to an effect of the improvement in our be done-to ensure that mental defec- measures of public health and preven- tives shall not have children. Whether tive medicine, especially with regard this should be achieved by the pro- to infant welfare. Mentally defective hibition of marriage or, as many be- children are on the average less resist- lieve, by combining the method of ant in other ways; and their usual segregation in institutions with that of upbringing leaves more to be desired sterilization for those who are at large, than that of normal children. Accord- is not our present concern. We want a ingly, if our infant-welfare schemes general agreement that it is not in the save a thousand babies which otherwise interests of the present community, or would have died, we are likely to save a the race of the future, or the chil- disproportionate number of mentally dren who might be born to defectives defective children among them, Nine that defectives should beget offspring. hundred and ninety of them may be When discussing concrete proposals fine babies, whose preservation is a this simple question should always be national asset; but if the remaining ten kept in mind-" Do you want mentally are mental defectives, and if ten per defective people to have children?" thousand is a higher proportion of If, by whatever means, defectives * It may be objected that the increase from then to can be prevented from reproduction, now might be only apparent, due to a greater eaae in the aseertainment of defect; the earlier committee eimply then, since the considerable majority of mieeed a lot of defectivee. But, for a variety of tech- nical reaoona, this appears quite definitely not to be the mental defect is due to hereditary fac- C881!. At ito face value the increase in twenty-five YearB tors, it will decrease from generation to rerresento an actual doubling of the percentage of men- ta defectivee. When all poeeible aIIowancee have been generation. The decrease will unfortu- made, the real increase it would seem must be not lese than fifty per cent. nately not be very fast, since much • 326 HARPER'S MONTHLY MAGAZINE hereditary defect is caused by what are pointing out that the heiresses would known as recessive factors, which can not have been heiressesif they were not be carried in a latent state by appar- members of very small families, so that ently normal people. When two such the probability was that they inherited, "carriers" mate they will produce a together with their wealth, a congenital certain proportion of defective children. tendency to low fertility. Thus two But in spite of this, to prevent defec- factors which are not of necessity inter- tives themselves from having children connected, female wealth and low fer- would in point of fact steadily decrease tility, are automatically brought into the percentage of defectives and of correlation. carriers in each generation. Fisher has simply generalized this The next step, could it but be particular case and applied the princi- achieved, would be to discover how to ple to society as a whole. He points diagnose the carriers of defect. If out that in primitive societies, organ- these could but be detected, and then ized for efficiency in war, with polyg- discouraged or prevented from repro- amy as the recognized practice, the duction, mental defect could very qualities which made for successwould speedily be reduced to negligible pro- in general come to be coupled with an portions among our population. There increased fertility. For prowess, on is nothing inherently improbable in our the whole, would lead to success, and being able to discover a test for car- success to more wives: while large riers: but we have not done so yet, and families are not only honored and have no very immediate prospect of applauded but, far from being an eco- doing so in the future. nomic or social drag, are a help and a solace to their parents. But the his- II torical change from tribal times, through an aristocratic period where I have spent some time over this wealth was based on land, to unre- question, sinceit brings up the issuesof stricted commercialism or individual- short-range eugenics in clear-cut form: ism, particularly sincecoupled with the There is in process a change in the pro- change to monogamy, and particularly portion of genetic types within our in its later stages, when the world is population; it is a regrettable change; filling up, has completely altered the we can give a reasonable explanation picture. And Fisher lays down as a for it, and we can envisage practical general law that in any society of our measures for putting an end to the general economic type the two bio- racial degeneration which it involves.