Part 5
_Breeding for points._—It is objected by many that there cannot be unanimity on the “points” that it is most desirable to breed for. I fully discussed this objection in my memoir read here last spring, showing that some qualities such as health and vigour were thought by all to be desirable, and the opposite undesirable, and that this sufficed to give a first direction to our aims. It is a safe starting point, though a great deal more has to be inquired into as we proceed on our way. I think that some contributors to this discussion have been needlessly alarmed. No question has been raised by me of breeding men like animals for particular points, to the disregard of all-round efficiency in physical, intellectual (including moral), and hereditary qualifications. Moreover, as statistics have shown, the best qualities are largely correlated. The youths who became judges, bishops, statesmen, and leaders of progress in England could have furnished formidable athletic teams in their times. There is a tale, I know not how far founded on fact, that Queen Elizabeth had an eye to the calves of the legs of those she selected for bishops. There is something to be said in favour of selecting men by their physical characteristics for other than physical purposes. It would decidedly be safer to do so than to trust to pure chance.
_The residue._—It is also objected that if the inferior moiety of a race are left to intermarry, their produce will be increasingly inferior. This is certainly an error. The law of “regression towards mediocrity” insures that their offspring as a whole, will be superior to themselves, and if as I sincerely hope, a freer action will be hereafter allowed to selective agencies than hitherto, the portion of the offspring so selected would be better still. The influences that now _withstand_ the free action of selective agencies are numerous, they include indiscriminate charity.
_Passion of love._—The argument has been repeated that love is too strong a passion to be restrained by such means as would be tolerated at the present time. I regret that I did not express the distinction that ought to have been made between its two stages, that of slight inclination and that of falling thoroughly into love, for it is the first of these rather than the second that I hope the popular feeling of the future will successfully resist. Every match-making mother appreciates the difference. If a girl is taught to look upon a class of men as tabooed, whether owing to rank, creed, connections, or other causes, she does not regard them as possible husbands and turns her thoughts elsewhere. The proverbial “Mrs. Grundy” has enormous influence in checking the marriages she considers indiscreet.
_Eugenics as a factor in religion._—Remarks have been made concerning eugenics as a religion; this will be the subject of the brief memoir that follows these remarks.
It is much to be desired that competent persons would severally take up one or other of the many topics mentioned in my second memoir, or others of a similar kind, and work it thoroughly out as they would any ordinary scientific problem; in this way solid progress would be made. I must be allowed to re-emphasise my opinion that an immense amount of investigation has to be accomplished before a definite system of Eugenics can be safely framed.
EUGENICS AS A FACTOR IN RELIGION.
Eugenics strengthens the sense of social duty in so many important particulars that the conclusions derived from its study ought to find a welcome home in every tolerant religion. It promotes a far-sighted philanthropy, the acceptance of parentage as a serious responsibility, and a higher conception of patriotism. The creed of eugenics is founded upon the idea of evolution; not on a passive form of it, but on one that can to some extent direct its own course. Purely passive, or what may be styled mechanical evolution, displays the awe inspiring spectacle of a vast eddy of organic turmoil, originating we know not how, and travelling we know not whither. It forms a continuous whole from first to last, reaching backward beyond our earliest knowledge and stretching forward as far as we think we can foresee. But it is moulded by blind and wasteful processes, namely, by an extravagant production of raw material and the ruthless rejection of all that is superfluous, through the blundering steps of trial and error. The condition at each successive moment of this huge system, as it issues from the already quiet past and is about to invade the still undisturbed future, is one of violent internal commotion. Its elements are in constant flux and change, though its general form alters but slowly. In this respect it resembles the curious stream of cloud that sometimes seems attached to a mountain top during the continuance of a strong breeze; its constituents are always changing, though its shape as a whole hardly varies. Evolution is in any case a grand phantasmagoria, but it assumes an infinitely more interesting aspect under the knowledge that the intelligent action of the human will is, in some small measure, capable of guiding its course. Man has the power of doing this largely so far as the evolution of humanity is concerned; he has already affected the quality and distribution of organic life so widely that the changes on the surface of the earth, merely through his disforestings and agriculture, would be recognisable from a distance as great as that of the moon.
* * * * *
As regards the practical side of eugenics, we need not linger to re-open the unending argument whether man possesses any creative power of will at all, or whether his will is not also predetermined by blind forces or by intelligent agencies behind the veil, and whether the belief that man can act independently is more than a mere illusion. This matters little in practice, because men, whether fatalists or not, work with equal vigour whenever they perceive they have the power to act effectively.
Eugenic belief extends the function of philanthropy to future generations, it renders its action more pervading than hitherto, by dealing with families and societies in their entirety, and it enforces the importance of the marriage covenant by directing serious attention to the probable quality of the future offspring. It sternly forbids all forms of sentimental charity that are harmful to the race, while it eagerly seeks opportunity for acts of personal kindness, as some equivalent to the loss of what it forbids. It brings the tie of kinship into prominence and strongly encourages love and interest in family and race. In brief, eugenics is a virile creed, full of hopefulness, and appealing to many of the noblest feelings of our nature.
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[Illustration: _ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE HERBERT SPENCER LECTURE 1907._]
PROBABILITY, THE FOUNDATION OF EUGENICS.[6]
The request so honourable to myself, to be the Herbert Spencer lecturer of this year, aroused a multitude of vivid recollections. Spencer’s strong personality, his complete devotion to a self-imposed and life-long task, together with rare gleams of tenderness visible amidst a wilderness of abstract thought, have left a unique impression on my mind that years fail to weaken.
I do not propose to speak of his writings; they have been fully commented on elsewhere, but I desire to acknowledge my personal debt to him, which is large. It lies in what I gained through his readiness to discuss any ideas I happened to be full of at the time, with quick sympathy and keen criticism. It was his custom for many afternoons to spend an hour or two of rest in the old smoking room of the Athenaeum Club, strolling into an adjoining compartment for a game of billiards when the table was free. Day after day on those afternoons I enjoyed brief talks with him, which were often of exceptional interest to myself. All that kind of comfort and pleasure has long ago passed from me. Among the many things of which age deprives us, I regret few more than the loss of contemporaries. When I was young I felt diffident in the presence of my seniors, partly owing to a sense that the ideas of the young cannot be in complete sympathy with those of the old. Now that I myself am old it seems to me that my much younger friends keenly perceive the same difference, and I lose much of that outspoken criticism which is an invaluable help to all who investigate.
HISTORY OF EUGENICS.
It must have surprised you as it did myself to find the new word ‘Eugenics’ in the title both of the Boyle Lecture, delivered in Oxford about a fortnight ago, and of this. It was an accident, not a deliberate concurrence, and I accept it as a happy omen. The field of Eugenics is so wide that there is no need for myself, the second lecturer, to plant my feet in the footsteps of the first; on the contrary, it gives freedom by absolving me from saying much that had to be said in one way or another. I fully concur in the views so ably presented by my friend and co-adjutor, Professor Karl Pearson, and am glad to be dispensed from further allusion to subjects that formed a large portion of his lecture, on which he is a far better guide and an infinitely higher authority than myself.
In giving the following sketch of the history of Eugenics I am obliged to be egotistical, because I kindled the feeble flame that struggled doubtfully for a time until it caught hold of adjacent stores of suitable material, and became a brisk fire, burning freely by itself, and again because I have had much to do with its progress quite recently.
The word ‘Eugenics’ was coined and used by me in my book _Human Faculty_, published as long ago as 1883, which has long been out of print; it is, however, soon to be re-published in a cheap form.[7] In it I emphasized the essential brotherhood of mankind, heredity being to my mind a very real thing; also the belief that we are born to act, and not to wait for help like able-bodied idlers, whining for doles. Individuals appear to me as finite detachments from an infinite ocean of being, temporarily endowed with executive powers. This is the only answer I can give to myself in reply to the perpetually recurring questions of ‘Why? whence? and whither?’ The immediate ‘whither?’ does not seem wholly dark, as some little information may be gleaned concerning the direction in which Nature, so far as we know of it, is now moving—Namely, towards the evolution of mind, body, and character in increasing energy and co-adaptation.
I have often wondered that the poem of Hyperion, by Keats—that magnificent torso of an incompleted work—has not been placed in the very forefront of past speculations on evolution. Keats is so thorough that he makes the very Divinities to be its product. The earliest gods such as Coelus, born out of Chaos, are vague entities, they engender Saturn, Oceanus, Hyperion, and the Titan brood, who supersede them. These in their turn are ousted from dominion by their own issue, the Olympian Gods. A notable advance occurs at each successive stage in the quality of the Divinities. When Hyperion, newly terrified by signs of impending overthrow, lies prostrate on the earth ‘his ancient mother, for some comfort yet,’ the voice of Coelus from the universal space, thus ‘whispered low and solemn in his ear ... yet do thou strive, for thou art capable ... my life is but the life of winds and tides, no more than winds and tides can I prevail, but thou canst.’ I have quoted only disjointed fragments of this wonderful poem, enough to serve as a reminder to those who know it, but will add ten consecutive lines from the speech of the fallen Oceanus to his comrades, which give a summary of evolution as here described:
As Heaven and Earth are fairer, fairer far Than Chaos and black Darkness, though once chiefs, And as we show beyond that Heaven and Earth In form and shape compact and beautiful, In Will, in action free, companionship, And thousand other signs of purer life; So on our heels a fresh perfection treads A power more strong in beauty, born of us And fated to excel us, as we pass In glory that old Darkness.
He ends with ‘this is the truth, and let it be your balm.’ The poem is a noble conception, founded on the crude cosmogony of the ancient Greeks.
The ideas have long held my fancy that we men may be the chief, and perhaps the only executives on earth. That we are detached on active service with, it may be only illusory, powers of free-will. Also that we are in some way accountable for our success or failure to further certain obscure ends, to be guessed as best we can. That though our instructions are obscure they are sufficiently clear to justify our interference with the pitiless course of Nature, whenever it seems possible to attain the goal towards which it moves, by gentler and kindlier ways. I expressed these views as forcibly as I then could in the above-mentioned book, with especial reference to improving the racial qualities of mankind, where the truest piety seems to me to reside in taking action, and not in submissive acquiescence to the routine of Nature. It was thought impious at one time to attach lightning conductors to churches, as showing a want of trust in the tutelary care of the Deity to whom they were dedicated; now I think most persons would be inclined to apply some contemptuous epithet to such as obstinately refused, on those grounds, to erect them.
The direct pursuit of studies in Eugenics, as to what could practically be done, and the amount of change in racial qualities that could reasonably be anticipated, did not at first attract investigators. The idea of effecting an improvement in that direction was too much in advance of the march of popular imagination, so I had to wait. In the meantime I occupied myself with collateral problems, more especially with that of dealing measurably with faculties that are variously distributed in a large population. The results were published in my ‘Natural Inheritance’ in 1889, and I shall have occasion to utilize some of them later on, in this very lecture. The publication of that book proved to be more timely than the former. The methods were greatly elaborated by Professor Karl Pearson, and applied by him to Biometry. Professor Weldon, of this University, whose untimely death is widely deplored, aided powerfully. A new science was thus created primarily on behalf of Biometry, but equally applicable to Eugenics, because their provinces overlap.
The publication of _Biometrika_, in which I took little more than a nominal part, appeared in 1901.
Being myself appointed Huxley Lecturer before the Anthropological Institute in 1901 I took for my title ‘The possible improvement of the Human Breed under the existing conditions of Law and Sentiment’ (_Nature_, November 1, 1901, _Report of the Smithsonian Institute, Washington_, for the same year, and reprinted in this volume.)
The next and a very important step towards Eugenics was made by Professor Karl Pearson in his Huxley Lecture of 1903 entitled ‘The Laws of Inheritance in Man’ (_Biometrika_, vol. iii). It contains a most valuable compendium of work achieved and of objects in view; also the following passage (p. 159), which is preceded by forcible reasons for his conclusions:
We are ceasing as a nation to breed intelligence as we did fifty to a hundred years ago. The mentally better stock in the nation is not reproducing itself at the same rate as it did of old; the less able and the less energetic are more fertile than the better stocks. No scheme of wider or more thorough education will bring up, in the scale of intelligence, hereditary weakness to the level of hereditary strength. The only remedy, if one be possible at all, is to alter the relative fertility of the good and the bad stocks in the community.
Again in 1904, having been asked by the newly-formed Sociological Society to contribute a memoir, I did so on ‘Eugenics, its definition, aim and scope.’ This was followed up in 1905 by three memoirs, ‘Restrictions in Marriage,’ ‘Studies in National Eugenics,’ and ‘Eugenics as a factor in Religion,’ which were published in the Memoirs of that Society with comments thereon by more than twenty different authorities (_Sociological Papers_, published for the Sociological Society (Macmillan), vols. i and ii. These are re-published here). The subject of Eugenics being thus formally launched, and the time appearing ripe, I offered a small endowment to the University of London, to found a Research Fellowship on its behalf. The offer was cordially accepted, so Eugenics gained the recognition of its importance by the University of London and a home for its study in University College. Mr. Edgar Schuster, of this University, became Research Fellow in 1905, and I am much indebted to his care in nurturing the young undertaking and for the memoirs he has contributed, part of which must still remain for a short time unpublished.
When the date for Mr. Schuster’s retirement approached it was advisable to utilize the experience so far gained in reorganizing the Office. Professor Pearson and myself, in consultation with the authorities of the University of London, elaborated a scheme at the beginning of this year, which is a decided advance, and shows every sign of vitality and endurance. Mr. David Heron, a Mathematical Scholar of St. Andrew’s, is now a Research Fellow; Miss Ethel Elderton, who has done excellent and expert work from the beginning, is deservedly raised to the position of Research Scholar; and the partial services of a trained Computer have been secured. An event of the highest importance to the future of the Office is that Professor Karl Pearson has undertaken, at my urgent request, that general supervision of its work which advancing age and infirmities preclude me from giving. He will, I trust, treat it much as an _annexe_ to his adjacent biometric laboratory, for many studies in Eugenics might, with equal propriety, be carried on in either of them, and the same methods of precise analysis which are due to the mathematical skill and untiring energy of Professor Pearson are used in both. The Office now bears the name of the Eugenics Laboratory, and its temporary home is in 88 Gower Street. (It is now, 1909, housed in the University buildings.) The phrase ‘National Eugenics’ is defined as ‘the study of agencies under social control that may improve or impair the racial qualities of future generations, either physically or mentally.’
The Laboratory has already begun to publish memoirs on its own account, and I now rest satisfied in the belief that, with a fair share of good luck, this young Institution will prosper and grow into an important centre of research.
APPLICATION OF THEORIES OF PROBABILITY TO EUGENICS.
Eugenics seeks for quantitative results. It is not contented with such vague words as ‘much’ or ‘little,’ but endeavours to determine ‘how much’ or ‘how little’ in precise and trustworthy figures. A simple example will show the importance of this. Let us suppose a class of persons, called _A_, who are afflicted with some form and some specified degree of degeneracy, as inferred from personal observations, and from family history, and let class _B_ consist of the offspring of _A_. We already know only too well that when the grade of _A_ is very low, that of the average _B_ will be below par and mischievous to the community, but how mischievous will it probably be? This question is of a familiar kind, easily to be answered when a sufficiency of facts have been collected. But a second question arises. What will be the trustworthiness of the forecast derived from averages when it is applied to individuals? This is a kind of question that is not familiar, and rarely taken into account, although it too could be answered easily as follows. The average mischief done by each _B_ individual to the community may for brevity be called _M_: the mischiefs done by the several individuals differ more or less from _M_ by amounts whose average may be called _D_. In other words _D_ is the average amount of the individual deviations from _M_. _D_ thus becomes the measure of untrustworthiness. The smaller _D_ is, the more precise the forecast, and the stronger the justification for taking such drastic measures against the propagation of class _B_ as would be consonant to the feelings if the forecast were known to be infallible. On the other hand, a large _D_ signifies a corresponding degree of uncertainty, and a risk that might be faced without reproach through a sentiment akin to that expressed in the maxim ‘It is better that many guilty should escape than that one innocent person should suffer.’ But that is not the sentiment by which natural selection is guided, and it is dangerous to yield far to it.
There can be no doubt that a thorough investigation of the kind described, even if confined to a single grade and to a single form of degeneracy, would be a serious undertaking. Masses of trustworthy material must be collected, usually with great difficulty, and be afterwards treated with skill and labour by methods that few at present are competent to employ. An extended investigation into the good or evil done to the State by the offspring of many different classes of persons, some of civic value, others the reverse, implies a huge volume of work sufficient to occupy Eugenics laboratories for an indefinite time.
OBJECT LESSONS IN THE METHODS OF BIOMETRY.
I propose now to speak of those fundamental principles of the laws of Probability that are chiefly concerned in the newer methods of Biometry, and consequently of Eugenics. Most persons of ordinary education seem to know nothing about them, not even understanding their technical terms, much less appreciating the cogency of their results. This popular ignorance so obstructs the path of Eugenics that I venture to tax your attention by proposing a method of partly dispelling it. Let me first say that no one can be more conscious than myself of the large amount of study that is required to qualify a man to deal adequately with the mathematical methods of Biometry, or that any man can hope for much success in that direction unless he is possessed of appropriate faculties and a strong brain. On the other hand, I hold an opinion likely at first sight to scandalize biometricians and which I must justify, that the fundamental ideas on which abstruse problems of Probability are based admit of being so presented to any intelligent person as to be grasped by him, even though he be quite ignorant of mathematics. The conditions of doing so are that the lessons shall be as far as possible ‘Object lessons,’ in which real objects shall be handled as in the Kindergarten system, and simple operations performed and not only talked about. I am anxious to make myself so far understood, that some teachers of science may be induced to elaborate the course that I present now only in outline. It seems to me suitably divisible into a course of five lessons of one hour each, which would be sufficient to introduce the learner into a new world of ideas, extraordinarily wide in their application. A proper notion of what is meant by Correlation requires some knowledge of the principal features of Variation, and will be the goal towards which the lessons lead.