STUDIES IN NATIONAL EUGENICS. 65
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Dr. Westermarck, and numerous written communications have been furnished by well known persons. At the time that I am revising and extending these words no less than twenty-six contributions to the discussion are in print. Want of space compels me to confine my reply to those remarks that seem more especially to require it, and to do so very briefly, for Eugenics is a wide study, with an uncounted number of side issues into which those who discuss it are tempted to stray. If, however, sure advance is to be made, these issues must be thoroughly explored, one by one, and partial discussion should as far as possible be avoided. To change the simile, we have to deal with a formidable chain of strongholds, which must be severally attacked in force, reduced, and disposed of, before we can proceed freely.
In the first place, it is a satisfaction to find that no one impugns the conclusion which my memoir was written to justify, that history tells how restrictions in marriage, even of an excessive kind, have been contentedly accepted very widely, under the guidance of what I called "immaterial motives." This is all I had in view when writing it.
Certificates.-One of the comments on which I will remark is that if certificates were now offered to those who passed certain examinations into health, physique, moral and intellectual powers, and hereditary gifts, great mistakes would be made by the examiners. I fully agree that it is too early to devise a satisfactory
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