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OCR Rendition - approximate
268 Life and Letters of Francis Galton Further, with the resources of modern civilisation, we are in a favourable position to accelerate this evolution. The world is gradually becoming selfconscious, and I think Mr Galton has made a very strong plea for a determined effort to attempt a conscious evolution of the race Y '(pp. 18-19). Dr F. W. Mott was strongly in favour of the segregation of defective children, and would encourage the State to set up registry offices, which could give a bill of health to persons contracting marriage, and these bills would have actuarial value not only for the possessors but for their children, and should enable them to obtain insurance at a lower rate*. Mr A. E. Crawley said that Galton's remarkable and suggestive paper indicated how anthropological studies care be made of service in practical politics. He considered that the science of Eugenics should be founded on anthropology, psychology and physiology-thus leaving out genetics, actuarial science and medicine, all equally if not more important ! The part that Galton suggested religion might play in Eugenics seemed to the speaker excellent. "Religion can have no higher duty than to insist upon the sacredness of marriage, but just as the meaning and content of that sacredness were the result of primitive science, so modern science must advise as to what this sacredness involves for us in our vastly changed conditions, complicated needs and increased responsibilities " (p. 21). Dr Westermarck thoroughly approved of Galton's programme, and said that Galton had appealed to historical facts to show how restrictions in marriage have occurred ; he saw no reason why the restrictions should not be extended far beyond the existing laws of any civilised nation of to-day. He drew attention to tribes which made an exhibition of courage essential to the permission granted a man to marry, to German and Austrian laws prohibiting the marriage of paupers, and he saw no reason why similar laws should not be extended to persons who would "in all probability" become parents of feeble or diseased offspring. " We cannot wait till biology has said its last word on heredity. We do not allow lunatics to walk freely about even though there may be merely a suspicion that they may be dangerous. I think that the doctor ought to have a voice in every marriage which is contracted ... men are not generally allowed to do mischief in order to gratify their own appetites." Besides increased legal restriction Dr Westermarck thought that moral education would help to promote Eugenics j . Dr Westermarck concluded with * This corresponds to the idea on p. 243 above of attaching medical certificates to the State sickness and old-age pensions scheme. t This has, owing chiefly to the efforts of Galton, progressed largely during the past 25 years. Quite a number of persons have developed the eugenic conscience, and A seeks advice as to whether it is social to marry B ; or C, having married D, as to whether it is anti-social to have further children who may turn out like E. The Galton Laboratory is not at present organised on a scale to answer such problems, although it does its best to do so; but the time is rapidly approaching when an institution above reproach from the medical standpoint, and equipped with a staff conversant with the various branches of human heredity and of genealogical study, might issue case-opinions and certificates. Iii the distant future it might hope to be self-supporting.
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