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56 EUGENICS ITS DEFINITION, SCOPE AND AIMS 57 DR. FRANCIS WARNER SAID When I had the pleasure of reading the proof of Mr. Galton's paper, I devoted some time to thinking carefully over what might be expected to be the practical outcome of the suggestions offered, in which he purposely deals with only a portion of the means of developing a good nation, viz., marriage selection. I also gather that the tendency of the paper is to advocate marriages between those who are most highly evolved in their respective families. But there is a point in this connexion which I think is apt to be overlooked, and that is the examples often met with of the dangers from intermarriage between the most highly evolved members of two families. A considerable number of degenerates come under my observation professionally ; they are mostly children, and, as far as possible, I get what knowledge I can of their families both on the paternal and the maternal side. It happens in a very considerable proportion of these cases that the father and the mother are the best of the families from which they themselves have proceeded. Where a man has evolved from a humble class to a high degree of mental ability, and his life has attracted the feeling or affection of a lady who has also evolved rather higher mental faculties than the rest of her family, there is danger in such a marriage. It happens very often that the parents of degenerate children are the best of their respective families. I will not go into any details, but I could give you a number of cases to show how frequently it is found that among the families of men who have risen, the first-born child, if a male, is feeble-minded or degenerate. There is also the great question of the girls, as well as the boys, in their personal evolution. It has been constantly said that one reason why apparently the girl's capacity is less than the boy's capacity for many sorts of work is that their mothers have not been educated. I should like to ask Mr. Galton whether the girls inherit mostly through the mother or through the father. PROFESSOR WELDON SAID Two sets of objections; have been urged against the position taken up by Dr. Galton. The first set has been formulated by Dr. Mercier and by the authors of several papers which have been taken as read. Dr. Mercier, and those who think with him, object, first of all, that the actuarial method is faulty, because it does not account for the phenomena of inheritance. In the presence of the author of the "Grammar of Science" I am sorry to be obliged to point out that the actuarial method does not pretend to account for anything. It does pretend to describe a large number of complex phenomena with a very fair degree of accuracy, and for this reason it is admirably adapted for the purposes of Eugenic inquirers. As I conceive the matter, the essential object of Eugenics is not to put forward any theory of the causation of hereditary phenomena, but to obtain and diffuse a knowledge of what those phenomena really are. We may be unable by its means to account for the production of a Shakespeare, and we may so far fall short of Dr. Mercier's ideal, but we are certainly able to tabulate a scheme of inheritance which will indicate with very fair accuracy the percentage of cases in which children of exceptional ability result from a particular type of marriage. If we can do no more than this, we shall have made a very great advance in knowledge, and my view of Mr. Galton's paper is that he wishes to point out to us the way in which such an advance may best be made. Well, that is the answer I would give to the first class of objector. The business of the actuarial method is not to account for phenomena, but to describe them; and if Dr. Mercier will consult the studies on inheritance which have been made in consequence of Mr. Galton's labours, he will find that it is already possible to describe the distribution of characters in the children of parents of particular kinds with very considerable accuracy. I would refer the meeting to extensive series of such results contained in Professor Pearson's recent "Huxley Lecture." The objections of another class of critics are summarised in the interesting series of remarks by Mr. Bateson. Carefully conducted breeding experiments, on the lines first indicated by the Austrian abbot Gregor Mendel, have yielded results of great interest, and in many cases of apparent simplicity ; many such experiments have been carried out by Dr. Bateson himself, and by Professors De Vries, Correns and others in Europe and America. It has been too lightly assumed that by these experiments the need for actuarial work has been superseded. To this objection I would give two answers. I would say first that the actuarial method is an essential part of the equipment of any man who would make and understand such experiments. The question whether such numerical results as those obtained in Mendelian experiments are really in agreement with hypothesis is very often hard to answer, and the answer can only be obtained by the use of that very actuarial method which Mr. Gallon has taught to apply to biological problems., My second answer to these objections is this : That when you have obtained from a laboratory experiment a result which actuarial methods show you to be rightly inferred, you have not achieved all that is necessary for the establishment of a Eugenic maxim. Your laboratory experiment is purposely simplified : you deal with one set of phenomena at a time ; and by that very fact, you establish a degree of unlikeness between your laboratory experiment and the infinitely more complex experiment which is being conducted all round you from generation to generation. Before you can be sure that in simplifying your laboratory conditions you have not neglected some important factor which affects the result under the complex conditions of Nature's experiments, you must view your own result in its proper relation to that which occurs under more complex conditions ; you must compare the conclusions drawn from your laboratory experiment with those drawn from an actuarial study of the more complex natural experiment. If the two agree, you have realised at least as much of the truth as will suffice for a working generalisation ; if they do not agree (and at present the results of Mendelian experiment have not led to a single conclusion which holds for masses of human populations), then in this CIibPDF - www.fastio.com