OCR Rendition - approximate

58 EUGENICS case there can be no doubt whatever that for the student of human Eugenics or of organic evolution generally, the conclusions drawn from the larger mass of complex material are far more valuable than those drawn from the simpler, smaller laboratory experiment. DR. ROBERT HUTCHISON SAID My only claim to address a meeting on this subject is that not only in common with all physicians am I acquainted with the factors that make for physical deterioration, but I have devoted special attention to certain of these which I believe to play a large part in the process. I refer to feeding. I believe we have in treating this subject to consider two lines on which a society like this might work. It has to consider, first, the raw material of the race-and that I believe to be the view which commends itself specially to •Dr. Galton-and, second, the conditions under which that raw material grows up. I believe, speaking as a physician, and judging from the cases which one sees, for example, in the children's hospitals, that it is not so necessary to improve the raw material-which is not really so very bad after all-as it is to improve the environment in which the children are brought up. Of all the factors in that environment, that which is of the greatest importance in promoting bad physical and bad mental development is, I believe, the food factor. If you would give me a free hand in feeding during infancy and from ten to eighteen years of age, I would guarantee to give you quite a satisfactory race as the result. And I think we would do more wisely in concentrating our attention on such practical questions as those, rather than in losing ourselves in a mass of scientific questions relating to heredity, about which it must be admitted, in regard to the human race, we are still profoundly ignorant. MR. H. G. WELLS SAID We can do nothing but congratulate ourselves upon the presence of one of the great founders of sociology here to-day, and upon the admirable address he has given us. If there is any quality of that paper more than another upon which I would especially congratulate Dr. Galton and ourselves, it is upon its living and contemporary tone. One does not feel that it is the utterance of one who has retired from active participation in life, but of one who remains in contact with and contributing to the main current of thought. One remarks that even since his Huxley lecture in r9or, Dr. Galton has expanded and improved his propositions. This is particularly the case in regard to his recognition of different types in the community, and of the need of a separate system of breeding in relation to each type. The Huxley Lecture had no recognition of that, and its admission does most profoundly modify the whole of this question of Eugenics. So long as the consideration of types is not raised, the Eugenic proposition is very simple superior persons must mate with superior persons, inferior persons must not have offspring at all ; and the only thing needful is some test that will infallibly detect superiority. Dr. Galton has resorted in the past to the device of inquiring how many judges and bishops and such-like eminent persons a family can boast, but that test has not gone without challenge in various quarters. Dr. Galton's inquiries in this direction in the past have always seemed to me to ignore the consideration of social advantage, of what Americans call the "pull" that follows any striking success. The fact that the sons and nephews of a distinguished judge or great scientific man are themselves eminent judges or successful scientific men, may after all be far more due to a special knowledge of the channels of professional advancement than to any distinctive family gift. I must confess that much of Dr. Galton's classical work in this direction seems to me to be premature. I have been impressed by the idea, and even now I remain under the sway of the idea, that our analysis of human faculties is entirely inadequate for the purpose of tracing hereditary influence. I think we want a much more elaborate analysis to give us the elements of heredity, an analysis of which we have at present only the first beginnings in the valuable work of the Abbt Mendel that Mr. Bateson has recently revived. Even the generous recognition of types that Dr. Galton has now made does not altogether satisfy my inquiring mind. I believe there still remain further depths of concession for him. At the risk of being called a " crank," I must object that even that considerable list of qualities Dr. Galton tells us that every one would take into account, does not altogether satisfy me. Take health, for example. Are there not types of health ? The mating of two quite healthy persons may result in disease. I am told it does so in the case of the interbreeding of healthy white men and healthy black women about the Tanganyka region ; the half-breed children are ugly, sickly, and rarely live. On the other hand, two not very healthy persons may have mutually corrective qualities, and may beget sound offspring. Then what right have we to assume that energy and ability are simple qualities ? I am not even satisfied by the suggestion Dr. Galton seems to make that criminals should not breed. I am inclined to believe that a large proportion of our present-day criminals are the brightest and boldest members of families living under impossible conditions, and that in many desirable qualities the average criminal is above the average of the law-abiding poor, and probably of the average respectable person. Many eminent criminals appear to me to be persons superior in many respects, in intelligence, initiative, originality, to the average judge. I will confess I have never known either. Let me suggest that Dr. Galton's concession to the fact that there are differences of type to consider, is only the beginning of a very big descent of concession, that may finally carry him very deep indeed. Eugenics, which is really only a new word for the popular American term stirpiculture, seems to me to be a term that is not without its misleading implications. It has in it something of that same lack of a fine appreciation of facts that enabled Herbert ITS DEFINITION, SCOPE AND AIMS 59 CIibPDF - www.fastio.com