Parenthood and Race Culture: An Outline of Eugenics. C. W. Saleeby

Hewers of wood and drawers of water are becoming less and less necessary, not because mechanical force is not needed but because the human intelligence is learning how to supersede the human machine as its source. Every development of machinery makes the man who can merely offer his muscles of less value to the community. Long ago—not so very long ago in some cases—it was quite sufficient for a man to be able to say “I am a good machine:” he was worth his keep and had his chance of becoming a parent; but the man whom society wants now-a-days is not the man who is a good machine but the man who can make one. These elementary truths are hidden, however, from the political quacks who discourse to us upon unemployment.

      Herbert Spencer's remark that it is necessary to be a good animal has an element of truth in it which was utterly ignored and needed proclamation at that time; but it is necessary to be a good animal only in so far as that state makes for being a good man—and not an iota further.

      The present interest in many most important aspects of physical education, such as may be summed up under the phrase “school hygiene,” must not blind us to the great principle that physical education is a means and not an end. Our present educational system, which permits schooling to end just when it should begin, or rather sooner, and which, even through our Government Departments, permits boys to be used as little more than animated machines, such as telegraph boys—is very largely responsible for the great national evil of unemployment, which we treat with soup-kitchens. We shall revise a large proportion of our educational, political and social methods just so soon as—but not before—we get into our heads the idea that in human society, and pre-eminently in society to-day, the survival-value of mind and consequently the selection of mind must predominate over the survival-value and consequent selection of muscle. Further, whatever factors tend to enhance the survival-value of the physical are ipso facto making for retrogression and a return to the order of the beast. Whatever tend to enhance the survival-value of the psychical—by which I most assuredly include not only intelligence but, for instance, motherhood—are ipso facto forces of progress. The products of progress are not machinery but men, and the well-drilled-machine idea of a man ought to be as obsolete as more than one recent war has proved it disastrous.

      

      There is here to be read no pessimistic suggestion that the psychical is in any permanent danger. No one can think so who knows its strength and the relative impotence of the physical, but it is certainly possible that the course of progress may be greatly delayed in any given nation or race by worship of the physical, or even, as Sparta shows, by worship of what may be called the physical virtues as against the moral and intellectual virtues. But those who are interested in the survival of any particular race or nation have to remember that arrest or retardation of progress therein, relatively to its wiser neighbours, must, before long, result in its utter downfall.

      What are we to choose?—The argument that the selection of mind has been dominant throughout human history is reinforced by such knowledge of that history as we possess. There is no record of any race that established itself in virtue of great stature or exceptional muscular strength. Even in cases of the most purely military dominance, it was not force as such, but discipline and method, that determined success; whilst some of the greatest soldiers in history have been physically the smallest. The statement of the anthropologists, already alluded to, regarding the selection of the leading men in primitive tribes, may safely be taken as always true: selection in human society has always been, in the main, selection of that which, for survival-value, is the dominant character of man, mind in its widest sense. We shall see, later, that physical eugenics can by no means be ignored: but our guiding principle must be that the physical is of worth only in so far as it serves the psychical, and is worse than worthless in so far as it does not. It would surely be well, for instance, that we should breed for “energy,” to use Mr. Galton's term: but the energy we desire, and the energy he commends, is nervous, not muscular. The confusion between two radically different things, vitality and muscularity, is, however, almost universal, though it will not stand a moment's examination. In a volume devoted to personal hygiene I have discussed this point, which is of real moment both for the individual and for the theory of eugenics.[15]

      It is of interest to note, in passing from this question, that inherent facts of the human constitution would interdict us if we thought it a fit ideal to breed for stature or bulk. Giants are essentially morbid—not favourable but unfavourable variations. They are very frequently childless and almost constantly slow-witted. Their condition is really a mild form of a well-marked and highly characteristic disease known as acromegaly, and distinguished by great enlargement of the face and extremities. The malady depends upon peculiarities in the glandular activities of the body: and the state of these which makes for great stature and bulk makes against intelligence. It is suggested, then, that any considerable increase of human bulk and stature could only be obtained at the cost of intelligence. It would be very dear at the price.

      When we come to the subject of selection for parenthood in man through the preferences exhibited by individuals for members of the opposite sex, we shall see that what Darwin called “sexual selection” is certainly a reality in the case of man, whether or not it be so in the case of the lower animals. We shall see that this most potent factor in human evolution acts even now very favourably, and is capable of having its value enormously enhanced. In the selection of husbands, nervous or psychical factors are notably of high survival-value in civilised communities. In the selection of wives the survival-value of the physical is still very high: but it may be hoped and believed that the present tendency is to attach relatively less importance to them and more to the psychical elements of the chosen. This tendency must be furthered to the utmost point beyond which the physical requisites for motherhood would suffer weakening—but no further.

      How are we to estimate civic worth?—We have already observed that it is incorrect to use the word “fit” as if it were synonymous with “worthy.” If we insist on using this term, which means only “adapted to conditions,” we must define those conditions. We must say that we desire to further the production of those who are fit for citizenship, and to disfavour the production of those who are unfit for citizenship. We shall thereby dispose at least of those vexatious objectors who tell us that many eminent criminals are individually superior to many eminent judges. The statement is doubtless untrue, but if it were true it would still be irrelevant. A criminal may be individually a remarkable personality, but in so far as he is a criminal he is unfit for citizenship.

      It is far better to use consistently Mr. Galton's phrase, “civic worth,” or, for short, “worth.” We may here note Mr. Galton's most recent remarks on what he means by worth:—