tion of certain hidden racial defects; but we might go so far as not to blame those who take the risk involved in marrying a relative, a risk from which they may suffer and the race gain. If the stock is good, the chances of any harm arising from cousin marriages are very small; whilst those who have reason to fear marriage with any near relation should think twice before marrying at all, or should at all events take the risks involved into consideration in regard to the size of their families.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

Probably the objection most often raised against the belief that care in mate selection could be made to produce racial effects is that no attention would be paid to any precepts as regards matrimony; for love always laughs at locksmiths. Sir Francis Galton answered this objection by showing how extraordinarily powerful custom has often been in the regulation of marriages, notably amongst certain savage tribes; and as in regard to our primary instincts human nature is much alike everywhere, we may assume that ideals, if firmly implanted, would not be without influence in all that concerns mate selection. It is true that after the passion of love has once been aroused, reason counts for little; and it follows that ideals will hardly be effective after friendship has ripened into love. On this account youth is the season in which to sow the right seeds, and at that season indirect methods of attack are often the best. Precepts in regard to mate selection alone might affect the young but little, except, perhaps, in making them unduly critical, whilst high ideals accepted in regard to every department of life would automatically affect the choice of friends and therefore of lovers. Propinquity is, moreover, a circumstance sufficiently powerful in arousing love often to obliterate all previously formed ideals; and great care should be taken to give to all young people of good stock ample opportunities of making friends with others of suitable age who are well endowed as regards character and health. This is especially desirable in the case of young women whose success in any direction has proved that they possess valuable

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qualities; for such success is particularly apt to militate against marriage. Example being better than precept, those parents who put aside both social ambition and all useless display of wealth, and who follow the sound rule of never making friends with persons they cannot respect, will be making households where their children when young will naturally absorb high ideals and when grown up will be likely to meet with youth of good stock. This is the way in which the cause of eugenics can now, I believe, best be served in the matter of mate selection. Thus to promote racial progress could do nothing but good, for it would not tend to divorce marriage from

romance.

The main practical question for the eugenist in regard to mate selection is whether such individuals as are held to be fit for parenthood should be pressed to consider carefully the natural qualities of any prospective mate. If looking only to the comfort of the individuals themselves and of their children, undoubtedly much would be gained by exercising a wise discretion before making the plunge; but looking only to the ultimate effects on the race, the results of a propaganda in favour of great care in mate selection cannot be foretold with any assurance. An examination of the theories of sexual selection shows that all the evolutionary effects thus produced have been due to the rejected animals, because of their rejection, having left fewer descendants behind them. Amongst civilized men the racial effects of mate selection in like. manner turn on questions of fertility and survival; for the mere fact that good progeny will come of unions between superior individuals tells us nothing as to the future of the race. The main argument in favour of the advocacy of care in mate selection is that, in so far as successful, it would lead to the rejection of inferior suitors, with the result that they would on the average have fewer offspring and that their inferior qualities would thus be in some degree lessened in future generations. It is also true that this advocacy would result in inferior stocks being more often led to mate amongst themselves and that their elimination by segregation, etc., would thus

be facilitated. Lastly such an advocacy would bring eugenic problems to the minds of young people with beneficial effects. The racial disadvantages of such a propaganda would be as follows. The conscientious would listen most to this call of duty and would thus more often be prevented from marrying. If superior stocks are now decreasing in numbers, this deterioration in the race would be hastened by the superior being led to mate together; because all those natural qualities which on balance tend to diminish the size of the family amongst the better types would thus be accentuated ; also because ambition would be aroused by the superior opportunities thus offered, and family limitation thus promoted. Lastly the inferior stocks being also thus induced to mate together, their high fertility would thus be relatively increased in so far as dependent on natural qualities. It is true that for persons of great ability to seek for mates of great promise is the right course to pursue if the appearance of genius in the next generation be the object in view; but this object may be attained at the cost of a lowering of the average qualities of the race. Thus we see that opposing racial tendencies would be stimulated by any propaganda in favour of mate selection; the most important being the beneficial tendency due to greater delays in the mating of the inferior, and the harmful tendency due to a relative reduction in the size of the families of the superior. Which tendency would prevail cannot be foretold with any certainty; yet on the whole I judge that greater care in mate selection would be decidedly beneficial to the race, and ought, therefore, to be inculcated. But the fact to which I desire to call especial attention is that the strongest objection to the advocacy of care in mate selection would no longer hold good if in the future, by some method less cruel than that of natural selection, the inferior stocks could be made to multiply less quickly than the superior. Then, but not till then, mate selection might become a powerful agency for racial advancement. From whatever direction racial problems are approached, the conclusion we arrive at is that the main aim of eugenic reform should

be to promote such measures or tendencies as would increase the number of the descendants of the superior types-not merely of the very superior types, but of the great mass of useful citizens or would decrease the number of the descendants of the inferior types-not only of defectives or degenerates, but of all undesirable citizens. This must be our main effort. In the meantime the best line of action in regard to mate selection is to adopt an indirect method of attack; that is to strive to make parents see how harmful is a useless display of wealth, or a desire merely to rise in social status, both of which lead to unjustifiable family limitation; whilst young people should be given every opportunity of making friends with other young people of good character and health. Where high ideals have been slowly and naturally ingrained at home and where a wide and suitable field of choice is available, worthy friendships will quickly enough ripen into love.

CHAPTER XXI

THE ELIMINATION OF THE LESS FIT

FAMILY LIMITATION THE ONLY METHOD

THE relatively high rate of multiplication of the inferior stocks is, as has been seen, a probable cause of slow racial deterioration; and as there is no reason to suppose that the birth-rate of the superior types has ceased to fall in comparison with that of the lower types, and as increasing efforts are being made to preserve the lives of infants of all classes, especially of the more inefficient, the pace of this deterioration is now likely to be increasing. This decay must continue unless and until the rate of multiplication of the less fit becomes slower than that of the more fit, through either an increase in the birth-rate of the more fit or a decrease in that of the less fit; these being, at all events, the only directions in which a conscious effort can be made to stem the tide. Dealing, in the first instance, with a reduction in the fertility of the racially undesirable, the elimination of those who may be described as being definitely unfit-that is of the grossly defective, the mentally abnormal, the criminal, the diseased, etc.-this is a question which having already been discussed need not be reconsidered, and only the less fit-the immoral, the inefficient, the stupid, the unemployable, the weakly, etc., etc.-have still to be dealt with. The differential birth-rate is a phenomenon observable with few exceptions right up the whole scale of society; and we cannot, therefore, hope to reverse this injurious state of things merely by dealing with the extreme types. Indeed, a consideration of the steps to be taken in regard to the great masses more near the centre of the scale constitutes the more important racial