these elastic cords, thick or thin, affects the position which the cork is made to occupy by their joint influences. If we label one set of cords environment,' and if we prove that by shortening or lengthening them we can move the cork labelled 'behaviour' a long way in the right direction, we shall have done nothing whatever towards proving that it is impossible also to produce a material effect on the same cork behaviour' by readjusting the cords labelled 'heredity.' To prove that certain changes of environment would have a powerful influence on human welfare in no way justifies the belief that human conditions would have been the same had the nation sprung from a different stock. To take a single example, though a feeble-minded child, or a high-grade mental defective, will unquestionably benefit greatly by good home surroundings or careful training, yet we must admit that even under these beneficial conditions he will never attain to that level which he would have attained if he had been better endowed by nature. The drag of his inferior inborn qualities will ever be present, and this is a drag the pull of which we wish to slacken as far as possible in future generations. To admit the great importance of human surroundings, whether physical or such as may be described as traditional, is quite compatible with the keenest advocacy of all reforms tending to improve the inborn qualities of future generations. We want to tighten up every one of the elastic cords which tend to pull the cork in the right direction, whether they be thick or thin and whatever label we may choose to attach to them; we must strive to utilize all available agencies whether they be classed as environmental or hereditary.

For the foregoing reasons, reformers of one school should never run down the proposals brought forward by others without careful thought and adequate study. It must, however, be acknowledged that though reforms ought to be advocated solely because of the benefits thus likely to be obtainable, yet there are, in fact, many other influences tending to cause one reform to be promoted rather than another. Legislative reform must always be

EUGENIC REFORMS UNPOPULAR

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largely in the hands of politicians; politicians are inevitably driven to pay great attention to vote catching; and as posterity has now no votes, the interests of future generations are certain to be more or less neglected by all democratic legislatures. Then, again, social reformers will always be tempted to concentrate their attack on the points where the most immediate and the most obvious results seem likely to be obtained. The misery and the disease around us often seem to demand our exclusive attention, and it requires at times a distinct effort to divert our thoughts to the no less real needs of the generations to come. Reforms which aim at benefiting posterity through the agency of natural inheritance cannot attract any support based on the selfish instincts of mankind; and for all these reasons, eugenic reform will always receive an unduly small share of public attention. This is, however, but an additional reason for determining to persevere in attempts to secure racial progress.

Nearly all reforms produce some results which are harmful and some which are beneficial; a fact which is often overlooked by the keen reformer who persists in minimizing all the arguments used against any of his own proposals. A reform must not, therefore, be condemned merely because it produces some injurious effects; for it is the balance between its good and evil consequences which should always be held in view. Unfortunately certain reforms, which are demanded on behalf of posterity and which would unquestionably benefit future generations, would be harmful to the present generation; for many restrictions and restraints which would slowly tend to improve the breed of the race would be immediately galling or harmful. To these direct conflicts between the interests of the born and of the unborn we shall have to return at a later stage; for they involve very difficult issues. Here the only lesson which is being insisted on is that every reform should be promoted which produces good results on balance, taking the present and the future into account; a lesson which may perhaps be said to be so obvious that even the most prejudiced person could not refuse to endorse it. The difficulty, it is true, does not

lie in obtaining consent in the abstract to such broad principles as these, but rather in securing an impartial examination of the facts in detail, so as to sweep all prejudices aside. For prejudices as a rule are merely the mistaken opinions of those who have made up their minds in advance, generally in consequence of allowing irrelevant or minor considerations to be taken into account or given too much weight. What is needed in regard to every reform is that we should consider what will be its effects in all directions and at all times; and in this difficult quest we shall as a rule be hindered rather than helped by considering whether it would produce more or less useful results than some other reforms of a wholly different kind. Eugenic reforms and environmental reforms should as a rule be separately weighed in the balance and promoted or condemned as the result of such separate inquiries.

SUMMARY

The relative importance of heredity and environment is usually discussed without adequate attention being paid to the meaning of the words used. No doubt if we could measure the differences between the environments to which men had been exposed and the differences in their inborn qualities, no controversy would have arisen ; but inborn differences cannot be directly measured. The word 'quality' is ill-defined; and the amount to which human qualities, taken all together, depend on environment depends largely on what we mean by 'quality.' Reforms may be classed as eugenic if, in promoting them, the hereditary qualities of future generations are mainly held in view; and as environmental if the main object is to produce such changes in human surroundings as would have immediate beneficial effects, effects which, no doubt, might also endure for many generations. The advocacy of reforms of the one kind is no excuse for not advocating reforms of the other kind. The failure to perceive to how many causes an effect may be due often results in entirely unreasonable conflict arising between reformers. Eugenic reforms can claim especial sympathy because

they can seldom or never call to their aid the selfish interests of mankind. Every eugenic or environmental reform may do both good and harm, and in each case it is on the estimated balance of good and evil results that our decisions must be based. Both factors, nature and nurture, ought always to be held in view in all social problems.

CHAPTER IV

POPULATION PROBLEMS

CHECKS ON POPULATION

IN the last chapter it was seen that the comparisons ordinarily made between the importance of human surroundings and of natural inheritance, or between environment and heredity, are apt to be useless. In the case of every reform we ought, no doubt, to estimate its beneficial and its harmful effects, and also to consider the extent of the ground which it may be expected to cover with advantage; for it is only in this way that we can find out what parts of the field of progress are likely to remain untilled. As to the good likely to result from environmental reforms, though the questions involved are of enormous importance to mankind, yet to a large extent they must here be left undiscussed as lying outside the scope of this work. Nevertheless the effects arising from endeavours to improve human surroundings so often react on the racial qualities of the nation that environmental problems cannot be entirely neglected. This ground will, however, be covered as rapidly as possible, no doubt with somewhat too dogmatic answers to the various questions thus arising.

It is, broadly speaking, true that all reforms which have been accomplished up to the present time may be classed as environmental; for in promoting them no thought has been given to the improvement of the inborn qualities of future generations. The advocates of the English Mental Deficiency Act and of the American sterilization laws certainly were influenced by racial considerations; but these were but the exceptions which prove the rule. If using the word 'reform' in a broad