“It is plain, then, that after this we must make marriages as much as possible sacred; but the most advantageous should be most sacred. By all means. How then shall they be most advantageous? Tell me that, Glauco, for I see in your houses dogs of chace, and a great many excellent birds. Have you then indeed ever attended at all, in any respect, to their marriages, and the propagation of their species? How? said he. First of all, that among these, although they be excellent themselves, are there not some who are most excellent? There are. Whether then do you breed from all of them alike? or are you careful to breed chiefly from the best? From the best. But how? From the youngest or from the oldest, or from those who are most in their prime? From those in their prime. And if the breed be not of this kind, you reckon that the race of birds and dogs greatly degenerates. I reckon so, replied he. And what think you as to horses, said I, and other animals? is the case any otherwise with respect to these? That, said he, were absurd.”

Plato proposed to destroy the family, and to “practise every art that no mother should know her own child.” He also approved of infanticide. Nevertheless, this fifth book of the Republic is interesting and valuable reading, and it is especially well to note that this pioneer of Utopianism and Socialism possessed the idea which almost all living Socialists, except Dr. A. R. Wallace and Professors Forel and Pearson, lack, that we must first make the Utopian and Utopia will follow.

The Family. (1906.) By Elsie Clews Parsons.

This recent, scholarly and lucid book, of which any living man might well be proud, may follow the reading of the utterly unconcerned and taken-for-granted fashion in which Socrates and Plato proposed to destroy the family. Lecture VIII., on “Sexual Choice,” is brief, but the references following it are extremely valuable and complete. It is evident that one of the books which will have to be written on eugenics in the near future must deal with the whole question of marriage and human selection both in its historical and in its contemporary aspects.

“The Possible Improvement of the Human Breed under Existing Conditions of Law and Sentiment.” Nature, 1901, p. 659; Smithsonian Report, Washington, 1901, p. 523. By Francis Galton.

This was the Huxley Lecture of the Anthropological Institute in 1901, and the contemporary interest in eugenics may be said to date from it.

“Eugenics, its Definition, Scope and Aims.” (Sociological Papers. 1904.) By Francis Galton.

This remarkable lecture constituted a further introduction of the subject, and it is somewhat of the nature of an impertinence for the professional jester, who is not acquainted with a line of it, to dismiss eugenics with a phrase as if this lecture had never been written or were unobtainable. Mr. Galton there defined eugenics as “the science which deals with all influences that improve the inborn qualities of a race....” The definition given in the Century Dictionary is unauthoritative, incorrect, and misses the entire point.

An extremely valuable discussion follows this lecture, and it is absolutely necessary for the student to acquaint himself with the whole of these pages (45–99).

Restrictions in Marriage: Studies in National Eugenics: Eugenics as a Factor in Religion. By Francis Galton.

These are memoirs communicated to the Sociological Society in 1905, and published together with the subsequent discussions in Sociological Papers (1905). The three memoirs are also published separately under one cover.

Probability, the Foundation of Eugenics. The Herbert Spencer Lecture of 1907. By Francis Galton.

This lecture contains a very brief historical outline of the recent progress of eugenic enquiry and a simple discussion of the mathematical method of studying heredity. It must, of course, be read by every serious student.

National Life from the Standpoint of Science. (1905.) By Karl Pearson.

This is a reprint of a lecture delivered by Professor Pearson in 1900, together with some other valuable contributions of his to the subject. There is scarcely a better introduction to eugenics.

The Scope and Importance to the State of the Science of National Eugenics. The Robert Boyle Lecture, 1907. (Second edition, 1909.) By Karl Pearson.

This fine lecture should be carefully read. It gives some index to the quantity and quality of the work done by Professor Pearson and his followers since the Francis Galton Eugenics Laboratory was founded.

Population and Progress. (1907.) By Montague Crackanthorpe, K.C.

Though only published recently, part of this book goes back far. The first chapter is indeed a reprint of a eugenic article published in the Fortnightly Review as far back as 1872. Some of us may perhaps be inclined to forget that more than a generation ago Mr. Crackanthorpe had grasped the great truths which we are now trying to spread, and had courageously expressed them in the face of ignorance and prejudice even greater than those of to-day. This is unquestionably a book which every student must read, but the press generally, with some notable exceptions, have fought rather shy of it. It was sent to the present writer at his request from a leading morning paper which trusts him, and he wrote a column on it, most careful in diction and moderate in opinion, which was, nevertheless, not printed. One of the leading medical papers devoted a long article to the book, written on the general principle that it is right for a medical paper to differ from any non-medical person who approaches the closed neighbourhood of medical enquiry. Another leading medical paper considered Mr. Crackanthorpe's “ideal” to be “beyond present accomplishment,” and feared it must have “many generations of probation before it could hope to enter the sphere of practical politics.” I venture to say that Population and Progress, dealing, as it does, with a subject that really matters, contains more fundamental practical politics—in the true sense of that word—than has been discussed in most of our current newspapers since they were first established.

Race-Culture or Race-Suicide. (1906.) By R. R. Rentoul.

This is a second and enlarged edition of a remarkable pamphlet published by Dr. Rentoul in 1903 under the title Proposed Sterilisation of Certain Mental and Physical Degenerates. An Appeal to Asylum Managers and Others. Dr. Rentoul's own description of this pamphlet is as follows:—“In it I called attention to the large and increasing number of the insane in the United Kingdom; to our disgraceful system of child-marriages; to the growing suicide rate; to our disgusting system of inducing certain mentally and physically diseased persons to marry; and to a slight operation which I was the first to propose as a means of checking the increase in the number of the insane, and in preventing innocent offspring from being cursed by some parental blemish.”

Education. (Originally published in 1861. New edition, with the author's latest corrections, 1906.) By Herbert Spencer.

This is the classic which marks an epoch in the personal development of every one who reads it, and which made an epoch in the history of education: the book was probably of more service to woman, owing to its liberation of girlhood, than any other of its century.

The Study of Sociology. (International Scientific Series. Originally published in 1873. Twentieth edition, 1903.) By Herbert Spencer.

This is, of course, the introduction to sociology, written for that purpose by a master, and in every respect a masterpiece. It contains many eugenic references and arguments. As far as the eugenic education of the adult is concerned, this is rightly the preliminary work.

Besides The Evolution of Sex and Mrs. Parson's book on The Family, there are many others relevant to the question of woman and eugenics, of which one or two may be noted here.

Sex and Society, Studies in the Social Psychology of Sex. (1907.) By W. I. Thomas.

This is a very readable and recent work, and for the general reader much the most suitable of any that I know.

Man and Woman. (Contemporary Science Series.) By Havelock Ellis.

A very clear and readable book.

Youth—its Education, Regimen and Hygiene. (1907.) By Stanley Hall.

This is a new and abbreviated version of Professor Stanley Hall's two well-known volumes on Adolescence, published in 1904. For the general reader this much smaller work is very suitable, and especial attention may be directed to Chapter XI., “The Education of Girls.”

It would have been presumptuous and absurd to attempt, in the course of a merely introductory volume, to deal, by anything more than allusion to its existence, with the great question of human parenthood in relation to race. Most urgently this question, of course, concerns the negro problem in America. The student who has to trust entirely to second-hand knowledge had best be silent. Lest, however, the reader should imagine that the older doctrines of race can be accepted without reserve, he will do well to study very carefully the latter part of Dr. Archdall Reid's book, already referred to, and, with extreme caution, the following:—

Race Prejudice. (1906.) By Jean Finot.

This book most of us must believe to be extreme, but it should be read: it bears on what may be called international eugenics, and the whole question of inter-racial marriage.

On matters of transmissible disease and racial poisons there is much literature. Only one or two books can be referred to here.

The Diseases of Society: The Vice and Crime Problem. (1904.) By G. F. Lydston.

This, of course, is not a pleasant book, and it is open to much criticism in many respects, but it is well worth reading, especially in association with Dr. Rentoul's work.

Malaria—A Neglected Factor in the History of Greece and Rome. (1907.) By W. H. S. Jones, with an introduction by Ronald Ross.

This is a recent historical study and may be a very substantial contribution to the study of decadence.

Alcoholism. (1906.) By W. C. Sullivan.

This little book of Dr. Sullivan's contains a useful and scrupulously moderate chapter on the relation of alcohol to human degeneration.

The Drink Problem. (1907.) By Fourteen Medical Authorities.

The Children of the Nation. (1906.) By Sir John Gorst.

Infant Mortality. (1906.) By George Newman.

The Hygiene of Mind. (1906.) By T. S. Clouston.

Diseases of Occupation. (1908.) By Sir T. Oliver.

The Prevention of Tuberculosis. (1908.) By A. Newsholme.

These volumes all deal in part with questions of racial poisoning and racial hygiene.

Alcoholism—A Study in Heredity. (1901.) By Archdall Reid.

Alcohol and the Human Body. (1907.) By Sir Victor Horsley and Mary D. Sturge.

Hygiene of Nerves and Mind. (The Progressive Science Series. 1907.) By August Forel.

Inebriety—Its Causation and Control. (The second Norman Kerr Memorial Lecture, published in the British Journal of Inebriety, January, 1908.) By R. Welsh Branthwaite.

Reports of the Inspector under the Inebriates Acts. Especially those for the years 1904, 1905, 1906.

The Cry of the Children: The Black Stain. (1907.) By G. R. Sims.

The above are especially recommended to politicians. Sooner or later, as never yet, knowledge will have to be applied to the drink question as it bears upon the quality of the race. The knowledge exists, and is not difficult to acquire or understand. The references given are quite sufficient to enable any one of mediocre intelligence to frame a bill dealing with alcohol which would be worth all its predecessors put together, and would arouse far less opposition than any one of them.

Reports of the National Conference on Infantile Mortality 1906 and 1908 (P. S. King & Co.). In the 1906 Report note especially Dr. Ballantyne's paper on the unborn infant, and in the 1908 Report, Miss Alice Ravenhill's paper on the education of girls.

It must be repeated that the foregoing names are merely noted as including, perhaps, the greater number of the books with which the serious beginner would do well to make a start. That is all. It would be both unfair and unwise, however, to omit any mention of at least three wonderful little books of John Ruskin's: Unto this Last, Munera Pulveris and Time and Tide, which add to their great qualities of soul and style some of the most forcible and wisest things that have ever been written on race-culture and its absolutely fundamental relation to morality, patriotism and true economics.

If the reader desires the name of only one book, that is certainly The Sexual Question (1908), by Professor August Forel. This has no rival anywhere, and cannot be overpraised.

INDEX OF SUBJECTS