"At the beginning of the Revolutionary War a young man, known in the history as Martin Kallikak, had a son by a nameless, feeble-minded girl, from whom there have descended in the direct line four hundred and eighty individuals. One hundred and forty-three of these are known to have been feeble-minded, and only forty-six are known to have been normal. The rest are unknown or doubtful. Thirty-six have been illegitimate; thirty-three, sexually immoral, mostly prostitutes; twenty-four, alcoholic; three, epileptic; eighty-two died in infancy; three were criminal, and eight kept houses of ill-fame. After the war, Martin Kallikak married a woman of good stock. From this union have come in direct line four hundred and ninety-six, among whom only two were alcoholic, and one known to be sexually immoral. The legitimate children of Martin have been doctors, lawyers, judges, educators, traders, landholders, in short, respectable citizens, men and women prominent in every phase of social life. These two families have lived on the same soil, in the same atmosphere, and in short, under the same general environment, yet the bar sinister has marked every generation of one and has been unknown in the other." If it were possible to improve or eradicate these defective strains by giving them better surroundings, the nation might easily get rid of this burden. But we have given reasons in Chapter I for believing that the problem can not be solved in that way, and more evidence to the same effect will be present in other chapters of the book. An understanding of the nature of the problem will show that present methods of dispensing justice, giving charity, dealing with defectives and working for social betterment need careful examination and numerous modifications, if they are not to be ineffectual or merely palliative, or worse still, if they are not to give temporary relief at the cost of greatly aggravating the social disease in the end. In the past America has given and at present still gives much thought to the individual and little, if any, to posterity. Eugenics does not want to diminish this regard for the individual, but it does insistently declare that the interests of the many are greater than those of the few, and it holds that a statesmanlike policy requires thought for the future as well as the present. It would be hard to find a eugenist to-day who would propose, with Plato, that the infants with bad heredity should be put to death, but their right to grow up to the fullest enjoyment of life does not necessarily include the right to pass on their defective heredity to a long line of descendants, naturally increasing in number in each generation. Indeed a regard for the totality of human happiness makes it necessary that they should not so continue.