=Natural Elimination of Defectives Done Away With.--=With our improved methods of sanitation and care of the sick, the pauper and the defective, these classes have been freed from the stress of an environment that under natural conditions would have resulted in their premature death and consequent infertility. Or in the terminology of the biologist, we have done away with the factor of _natural selection_, the factor which in state of nature keeps all races purged of the unfit, the ill-adapted. With this restraining, and purifying influence removed, however, the weakling, the defective, may arrive at maturity and commingle his blood with that of the strong, with the inevitable result that the general vigor of the progeny from generation to generation is sapped and progressively undermined. Thus we are confronted by the stubborn fact that through present humanitarian methods we are driving the race toward decadence. =Why Not Prevent Our Social Maladies?--=Now there is no reasonable person, I think, who will not admit that the motives underlying our modern altruistic practises are the noblest fruitage of our slow upward struggle from the brute to man. As humane beings, we can not cast aside these principles and return to the painful and pitiless method of nature which would leave the sick and the defective alone to perish miserably; the sacrifice would be too great. Is there then no escape from this dilemma? To this query the modern student of heredity answers yes; let us but add more wisdom to our charity and the enigma is solved. We need no sacrifice of pity but rather an expansion of it. Let us but extend our vision from immediate suffering to the prospective suffering of the countless unborn descendants of our present unfit and ask ourselves the question, why should they be born? Why not prevent our social maladies instead of waiting to cure them? This is the province of eugenics.