=Eugenics Defined.--=The term Eugenics was coined in 1883 by Francis Galton in his book entitled _Inquiries Into Human Faculties_, and we may therefore look to him for a satisfactory definition. He says, "Eugenics is the study of the agencies under social control, that may improve or impair the racial qualities of future generations, either physically or mentally." And again, "I take Eugenics very seriously, feeling that its principles ought to become one of the dominant motives in a civilized nation, much as if they were one of its religious tenets.... Man is gifted with pity and other kindly feelings, but he also has the power of preventing many kinds of suffering. I conceive it to fall well within his province to replace natural selection by other processes that are more merciful and not less effective. This is precisely the aim of Eugenics. Its first object is to check the birth-rate of the unfit instead of allowing them to come into being, though doomed in large numbers to perish prematurely. The second object is the improvement of the race by furthering the productivity of the fit, by early marriages and the healthful rearing of their children." =Improved Environment Alone Will Not Cure Racial Degeneracy.--=While many an enthusiastic humanitarian is laboring under the assumption that if we can improve external conditions human deficiencies will disappear, the student of heredity realizes that this is in large part a delusion unless we can secure an accompanying improvement in intrinsic qualities of the human species itself through the suitable mating of individuals. Just as the intelligent farmer to-day demands selected seed as well as good soil and proper cultivation, so one with the facts of heredity at hand would, as he views social problems, urge the fundamental importance of having selected stock with which to start. No shifts or shapings of environment will ever enable men to "gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles." =Heredity and Environment.--=To wrangle over the question of which is the more important, heredity or environment, is about as idle a proceeding as to argue which is the more important, the stomach or something to put in the stomach. Man would soon come to grief without either. So, too, the question of human development is not one of heredity alone nor of environment alone; both are necessary and must work hand in hand. Dormant capacities must have proper environment to call them forth, but on the other hand no kind of environment can evoke responses if some degree of aptitude is not present.