Added to this, most of the sickly diseased offspring died in infancy as a result of improper feeding or want of care, and there was no such thing as the existence of a large section of the community evincing an increase of hereditary weakness. Under these conditions the parents of large families added so much the more to the strength and power of the community, and the production of children came to be regarded as a virtue. This view of the question very naturally survives, and is probably the reason why at the present day marriage with a diseased person is not viewed as a sin against the children that are to be produced, and against the community at large. _The Necessity for producing Posterity out of our Best Types._ But the end towards which we have to aim is the production in each generation of children from the best and healthiest of the population alone, for it is surely only reasonable that we should as a community pay the same care and attention to our own race propagation that a gardener does to his roses or chrysanthemums, or a dog-fancier to his hounds or terriers, or a cattledealer to his southdowns or shorthorns. That there is no means of improving our race so efficaciously as by selection we may be certain, and that there is no other way is highly probable; our interest in the subject, and the value we place upon changes the effects of which we shall never live to see, will determine whether we are prepared to adapt our ideas and modes of action to the lines that reason and the knowledge of the times have clearly pointed out as the only ones which it is expedient to follow. I have so far only indicated in most general terms the aim which in my opinion we should have in view. We have in the two succeeding chapters to consider several problems somewhat similar to those which we have already discussed, and then it will be more easy to obtain a general view of the whole question. We may then consider what steps it may be advisable to take with a view to bringing about satisfactory selection of the population, remembering always that in such a matter nothing can be accomplished which has not the sanction and approval of the mass of the community. The education and conviction of the masses must precede legislation, so that we shall have to consider what is expedient, from a practical point of view, for us to do at the present time, and we shall leave speculation as to possible future action to those who have greater gifts of foresight, and who believe in the possibility of predicting the future action of such a complex machine as an empire of men and women. FOOTNOTES [19] “Problems of Greater Britain,” vol. i., chap. ii. [20] “Liquor Legislation in the United States and Canada.” Rathbone and Fanshawe. [21] _Op. cit._, p. 104. [22] _Op. cit._, p. 170. CHAPTER V. THE CRIMINALS, INCAPABLES, AND THOSE IN DISTRESS.