Mankind in the MakingWells, H. G. (Herbert George)
Philosophy
Mankind in the Making
Wells, H. G. (Herbert George)
Social problems; Social sciences
“_Wedded in Silence_.--A deaf and dumb wedding was celebrated at Saffron
Walden yesterday, when Frederick James Baish and Emily Lettige King,
both deaf and dumb, were married. The bride was attended by deaf and
dumb bridesmaids, and upwards of thirty deaf and dumb friends were
present. The ceremony was performed by the Rev. A. Payne, of the Deaf
and Dumb Church, London.”] he must not beget children heedlessly and
unwittingly because of his incomplete assurance. It is pretty obviously
his duty to examine himself patiently and thoroughly, and if he feels
that he is, on the whole, an average or rather more than an average man,
then upon the cardinal principle laid down in our first paper, it is
his most immediate duty to have children and to equip them fully for
the affairs of life. Moreover he will, I think, lose no opportunity of
speaking and acting in such a manner as to restore to marriage something
of the solemnity and gravity the Victorian era--that age of nasty
sentiment, sham delicacy and giggles--has to so large an extent refused
to give it.
And though the New Republicans, in the existing lack of real guiding
knowledge, will not dare to intervene in specific cases, there is
another method of influencing parentage that men of good intent may
well bear in mind. To attack a specific type is one thing, to attack a
specific quality is another. It may be impossible to set aside selected
persons from the population and say to them, “You are cowardly, weak,
silly, mischievous people, and if we tolerate you in this world it is on
condition that you do not found families.” But it may be quite possible
to bear in mind that the law and social arrangements may foster and
protect the cowardly and the mean, may guard stupidity against the
competition of enterprise, and may secure honour, power and authority
in the hands of the silly and the base; and, by the guiding principle we
have set before ourselves, to seek every conceivable alteration of such
laws and such social arrangements is no more than the New Republican’s
duty. It may be impossible to select and intermarry the selected best
of our race, but at any rate we can do a thousand things to equalize the
chances and make good and desirable qualities lead swiftly and clearly
to ease and honourable increase.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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