Before we go on to consider these perversions of a great idea, it may briefly be observed that, though fatherhood is historically a mushroom growth compared with motherhood, and though its importance is vastly less, yet as a complementary principle, aiding and abetting motherhood, and making for its most perfect expression, fatherhood played a great part in animal evolution, in the right line of progress, ages before man appeared upon the earth at all, and that its work is not yet done. To this subject we must return. Meanwhile it is well to note the dangers with which eugenics is at present threatened in the form of certain proposals which, if for a time they became popular--and they have elements making for popularity--would inevitably throw the gravest discredit upon the whole subject. =Eugenics and the family.=--Certain remarkable tendencies invoking the name of eugenics are now to be observed in Germany. These have considerable funds, much enthusiasm, journalistic support, and even a large measure of assistance in academic circles. In pursuance of the idea of eugenics there is a movement the nature of which is indicated by the following quotation from a private letter:-- “I wonder if your attention was drawn to the German projects of the reform of the Family. They all aim at improving the German race and rendering decisive its superiority over all others. The means seem to be too revolutionary. The more modern wish the establishment of the matriarchal family (_ein nach Mutterrecht_), the more logical require universal polygamy and polyandry, an individualisation of Society. Others hope to increase the production of German geniuses by the ‘hellenic friendship.’[!] The three movements are strongly organised, command large pecuniary means, a phalanx of original and prolific writers, and enthusiastic devotion to their cause. More even than the support of Courts and aristocracy is, in my eyes, that of the Universities. It is there that the destinies of Germany have always been shaped, and if they are determined to reform the Family in that way, it will be done.... The Herren Professoren are terribly in earnest, yet they say things which even to the least prejudiced minds appear ridiculous and even vulgar. Still, their projects have some relation to Eugenics, and to Sociology in general.”