“The power of social opinion is apt to be rather under-rated than over-rated. Like the atmosphere which we breathe and by which we live, social opinion operates powerfully without our being conscious of its existence. Everyone knows that governments, manners, and beliefs which were thought to be right, decorous, and true at one period have been judged wrong, indecorous, and false at another; and that views which we have heard expressed by those in authority over us in our childhood and early manhood tend to become axiomatic and unchangeable in mature life. “Speaking for myself only, I look forward to local eugenic action in numerous directions, including the accumulation of considerable funds to start young couples of ‘worthy’ qualities in their married life, and to assist them and their families at critical times. The gifts to those who are the reverse of ‘worthy’ are enormous in amount; it is stated that the charitable donations in the year 1907 amounted to £4,868,050. I am not prepared to say how much of this was judiciously spent, or in what ways, but merely quote the figures to justify the inference that many of the thousands of persons who are willing to give freely at the prompting of a sentiment based upon compassion, might be persuaded to give largely also in response to a more virile sentiment, based on the desire of promoting the natural gifts and the National Efficiency of future generations. “In circumscribed communities especially, social approval and disapproval exert a potent force. Its presence is only too easily read by every one who is the object of either, in the countenances, bearing, and manner of those with whom they daily meet and converse. Is it then, I ask, too much to expect that when a public opinion in favour of Eugenics has once taken sure hold of such communities and has been accepted by them as a quasi-religion, the result will be manifested in sundry and very effective modes of action which are as yet untried and many of them even unforeseen?”