Parenthood and Race Culture: An Outline of EugenicsSaleeby, C. W. (Caleb Williams)
Philosophy
Parenthood and Race Culture: An Outline of Eugenics
Saleeby, C. W. (Caleb Williams)
Eugenics
Plato proposed to destroy the family, and to “practise every art that
no mother should know her own child.” He also approved of infanticide.
Nevertheless, this fifth book of the _Republic_ is interesting and
valuable reading, and it is especially well to note that this pioneer
of Utopianism and Socialism possessed the idea which almost all living
Socialists, except Dr. A. R. Wallace and Professors Forel and Pearson,
lack, that we must first make the Utopian and Utopia will follow.
_The Family._ (1906.) By Elsie Clews Parsons.
This recent, scholarly and lucid book, of which any living man might
well be proud, may follow the reading of the utterly unconcerned and
taken-for-granted fashion in which Socrates and Plato proposed to
destroy the family. Lecture VIII., on “Sexual Choice,” is brief, but
the references following it are extremely valuable and complete. It is
evident that one of the books which will have to be written on eugenics
in the near future must deal with the whole question of marriage and
human selection both in its historical and in its contemporary aspects.
“The Possible Improvement of the Human Breed under Existing Conditions
of Law and Sentiment.” _Nature_, 1901, p. 659; _Smithsonian Report_,
Washington, 1901, p. 523. By Francis Galton.
This was the Huxley Lecture of the Anthropological Institute in 1901,
and the contemporary interest in eugenics may be said to date from it.
“Eugenics, its Definition, Scope and Aims.” (_Sociological Papers._
1904.) By Francis Galton.
This remarkable lecture constituted a further introduction of the
subject, and it is somewhat of the nature of an impertinence for
the professional jester, who is not acquainted with a line of it,
to dismiss eugenics with a phrase as if this lecture had never been
written or were unobtainable. Mr. Galton there defined eugenics as
“the science which deals with all influences that improve the inborn
qualities of a race....” The definition given in the _Century
Dictionary_ is unauthoritative, incorrect, and misses the entire point.
An extremely valuable discussion follows this lecture, and it is
absolutely necessary for the student to acquaint himself with the whole
of these pages (45-99).
_Restrictions in Marriage: Studies in National Eugenics: Eugenics as a
Factor in Religion._ By Francis Galton.
These are memoirs communicated to the Sociological Society in 1905, and
published together with the subsequent discussions in _Sociological
Papers_ (1905). The three memoirs are also published separately under
one cover.
_Probability, the Foundation of Eugenics._ The Herbert Spencer Lecture
of 1907. By Francis Galton.
This lecture contains a very brief historical outline of the recent
progress of eugenic enquiry and a simple discussion of the mathematical
method of studying heredity. It must, of course, be read by every
serious student.
_National Life from the Standpoint of Science._ (1905.) By Karl Pearson.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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