Natural selection is cruel and uneconomic. As far as the human species is concerned, natural selection is not essential to our advance towards perfection; it is even to a considerable extent superfluous. In the case of humanity, racial improvement remains possible even in the absence of a relationship between the numbers of the species and the available means of subsistence so unfavourable as to necessitate a fierce struggle for existence. In the earlier stages of human evolution, such an unfavourable relationship between the numerical strength of the species and the supply of the means of subsistence was perhaps a cause of racial advance; but to-day such a relationship would be nothing but a hindrance to progress. For the human species to-day, the significance of natural selection is historical merely; the future belongs to artificial selection. The device for humanity must be, “Not Natural Selection, but Artificial Selection--Eugenics!” _The Interests of the Future Generation._--The attitude of our present legal system towards actions likely to be injurious to the interests of future generations is a quite erroneous one. We concern ourselves solely with the interests of the contemporary generation; the interests of future generations are left entirely to chance; it is perfectly obvious that whenever a conflict of interests arises, the well-being of our descendants is unhesitatingly sacrificed. In our present laws it is difficult to point to a single provision for the protection of subsequent generations against the result of the sexual irrationality and the excessive sexual egoism of our contemporaries. Bodily injury of one human being by another is a punishable offence. But the man affected with alcoholism or syphilis who procreates a child incurs no punishment whatever, although the consequences of the latter’s action are far more serious. To-day hardly any attention is paid to the question of what qualities are desirable in the parents in order to ensure the procreation of offspring well equipped for a happy and useful life. In the breeding of plants and animals, definite rules are followed, in order to secure the progressive improvement of the species concerned. But who trouble themselves about conscious selection for the improvement of the human species?