Eugenics concerns itself with problems on which the destiny of the race depends. It must not, therefore, be limited to questions relative to mating and breeding. Every factor that contributes to the well-being and uplifting of the race, every subject that bespeaks physical or mental regeneration, that aids moral and social righteousness and salvation, and promises a greater social happiness and contentment, has a eugenic [xxiii] significance. So long as there exists an unsupported mother or a suffering child; so long as we rely on hospitals and prisons, penitentiaries and the police, to minister to the correction and regeneration of the unfit and degenerate; so long as we tolerate grafting politicians and deprive the poor of breathing spaces, sanitary appliances, and a hygienic environment; so long as war and pestilence deprive posterity of the best of the race for parenthood; so long as we emphasize rescue rather than prevention, so long must the eugenist strive unceasingly to preach his propaganda of race regeneration. The scope of eugenics is too far-reaching in its beneficent purpose to be fettered by the querulous triflings of the ancient or intellectual prude; nor should it be belittled by the superficial insight of the habitual scoffer. It is not a fantasy nor an idle dream. It is not even an inspiration. The destiny of the race has brought us face to face with conditions unparalleled in the history of this civilization, and the very existence of the race itself may be wholly dependent on the foresight of the minds that have made the science of eugenics possible. A brief consideration of the conditions that actually exist, with which we are face to face, and which certainly justify the existence of a science whose function it should be to demand serious investigation of methods of race regeneration, may help the reader to an intelligent and practical understanding of the tremendous importance of the subject. It has been already remarked that, at the present rate of decrease, the birth-rate will be reduced to zero within a century. If the birth-rates in England, Germany, and France should continue to decrease as they have since 1880, there would be no children born, one hundred years hence, in these countries. While we do not assert, and probably none of us believes that either or all of these nations will actually be out of existence in a hundred years--unquestionably because we feel, at least we hope, that our methods will be so changed in that time that the necessary modification will ensure a continuance of the race, nevertheless, the fact remains that _the inevitable result of continuing along present lines will be [xxiv] that, within the period of one hundred years, these peoples will cease to perpetuate themselves_.