The Social Direction of Evolution: An Outline of the Science of EugenicsKellicott, William E. (William Erskine)
Science
The Social Direction of Evolution: An Outline of the Science of Eugenics
Kellicott, William E. (William Erskine)
Eugenics
In concrete eugenic practice it seems probable that most can be
accomplished for the present by striving to limit the multiplication
of the undesirable, dependent, or dangerous elements of the social
group. There can be less uncertainty here. The social organization has
already marked certain kinds of individuals as unfit and unworthy,
whose liberty must be limited in many directions for the social
welfare. This aspect of the matter can be put upon a dollars and cents
basis very clearly, and this is apparently the only relation that
affects a good many people. Why should the able and worthy and thrifty
members of society be compelled to pay, as they are in this country
alone, $100,000,000 annually, not to mention the vast sums voluntarily
contributed toward "charitable" purposes, for the support of the
criminal and pauper and defective classes who themselves contribute
nothing of value and whose very existence is evidence of criminal
disregard of the right of every individual to be well born, into a
healthy and sane life? The only answer, if it be an answer,
is--because the competent are willing to foot the bill. Millions for
tribute but not one cent for defense. And yet a penny's worth of
defense outweighs a million's worth of cure.
In the practice of Eugenics the greatest caution must be exercised.
All eugenic practice must be tested by the most careful and
scrutinizing scientific methods. Mendelian heredity gives a different
answer from Job's to his own query: "Who can bring a clean thing out
of an unclean?" It also makes clear how it may often happen that it
needs but three generations to go from Fifth Avenue to the Bowery, and
back again. Many so-called criminals may be anachronisms, some only
modificationally bad. But there are many cases, many practices,
regarding which there can be no doubt: the Eugenist says, treat these,
and let the doubtful cases alone until as a result of the increase of
knowledge there is no doubt. And while it is easy to say that we
_believe_ the criminal or the insane are the products of a wrong
environment, it is also easy to say that we believe they are not. What
the Eugenist demands is _knowledge_, then belief, and action based
thereon.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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