"We look, then, for a day in the near future, when, in some circles at any rate, a comparison of scientific pedigrees will replace, or at all events precede, the discussion of settlements in the preliminaries to a marriage; when birth and good-breeding (in its wide sense), character and ability will be the qualities most prized in the choice of mates; when a bad ancestral strain likely to reappear in succeeding generations will suppress an incipient passion as effectually as it is now cured by a deficiency of education or a superfluity of accent." (Whetham.) As matters are at present it is all too often the case that marriage is _followed_ by the disclosure or discovery of a family history of sterility, or criminality, or insanity. In a truly enlightened society the failure to make known such conditions in the antecedents to a marriage will be regarded as evidence of the greatest moral obliquity, if not of criminal misdemeanor. The wise and honored founder of Eugenics looks forward to the inclusion of eugenic ideals as a factor in religion. "Eugenics," Galton writes, "strengthens the sense of social duty in so many important particulars that the conclusions derived from its study ought to find a welcome home in every tolerant religion." "Eugenic belief extends the function of philanthropy to future generations; it renders its action more pervading than hitherto, by dealing with families and societies in their entirety; and it enforces the importance of the marriage covenant, by directing serious attention to the probable quality of the future offspring. It strongly forbids all forms of sentimental charity that are harmful to the race, while it eagerly seeks opportunity for acts of personal kindness as some equivalent to the loss of what it forbids. It brings the tie of kinship into prominence, and strongly encourages love and interest in family and race. In brief, eugenics is a virile creed, full of hopefulness, and appealing to many of the noblest feelings of our nature." And Whetham adds: "Hitherto the development of our race has been unconscious, and we have been allowed no responsibility for its right course. Now, in the fulness of time ... we are treated as children no more, and the conscious fashioning of the human race is given into our hands. Let us put away childish things, stand up with open eyes, and face our responsibilities." INDEX INDEX Ability, heredity of, 146, 147. heredity and pedigrees of, 176-181. Acquired characteristics, relation of, to heredity, 199-207. Adaptedness, 200-202. Albinism, and order of birth, 125, 126. heredity of, 142. Alcoholism, heritable effects of, 203-207. American Breeders' Association, 15, 196. Andalusian fowl, heredity of color in, 81-83. Angio-neurotic oedema, pedigree of, 168, 170. Aristotle, 18. Bagatelle board, to illustrate variability, 58-60. Bateson, William, 81, 100.