humanfaculty4 - page 235 of 305

Marks for Family Merit

It may seem very reasonable to ask how the result proposed in the last

paragraph is to be attained, and to add that the difficulty of carrying so

laudable a proposal into effect lies wholly in the details, and therefore that

until some working plan is suggested, the consideration of improving the

human race is Utopian. But this requirement is not altogether fair, because

if a persuasion of the importance of any end takes possession of men’s

minds, sooner or later means are found by which that end is carried into

effect. Some of the objections offered at first will be discovered to be

sentimental, and of no real importance—the sentiment will change and

they will disappear; others that are genuine are not met, but are in some

way turned or eluded; and lastly, through the ingenuity of many minds

directed for a long time towards the achievement of a common purpose,

many happy ideas are sure to be hit upon that would not have occurred to

a single individual.

This being premised, it will suffice to faintly sketch out some sort of

basis for eugenics, it being now an understanding that we are

provisionally agreed, for the sake of argument, that the improvement of

race is an object of first-class importance, and that the popular feeling has

been educated to regard it in that light.

The final object would be to devise means for favouring individuals

who bore the signs of membership of a superior race, the proximate aim

would be to ascertain what those signs were, and these we will consider

The indications of superior breed are partly personal, partly ancestral.

We need not trouble ourselves about the personal part, because full weight

is already given to it in the competitive careers; energy, brain, morale, and

health being recognised factors of success, while there can hardly be a

better evidence of a person being adapted to his circumstances than that

afforded by success. It is the ancestral part that is neglected, and which we

have yet to recognise at its just value. A question that now continually

arises is this: a youth is a candidate for permanent employment,