any interest of the race can justifiably divorce these two phases, often considered inseparable, protests are at once aroused. In these protests, there is some justice. We would be the last ones to deny that a marriage has failed to achieve its goal, has failed to realize for its participants the greatest possible happiness, unless it has resulted in sound offspring.
That word "sound" is the key to the distinction which must be made. The interests of the race demand sound offspring from every couple in a position to furnish them—not only in the interests of that couple,—interests the importance of which it is not easy to underestimate—but in the interests of the future of the race, whose welfare far transcends in importance the welfare of any one individual, or any pair of individuals. As surely as the race needs a constant supply of children of sound character, so surely is it harmed by a supply of children of inherently unsound character, physically or mentally, who may contribute others like themselves to the next generation. A recollection of the facts of heredity, and of the fact that the offspring of any individual tend to increase in geometric ratio, will supply adequate grounds for holding this conviction:—that from a biological point of view, every child of congenitally inferior character is a racial misfortune. The Spartans and other peoples of antiquity fully realized this fact, and acted on it by exposing deformed infants. Christianity properly revolted as such an action; but in repudiating the action, it lost sight of the principle back of the action. The principle should have been regarded, and civilized races are now coming back to a realization of that fact—are, indeed, realizing its weight far more fully than any other people has ever done, because of the growing realization of the importance of heredity. No one is likely seriously to argue again that deformed infants (whether their deformity be physical or mental) should be exposed to perish; but the argument that in the interests of the future of the race they would better not be born, is one that admits of no refutation.