past, of the greatest benefit and value to the country, have a higher birth-rate. The greatest task of eugenics, as we see it, will still be to find means by which the birth-rate among such families can be increased. This increase in the birth-rate among superior people must depend largely on a change in public sentiment. Such a change may be brought about in many ways. The authority of religion may be invoked, as it is by the Roman Catholic and Mormon churches10 whose communicants are constantly taught that fecundity is a virtue and voluntary sterility a sin. Unfortunately their appeal fails to make proper discriminations. Whatever may be the theological reasons for such an attitude on the part of the churches, its practical eugenic significance is clear enough.
Nothing can be more certain than that, if present conditions continue, Roman Catholics will soon be in an overwhelming preponderance in the eastern United States, because of the differential birth-rate, if for no other reason; and that the Mormon population will steadily gain ground in the west. Similarly, it is alleged that the population of France is gradually assuming the characteristics of the Breton race, because that race is the notably fecund section of the population, while nearly all the other components of the nation are committing race suicide (although not so rapidly as is the old white stock in New England). Again, the rôle of religion in eugenics is shown in China, where ancestor worship leads to a desire for children, and makes it a disgrace to be childless. A process analogous to natural selection applies to religions much as it does to races; and if the Chinese religion, with its requirement of a high birth-rate, and the present-day American Protestant form of the Christian religion, with its lack of eugenic teaching, should