It is here that the ideals of Eugenics may be expected to work fruitfully. To insist upon the power of heredity was once considered to indicate a fatalistic pessimism.
It wears a very different aspect nowadays, in the light of Eugenics.
"To the eugenist," as Davenport observes, "heredity stands as the one great hope of the human race: its saviour from imbecility, poverty, disease, immorality."
We cannot, indeed, desire any compulsory elimination of the unfit or any centrally regulated breeding of the fit.
Such notions are idle, and even the mere fact that unbalanced brains may air them abroad tends to impair the legitimate authority of eugenic ideals. The two measures which are now commonly put forward for the attainment of eugenic ends—health certificates as a legal preliminary to marriage and the sterilization of the unfit—are excellent when wisely applied, but they become mischievous, if not ridiculous, in the hands of fanatics who would employ them by force.
Domestic animals may be highly bred from outside, compulsorily.
Man can only be bred upwards from within through the medium of his intelligence and will, working together under the control of a high sense of responsibility.
The infinite cunning of men and women is fully equal to the defeat of any attempt to touch life at this intimate point against the wish of those to whom the creation of life is entrusted.