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13 J. Soc. Comp. Legis. n.s. 123 (1914)
Eugenics and Legislation

handle is hein.journals/jclilcs9013 and id is 131 raw text is: EUGENICS AND LEGISLATION. [Contributed bV EDWARD MANSON, EsQ.J Drifting.-Jowett once remarked that if the millennium is to come we must make it. The recent International Congress of Eugenics, with its S0 delegates from all parts of Europe and America, is a recognition of this truth. The Congress marks a new starting-point in the history of mankind. Let us try to realise its significance. The nations to-day all' over the world feel themselves being borne along on the swift, deep, mysterious stream of evolu- tion; urged on by forces they but dimly comprehend-forces irresistible, inexorable, inscrutable. In particular, in the matter of race evolution, the problem presents itself-whither, to what bourne, are they drifting? Is it- as the pessimist thinks-to the gulf of degeneration and race-extinction, or is it-as the optimist thinks-to the fair haven of the perfect State? The aim of the Eugenist Congress is to find an answer to these problems, and the first plain duty it sets before us is that we must no longer let ourselves drift; we must, in Tennyson's words, Watch the main currents how they run, and shape our course accordingly. If the race is to be improved-if it is to be saved-we must study and apply the laws of heredity; we must eliminate the unfit, we must encourage the survival and propagation of the best in all classes. This is not only a social ideal, it is a matter of urgent practical importance. The growing humanitarianism of modem communities under the influence of civilisation and Christianity has long been working, and is still working, against the stem law of natural selection-against the methods of ancient communities and in favour of the weak things of the earth. Whatever Greece and Rome may have done, we cannot tolerate the ruthless exposure of children, the neglect of the poor, the sick, and the suffering. Sympathy and tenderness have replaced hardness and indifference, and philanthropy is now busy in a thousand forms. All this is well, and God forbid that we should ever go back upon it; but the result is that we find ourselves con- fronted with a very serious social situation-the multiplication of the unfit. The weak that would have died under the old r6gime live on, the feeble- minded grow up and propagate themselves-transmitting their taints and. weaknesses, their diseases and defects, and with this degeneration of the race an ever-increasing burden is imposed on the rest of the community. How,

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