THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS NOVEMBER, 1911 THE PROGRESS OF EUGENICS SUMMARY I. The Beginnings of Eugenics. Plato, 2. The Origin of Species and its influence, 3. - Galton and the modern eugenics movement, 4. Hereditary Genius, 6. Greg, 8. Darwin, 10.- de Candolle, 12.- Galton's English Men of Science, 13. - Inquiries into Human Faculty, 15. — Natural Inheritance, 16. The revival of eugenics. Karl Pearson, 17. - Galton's later writings, 19. — Eugenics: Its Definition, Scope, and Aims, 20. — II. Eugenic Investigations. Heredity, 24. - Pearson's biometric studies, 25. The Francis Galton Laboratory for National Eugenics, 26. - The Eugenics Laboratory publications, 27. The relative influence of heredity and environment, 29. Criticism of the biometric method, 31. - Biometry v. Mendelism, 31. Mendelian methods in eugenics, 33.- Early eugenic ideas in America, 33. The American Breeders' Association, 35. The Eugenics Record Office and its work, 36. - III. The Eugenic Program. The popularization of eugenics, 39. - The Eugenics Education Society, 39.- International organizations, 39.- Applied eugenics: Constructive v. restrictive methods, 41. Attempts to restrict the increase of undesirables, 45. — IV. Recent eugenic literature. Saleeby's Parenthood and Race Culture, 47. Whethams' The Family and the Nation, 48. Kellicott's The Social Direction of Human Evolution, 51. — Davenport's Race Improvement through Eugenics, 53. Eugenics in Europe, 57. — Rassenbiologie, 58. — The Natur und Staat " series, 59. - V. The Rationale of Eugenics. The lack of an adequate social philosophy in prevalent eugenic opinion, 61. — Eugenics in relation to natural selection, 62. — Exceptional ability v. general betterment, 63. — The outlook for eugenics, 66. - - Unless many signs fail, the study of eugenics has established its claim to recognition among the hopeful 1 applications of science in social reform. Almost suddenly, within the last few years, the popular apathy which it encountered for half a century has given way to widespread attention and interest, mingled with not a little of that irresponsible enthusiasm which a novel turn of thought provokes. The spirit of eugenic inquiry has spread beyond the country of its origin and prompted investigations undertaken with a scholarly seriousness of purpose which bespeaks for them the critical estimate due to scientific work. At this turning-point in the history of eugenics, the recent death of Sir Francis Galton 1 seems to mark off the period of beginnings, the story of which is so essentially the story of his own life, from the period of wider activity that has now set in. Before the beginnings are forgotten, a review of what has already been accomplished may help to appraise the promise of usefulness which the eugenic movement affords. I The idea of a conscious selective improvement of the human breed is not new. Like many another stimulating thought it was clearly uttered long before the time when its fresh expression found the popular mind in the ready and impressionable state which makes possible a far-reaching thought movement. Twenty-three hundred years ago the political dialogues of Plato outlined a policy of controlling marriage selection and parentage for the general good of society; and declared that the statesman who would advance the welfare of his citizens should, like the fancier of 1 Galton was knighted in 1909, in tardy recognition of his distinguished services to science. In the following pages the title is not prefixed to his name except when the reference is to events subsequent to the date of his knighthood. birds, or dogs, or horses, take care to breed from the best only. Perhaps it was natural that this idea should have come early to the mind of a man whose experience was with the compact citizen class of a city-state, and whose ideal community was not so large but that each citizen might know how his fellows lived; for it has been remarked that at the present day there is exceptional scrutiny of marrying and giving in marriage among peoples or social classes so isolated, clannish, and inbred that they must necessarily have discovered in their own experience the virtue of good stock and the fate that follows the progeny of degeneracy and constitutional disease. But Plato's project was too fantastic for his time. In following centuries the laws of the Roman Empire, the doctrines of the Church, and the policies of mercantilist states, in so far as they took cognizance of population problems, kept count in terms of soldiers, or souls, or laboring and tax-paying subjects, and for the most part overlooked the inborn differences of men. Even at the beginning of the last century, when the discussion of population problems reached a development quite unprecedented, the quality of the population was still almost ignored in the prevailing concern about questions of mere numbers. The present eugenics movement may be traced back definitely to the decade beginning with the year 1865, and more generally to the thought-reaction which followed the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species in 1859. The new biological doctrines inevitably drew attention to the selective significance of inborn differences, in human beings as in other living forms. Nor was the existence of such differences among men likely to be overlooked by the reactionary 1 Republic, 459; Laws, 773; and elsewhere. articles were essentially sanguine, — enthusiastic sketches of what might result from the spread of their new idea. Four years later these preliminary sketches developed into a book, Hereditary Genius, published in 1869. The main thesis, that great ability is hereditary, is here substantially unaltered; supported, now, by abundant genealogical material, which nearly fills the book with pedigrees of judges, statesmen, the English peerage, commanders, literary men, men of science, poets, musicians, painters, divines, the senior classics of Cambridge, even oarsmen and wrestlers, as examples of the ability of the muscles rather than of the mind. But if the theme is in the main the same, the manner of presentation is notably changed. Galton's characteristic originality of thought is reinforced by his equally characteristic attention to scrupulous precision of method. The quantitative treatment, which he has since called "actuarial," marks the work, opening the way for much of the more recent mathematical analysis of heredity problems. One finds a nice classification of the grades of ability; an ingenious notation; and the especially significant introduction of the law of deviation from an averagesuggested, as it appears, by Quetelet's Lettres sur la théorie des probabilités, and so applied, in determining the normal frequency of the occurrence of distinguished talent, that the exceptional proportion of eminent men among the sons of eminent fathers mathematically demonstrates exceptional recurrence of ability. The natural consequence of such careful method is a more guarded attitude with reference to putting into practice, for ends of social reform, the principles just restated and reaffirmed. Yet the enthusiasm of the magazine articles may well have |