Correspondence
THE YOUNGER POINT OF VIEW
[Under the above title we propose to publish occasionally the views of the rising generation on topics of the day. The following is from an Oxford undergraduate:—ED: Spectator.]
COMMENTS ON DEAN INGE AS EIIGENIST.
SIR,—The Dean of St. Paul's recently addressed a meeting on " The Importance of Eugenics for Oxford" (a title which, think, was regarded in the right spirit), with the purpose of forming an Oxford Eugenics Society.
After disclaiming the desire to " turn England into a sort of stud-farm," Dean Inge made the claim (supported by the statistician Professor Karl Pearson) that " nature " was more important than " nurture in the determination of the qualities of human beings. One would have liked some debate on this very debatable and interesting point, for it is not certain that heredity and environment are (proportionately) concerned with exactly the same qualities of human nature. Until we know in what degree each affects every quality we surely cannot judge of their relative importance.
The Dean went on to admit that scientists advocated a cautious view, since comparatively little is known of human heredity, but maintained that we must educate ourselves in this matter. The country cannot afford to wait while the least desirable stocks are reproducing their kind far more assiduously and voluminously than the others. What he would like to see is a nation consisting of the " cream of each class " ; not a nation of one class. The question is what qualities we value most, for we cannot expect to find them all combined in very many people. As the Dean has said in his Outspoken Essays, " We don't know what sort of people we want, but we do know what sort of people we don't want," though even that is not quite certain.
So far one had the impression that Eugenics was mainly a negative remedy. Next came what seemed, as regards birth- control, the strongest point made : that knowledge available to one class could not justly be withheld from another. But the chief moral of the address seemed to me to be contained in the observations which now followed concerning the abo- lition of the " slums " ; for while the desirability of Eugenics is in the balance, the necessity of attacking the environmental side of the problem is standing everywhere before us, staring us mockingly in the face. It is in the slums that undesirably large birth-rates are chiefly found. Various diseases seem to have the effect of producing an animal birth-rate. Oppres- sion, whether of poverty, law, or ugliness, tends to make people reproduce themselves with immense rapidity in self- defence.
And now the magic word " education " was pronounced ; ultimately perhaps the most important thing of all, for when the physical causes of degenerate fertility are removed, good education may teach people that the quality of children is more important than their quantity. The Dean talked about uniform education ; in that admirable country Sweden it has had the important effect of levelling-the birth-rates of the different classes ; has it simply eliminated the excessive ones ? As regards sterilization, that cheap, easy, and immoral expedient, the Dean neither expected nor approved this. The address concluded with a diatribe against " young people in bungalows " who prefer a present motor car which they probably can't afford to a future family which they may be able to afford if they abstain from the present motor car.
Do we know for certain what the children of " undesirable " parents are likely to be ? What actually is the relation between mere abnormality and genius ? On this point, indeed, the opinion of Havelock Ellis on the non-epileptic character of various great men, often suspected of this disease, was quoted. But is it, for instance, true that Beethoven was born of a drunkard and an epileptic ? If so, were any of his ancestors such as to forewarn a wiser world of him ? One hopes the Eugenics Society is investigating this kind of problem in particular.
The question of the morality of " negative " Eugenics, or birth-control, was not discussed. It might be said that even if we regarded it as immoral it is our "debt to posterity " ; but there remains the question, " Do epileptic or other ' un- desirable ' people produce children of genius ? " There is another aspect of the morality problem which was not men- tioned ; this concerns the very important effect of birth-con- trol on chastity. This surely is one of the great points in its favour, since it would give a new reality to this much-maligned and enfeebled virtue. Chastity is not mere disinclination for illegitimate offspring or a slavish subservience to conven- tion. No virtue can feed on fear without dying from heart disease.
Is it right to give immoral people the means to destroy their possible progeny, while the virtuous presumably increase in reasonable abundance ? Here there are two questions : whether the descendants of the immoral would be like themselves, and whether in thus having no children they are committing suicide or murdering some person or persons
unknown. Neither question is one which I feel in the least Capable of discussing, so I leave them to those who do. •The first Is one of comparatively sithp/e,- though hiborioul, investi- gation, and is not likely to command much attention. The •
second is as deep and difficult a problem .as can be conceived, and no doubt Will soon provoke not one simple solution,
Previous page
