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Page 22
* * * * *
The case of the eugenics propaganda is far more complex. In its origin,
and doubtless in some of its present manifestations, it may lay claim to
being directed toward aims which are particularly concerned with the
higher interests of life. The author of "Hereditary Genius" certainly
could not be accused of indifference to the part played in the past, or to
be played in the future, by exceptional minds and characters; nor is it
necessary to charge any of the present promoters of the propaganda with
explicit failure to appreciate the importance of such minds and
characters. The criticism is often made, from this standpoint, that the
hard-and-fast rules which the eugenists propose would, in point of fact,
have put under the ban some of the most illustrious names in the annals of
mankind--men whose genius was accompanied with some of the very traits
which they hold should most positively be prevented from appearing. But,
however weighty this objection to the methods of eugenics may be, it is to
be looked upon rather as an item on the debit side of the reckoning than
as marking an ingrained defect, a fault at the very heart of the matter.
The eugenists may well challenge those who urge merely this kind of
objection to show that the losses thus pointed out are great enough to
offset the gains, in the very same direction, which they regard their
program as promising. Whatever the truth of the matter may be, they can at
least set up the contention that, as a mere affair of quantity, genius
will do better under their system than without it.
What brings the eugenics movement into the Flatland category is not its
attitude toward the question of genius, or perhaps even of singularity,
but its attitude toward the life of mankind as a whole--if indeed it can
be said to have any attitude toward the life of mankind as a whole. The
profound elements of that life seem not to come at all within the range of
its contemplation. Of course this does not apply to everything that comes
from the eugenics camp, nor to every person that calls himself a eugenist.
But on the other hand it is by no means only of the crude projects of
half-educated reformers, or the outgivings of the prophets of our popular
magazines, that it _is_ true. The agitation has derived much of its
impetus, directly or indirectly, from the teachings of men of high
scientific eminence who have attacked the question without any apparent
realization of its deeper bearings on the whole character of human life.
This influence often comes in the shape of exhortations, or suggestions,
addressed to the public at a time when attention is centered upon some
conspicuous crime or some particular phase of evil in the community;
sweeping and radical regulation of the right of parenthood being urged as
necessary for the prevention of all such distressing phenomena. Thus,
after the attempted assassination of Mayor Gaynor, there was much talk of
a "national campaign for mental hygiene," which should have the effect of
"preventing Czolgoszes and Schranks." Its program was thus indicated by
one of the foremost professors of medicine in the United States:
Provision must be made for the birth of children whose brains
shall, so far as possible, be innately of good quality; this means
the denial of the privilege of parenthood to those likely to
transmit bad nervous systems to their offsprings.
What the carrying out of such a programme would mean to mankind at large,
how profoundly it would modify those ideas about life, those standards of
human dignity and human rights, which are so fundamental and so pervasive
that they are taken for granted without express thought in every act and
every feeling of all normal men and women--this does not seem ever to
trouble the mind of the devotee of universal regulation. He sees the
possibility of effecting a certain definite and measurable improvement;
that the means by which this is accomplished must fatally impair those
elemental conceptions of human life whose value transcends all
measurement, he has not the insight or the imagination to recognize. The
distinctions of social class, of wealth, of public honor, leave untouched
the equality of men in the fundamentals of human dignity. They do not go
to the vitals of self-respect; they do not interfere with a man's sense of
what is due to him, and what is due from him, in the primary relations of
life. If nature has been unkind to him in his physical or mental
endowments, he does not therefore feel in the least disqualified, as
regards his family, his friends, his neighbors, the stranger with whom he
chances to come into contact, from receiving the same kind of
consideration, in the essentials of human intercourse, that is accorded to
those who are more fortunate; nor does he feel in any respect absolved
from the duty of playing the full part of a man. Under the r�gime of
medical classification--and the "mental hygiene" programme can mean
nothing less than that--all this would disappear. Some men would be men,
others would be something less. It is true that, so far as regards the
imbecile, the insane, and the criminal, such a state of things obtains as
it is; but this stands wholly apart from the general life of the race, and
has no influence whatever on the habitual feelings and experiences of
human beings. The normal life of mankind is shot through and through with
the idea that a man's a man; all that is highest in feeling and conduct is
closely bound up with it. Lessen its sway over our feelings and thoughts
and instincts, and how much benefit in the shape of "preventing Czolgoszes
and Schranks" would be required to compensate for the loss in nobleness,
in depth, which human life would suffer?
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