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Page 40
These briefly are some of the remedies which have been advocated and in
part applied for the protection of the race from degeneracy. I quote
them, not with approval, but merely to show how grave and serious the
social outlook is, in the minds of some of the best thinkers and truest
philanthropists that have taught mankind. If the fertility of the fit
could be kept uniformly at its normal rate in a state of nature, the
race would have little to fear, for the tendency to further degeneration
and consequent extinction amongst the defective would be sufficient to
counteract their disposition to a high fertility. But in all civilized
nations, the fertility of the fit is rapidly departing from that normal
rate, and Mr. Herbert Spencer declares, with the gloomiest pessimism,
that the infertility of the best citizens is the physiological result of
their intellectual development. I have already expressed the opinion
that prudence and social selfishness, operating through sexual
self-restraint on the part of the best citizens of the State, are the
cause of their infertility. It is impossible for the State to correct
this evil, except by lessening the burden the fit man has to bear; and
the elimination of the unfit, by artificial selection, is the surest and
most effective way of bringing this about.
We have learned from the immortal Pasteur the true and scientific method
of artificial selection of the fit, by the elimination of the unfit. We
have already seen that he examined the moth, to find if it were healthy,
and rejected its eggs if it were diseased. Medical knowledge of heredity
and disease makes it possible to conduct analogous examinations of
prospective mothers; and surgery secreted in the ample and luxurious
folds of an�sthesia, and protected by its guardian angels antiseptics,
makes it possible to prevent the fertilization of human ova with a
vicious taint. It is possible to sterilize defective women, and the
wives of defective men by an operation of simple ligature, which
produces absolutely no change whatever in the subjects of it, beyond
rendering this fertilization impossible, for the rest of life. This
remedy for the great and growing evil which confronts us to-day is
suggested, not to avenge but to protect society, and in profound pity
for the classes who are a burden to themselves, as well as to those who
have to tend and support them.
The problem of the unfit is not new. The burden of supporting those
unable to support themselves has been keenly felt in all ages and among
all peoples.
The ancients realized the danger and the burden, but found no difficulty
when the stress became acute in enacting that all infants should be
examined and the defective despatched.
To come nearer home, Boeltius tells us, that, "in old times when a Scot
was affected with any hereditary disease their sons were emasculated,
their daughters banished, and if any female affected with such disease
were pregnant, she was to be burned alive."
Aristotle declared (Politics Book II, p. 40) that "neglect of this
subject is a never failing cause of poverty, and poverty is the parent
of revolution and crime," and he advocated habitual abortion as one
remedy against over-population. The combined wisdom of the Greeks found
no better method of keeping population well within the limits of the
State's power to support its members than abortion, and the exposure of
infants.
Since Aristotle's time abortion has been largely practised by civilized
nations. Mutilation and infibulation of females have been practised by
savages with the same end in view, while vasectomy, orchotomy, and
ovariotomy, have had their avowed advocates in our own time.
The purpose of all these measures was to limit population with little or
no distinction as to fitness to survive. The Spartans in ancient times,
and many social reformers of to-day have discussed and advocated the
artificial limitation of the unfit. The exposure of defective infants
was the Spartan method of preserving the physical and mental stature of
the race.
The surgical operations on both sexes advocated by some social writers
of recent date, have not been received with much favour, and, as a
social reform have not been practised. As operations they are grave and
serious, profound in their effect upon the individual, and a violation
of public sentiment. An�sthetics and antiseptics have, however, made
them possible, and if a surgical operation could be devised, simple and
safe in performance, inert in every way but one, and against which there
would be no individual or public sentiment, its application as a social
reform, would go far to solve the grave and serious problem of the
fertility of the unfit.
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