f there was not some supremely important, cardinal error somewhere, it is
reasonable to suppose that in one or other of the departments of human
effort we would have reached the summit of idealism. The State, as an
institution, would have evolved a perfection which would enable it to exist
as an independent mechanism, complete and ideal in all its ramifications.
We have had no such state, however. The highest type of empire has been
ludicrously dependent upon the minor exigencies of individual human
existence.

Science would have evolved the superman, but history, as we have seen, has
persistently deprived science of the material wherewith to contribute him.

The institution of marriage would have been a fixed and an inviolable
guarantee of the happiness of the home, but human wisdom has erred and the
solution is as yet apparently undiscovered.

Investigation into every field of human effort shows that the ultimate aim
in view, if any, was something other than the welfare of the race, as a
race or as individuals.

* * * * *

[9]
CHAPTER II

"The public health is the foundation on which reposes the happiness of
the people and the power of a country. The care of the public health is
the first duty of a statesman."

LORD BEACONSFIELD.

THE EUGENIC IDEA

THE VALUE OF HUMAN LIFE--THE EUGENIC PRINCIPLE--"THE FIT ONLY SHALL
LIVE"--EUGENICS AND MARRIAGE--THE VENEREAL DISEASES--THE UTILITY OF
MARRIAGE CERTIFICATES--THE MARRIAGE CERTIFICATES AND VICE--EUGENICS AND
PARENTHOOD--THE PRINCIPLE OF HEREDITY--EUGENICS AND
MOTHERHOOD--EUGENICS AND THE HUSBAND.

The eugenist believes the cardinal error of the past has been a failure to
recognize the worth or value of human life. In the past human lives have
counted for absolutely nothing. As we have seen, each generation has
practically deprived posterity of the best of its breed, and we shall see,
when we consider the facts which affect the present vitality of the race,
that the same preposterous conditions still exist.

It is not necessary to waste the reader's time in an effort to prove,
simply from an argumentative standpoint, the logic of the eugenic idea.
There is no existing economic problem that has established itself so firmly
in the hearts of the people who understand it, as has the study of race
culture. It is not the subject,