t the weaklings, it
behoves us to see that the children whom we produce are of the best
quality. Let us, therefore, hie to the stud-farm, observe its methods
and proceed to apply them to the human race. We must definitely prevent
feeble-minded persons from propagating their species. Within limits,
that is a proposition with which all instructed persons would agree,
though few, we imagine, would put their opinions so uncharitably as the
lecturer did: "The union of such social vermin we should no more permit
than we would allow parasites to breed on our own bodies." But we must
go farther than this, and introduce all sorts of restrictions on
matrimony, until finally it comes to be a matter to be arranged under
rigid laws by a jury of elderly persons--all, we may feel perfectly
sure, "cranks" of the first water.

In what _milieu_ are their findings to take effect? It is very important
to consider that. The author from whom I have been quoting tells us what
we want to know. Man, he tells us, is "a rather long-lived animal, with
great powers of enjoyment, if he does not deliberately forgo them." In
the past, we are told, "superstitious and mythical ideas of sin have
predominantly controlled these powers." We have changed all that now; as
the parent in _Punch_ says to the crying child by the seashore, "You've
come out to enjoy yourself, and enjoy yourself you shall!" So we are to
plunge into the whirlpool of eugenic delights without any fear of that
"bugbear of a hell" which another writer congratulates us on getting rid
of. We can, it appears, enter upon our eugenic experiment without a
single moral scruple to restrain us or a single religious restriction to
interfere with us. In this soil is the plant to be grown, and the first
weed to be eradicated is that of the right of personal choice of a
partner for life, or for such other term as the law under the new
_regime_ may require. Jack is to be torn from weeping Jill, and handed
over to reluctant Joan, to whom he is personally displeasing and for
whom he has not the slightest desire, and handed over because the
Breeding Committee think it is likely to prove advantageous for the
Coming Race. All that may be possible--or may not--but what then? When
you are carrying out Mendelian experiments on peas, you can enclose your
flowers in muslin bags and prevent anything interfering with your
observations. And in the stud-farm you can keep the occupants shut up.

But what are you go