s yielding to mere momentary desire, and, on the
other hand, the still more fatal influences of wealth and position and
worldly convenience which give a factitious value to persons who would
never appear attractive partners in life were love and eugenic ideals
left to go hand in hand. It is such unions, and not those inspired by
the wholesome instincts of wholesome lovers, which lead, if not to the
abstract "deterioration of the race," at all events in numberless cases
to the abiding unhappiness of persons who choose a mate without
realizing how that mate is likely to develop, nor what sort of children
may probably be expected from the union. The eugenic ideal will have to
struggle with the criminal and still more resolutely with the rich; it
will have few serious quarrels with normal and well constituted lovers.

It will now perhaps be clear how it is that the eugenic conception of
the improvement of the race embodies a new ideal. We are familiar with
legislative projects for compulsory certificates as a condition of
marriage. But even apart from all the other considerations which make
such schemes both illusory and undesirable, these externally imposed
regulations fail to go to the root of the matter. If they are voluntary,
if they spring out of a fine eugenic aspiration, it is another matter.
Under these conditions the method may be carried out at once. Professor
Grasset has pointed out one way in which this may be effected. We
cannot, he remarks, follow the procedure of a military _conseil de
revision_ and compulsorily reject the candidate for a definite defect.
But it would be possible for the two families concerned to call a
conference of their two family doctors, after examination of the
would-be bride and bridegroom, permitting the doctors to discuss freely
the medical aspects of the proposed union, and undertaking to accept
their decision, without asking for the revelation of any secrets, the
families thus remaining ignorant of the defect which prevented this
union but might not prevent another union, for the chief danger in many
cases comes from the conjunction of convergent morbid tendencies.[160] In
France, where much power remains with the respective families, this
method might be operative, provided complete confidence was felt in the
doctors concerned. In some countries, such as England, the prospective
couple might prefer to take the matter into their own hands, to discuss
it frankly, and to seek medical