of the race. They cultivated eugenics after their manner, though
it was a manner which we reprobate.[21] We pride ourselves, rightly or
wrongly, on our care for the individual; during all the past century we
claim to have been strenuously working for an amelioration of the
environment which will make life healthier and pleasanter for the
individual. But in the concentration of our attention on this altogether
desirable end, which we are still far from having adequately attained, we
have lost sight of that larger end, the well-being of the race and the
amelioration of life itself, not merely of the conditions of life. The
most we hope is that somehow the improvement of the conditions of the
individual will incidentally improve the stock. These our practical
ideals, which have flourished for a century past, arose out of the great
French Revolution and were inspired by the maxim of that Revolution, as
formulated by Rousseau, that "All men are born equal." That maxim, was
overthrown half a century ago; the great biological movement of science,
initiated by Darwin, showed that it was untenable. All men are not born
equal. Everyone agrees about that now, but nevertheless the momentum of
the earlier movement was so powerful that we still go on acting as though
all men are, and always will be, born equal, and that we need not trouble
ourselves about heredity but only about the environment.

[21] But this statement must not be left without important
qualification. Thus the ancient Greeks (as Moissides has shown in
_Janus_, 1913), not only their philosophers and statesmen, but also
their women, often took the most enlightened interest in eugenics, and,
moreover, showed it in practice. They were in many respects far in
advance of us. They clearly realised, for instance, the need of a proper
interval between conceptions, not only to ensure the health of women,
but also the vigour of the offspring. It is natural that among every
fine race eugenics should be almost an instinct or they would cease to
be a fine race. It is equally natural that among our modern degenerates
eugenics is an unspeakable horror, however much, as the psycho-analysts
would put it, they rationalise that horror.

The way out of this clash of ideals--which has compelled us to hope
impossibilities from the environment because we dreaded what seemed the
only alternative--is, as we know, furnished by birth-control. An
unqualified reliance on the environment, making