w
citizens as a kind of chemical experiment; in a state of reverent
agnosticism about what would come of it. But with this fatuous notion
that one can deliberately establish the Inquisition or the Terror, and
then faintly trust the larger hope, I shall have to deal more
seriously in a subsequent chapter. It is enough to say here that the
best thing the honest Endeavourer could do would be to make an honest
attempt to know what he is doing. And not to do anything else until he
has found out. Lastly, there is a class of controversialists so
hopeless and futile that I have really failed to find a name for them.
But whenever anyone attempts to argue rationally for or against any
existent and recognisable _thing_, such as the Eugenic class of
legislation, there are always people who begin to chop hay about
Socialism and Individualism; and say "_You_ object to all State
interference; _I_ am in favour of State interference. _You_ are an
Individualist; _I_, on the other hand," etc. To which I can only
answer, with heart-broken patience, that I am not an Individualist,
but a poor fallen but baptised journalist who is trying to write a
book about Eugenists, several of whom he has met; whereas he never met
an Individualist, and is by no means certain he would recognise him if
he did. In short, I do not deny, but strongly affirm, the right of the
State to interfere to cure a great evil. I say that in this case it
would interfere to create a great evil; and I am not going to be
turned from the discussion of that direct issue to bottomless
botherations about Socialism and Individualism, or the relative
advantages of always turning to the right and always turning to the
left.

And for the rest, there is undoubtedly an enormous mass of sensible,
rather thoughtless people, whose rooted sentiment it is that any deep
change in our society must be in some way infinitely distant. They
cannot believe that men in hats and coats like themselves can be
preparing a revolution; all their Victorian philosophy has taught
them that such transformations are always slow. Therefore, when I
speak of Eugenic legislation, or the coming of the Eugenic State,
they think of it as something like _The Time Machine_ or _Looking
Backward_: a thing that, good or bad, will have to fit itself to
their great-great-great-grandchild, who may be very different and may
like it; and who in any case is rather a distant relative. To all
this I have, to begin with, a very