short and simple answer. The
Eugenic State has begun. The first of the Eugenic Laws has already
been adopted by the Government of this country; and passed with the
applause of both parties through the dominant House of Parliament.
This first Eugenic Law clears the ground and may be said to proclaim
negative Eugenics; but it cannot be defended, and nobody has
attempted to defend it, except on the Eugenic theory. I will call it
the Feeble-Minded Bill both for brevity and because the description
is strictly accurate. It is, quite simply and literally, a Bill for
incarcerating as madmen those whom no doctor will consent to call
mad. It is enough if some doctor or other may happen to call them
weak-minded. Since there is scarcely any human being to whom this
term has not been conversationally applied by his own friends and
relatives on some occasion or other (unless his friends and relatives
have been lamentably lacking in spirit), it can be clearly seen that
this law, like the early Christian Church (to which, however, it
presents points of dissimilarity), is a net drawing in of all kinds.
It must not be supposed that we have a stricter definition
incorporated in the Bill. Indeed, the first definition of
"feeble-minded" in the Bill was much looser and vaguer than the
phrase "feeble-minded" itself. It is a piece of yawning idiocy about
"persons who though capable of earning their living under favourable
circumstances" (as if anyone could earn his living if circumstances
were directly unfavourable to his doing so), are nevertheless
"incapable of managing their affairs with proper prudence"; which is
exactly what all the world and his wife are saying about their
neighbours all over this planet. But as an incapacity for any kind of
thought is now regarded as statesmanship, there is nothing so very
novel about such slovenly drafting. What is novel and what is vital
is this: that the _defence_ of this crazy Coercion Act is a Eugenic
defence. It is not only openly said, it is eagerly urged, that the
aim of the measure is to prevent any person whom these propagandists
do not happen to think intelligent from having any wife or children.
Every tramp who is sulky, every labourer who is shy, every rustic who
is eccentric, can quite easily be brought under such conditions as
were designed for homicidal maniacs. That is the situation; and that
is the point. England has forgotten the Feudal State; it is in the
last anarchy of the Industr