other would
wander about collecting obstreperous majors; a third would be the
terror of animal-loving spinsters, who would flee with all their cats
and dogs before him. Short of sheer literal anarchy, therefore, it
seems plain that the Eugenist must find some authority other than his
own implied personality. He must, once and for all, learn the lesson
which is hardest for him and me and for all our fallen race--the fact
that he is only himself.

We now pass from mere individual men who obviously cannot be trusted,
even if they are individual medical men, with such despotism over
their neighbours; and we come to consider whether the Eugenists have
at all clearly traced any more imaginable public authority, any
apparatus of great experts or great examinations to which such risks
of tyranny could be trusted. They are not very precise about this
either; indeed, the great difficulty I have throughout in considering
what are the Eugenist's proposals is that they do not seem to know
themselves. Some philosophic attitude which I cannot myself connect
with human reason seems to make them actually proud of the dimness of
their definitions and the uncompleteness of their plans. The Eugenic
optimism seems to partake generally of the nature of that dazzled and
confused confidence, so common in private theatricals, that it will be
all right on the night. They have all the ancient despotism, but none
of the ancient dogmatism. If they are ready to reproduce the secrecies
and cruelties of the Inquisition, at least we cannot accuse them of
offending us with any of that close and complicated thought, that arid
and exact logic which narrowed the minds of the Middle Ages; they have
discovered how to combine the hardening of the heart with a
sympathetic softening of the head. Nevertheless, there is one large,
though vague, idea of the Eugenists, which is an idea, and which we
reach when we reach this problem of a more general supervision.

It was best presented perhaps by the distinguished doctor who wrote
the article on these matters in that composite book which Mr. Wells
edited, and called "The Great State." He said the doctor should no
longer be a mere plasterer of paltry maladies, but should be, in his
own words, "the health adviser of the community." The same can be
expressed with even more point and simplicity in the proverb that
prevention is better than cure. Commenting on this, I said that it
amounted to treating all people who ar