What is eugenics? / by Leonard Darwin.

  • Darwin, Leonard, 1850-1943.
Date:
1928
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

Credit: What is eugenics? / by Leonard Darwin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    96/104 (page 84)
    Chapter XVII Selection in Marriage THOSE who marry any one with any serious defect of body, mind, or character are apt to bring trouble on both themselves and their children. This is because such failings are not only immediately harmful, but may be passed on to succeeding generations by natural inheritance or by example. To be careful in the choice made in marriage will, therefore, benefit the nation and the race. To spread the view that great forethought ought to be exercised in the selection of a partner for life has, indeed, been held by some authorities to be the most important aim of eugenics. And certainly it is very important. But there are reasons why too much reliance must not be placed on selection in marriage as a racial safeguard. These reasons wiU now be briefly stated. Let it be supposed that I have four dogs, two well bred and two ill bred. Of course I wish to mate together the two well-bred animals, so that I shall get puppies as well bred as possible. But how about the ill-bred dogs ? If I take care that they do not breed, nothing more need be said. But if I were to let them mate together, and if they were to have four puppies, whilst my well-bred couple had only two, then my group of puppies would contain twice as many ill- bred as well-bred dogs. This gives a rough illustration of the way in which our own race may now be going down hill. This illustration also shows that careful selection in marriage does no good to the breed of the nation as a whole if those who are passed by in the first instance marry as certainly and as quickly as those selected before them. In other words, the exercise of care as to choice in marriage is beneficial to the race only in so far as it delays or hinders the marriages of the worse types. No doubt the silly or 84