APPENDIX: CONCERNING BOOKS TO READ
The preceding pages are of course only tentative, preliminary and introductory. I have merely tried to make a beginning. No better purpose can be achieved than that the reader should proceed to study the subject for himself. A few pages may therefore be devoted to the names of some of the books which will be found useful. This is in no sense a complete bibliography, nor even a tithe of such a bibliography. But the reader who makes a beginning with the books here named, or even with a well-chosen half dozen of them, will thereafter need no one to tell him that the culture of the human race on scientific principles will be the supreme science of all the future, the supreme goal of all statesmen, the object and the final judge of all legislation.
Where it is thought that useful remarks can be made they will be made, but neither their presence nor absence nor their length is to be taken as any index to the writer's opinion of the relative value of the works in question.
Heredity. (The Progressive Science Series, 1908.) By Professor J. A. Thomson, M.A.
This is the most recent and most valuable for general purposes of all books on the subject of heredity. No layman should express opinions on heredity or eugenics until he has read it, for it is extremely improbable that they will be valuable. Professor Thomson covers the whole ground with extreme lucidity and care and impartiality. The book is readable, nay more, fascinating from end to end, and it is liberally and usefully illustrated[306]. It is the first general treatise on heredity which leads consciously, yet as of necessity, towards eugenics as the crown and goal of the whole study, and in this respect it undoubtedly marks an epoch.
The Methods and Scope of Genetics. (1908.) By W. Bateson, M.A., F.R.S.
This is the inaugural lecture, destined, I have little doubt, to become historic, which was delivered by Professor Bateson on his appointment to the new Darwin Chair of Biology at Cambridge. It is purposely included here for very good reasons. The reader who begins his serious study of heredity with Professor Thomson's work must be informed that though the author gives an interesting account of Mendelism, he is not a Mendelian, and neither his account of Mendelism nor his estimate of it is at all adequate for the present day. In truth there is the study of heredity before Mendelism and after, and though eugenics owes its modern origin to the founder of the school of biometrics, and though among his followers there are to be found many who decry and oppose the Mendelians, it is for the eugenist of single purpose to take the truth wherever it is to be found. It is now idle to deny either the general truth or the stupendous promise of Mendelism. Many vital phenomena besides heredity are studied by the statistical method, and are put down by it to heredity. The Mendelians take seeds of known origin, and plant them and note the result. They carry out experimental breeding not only amongst plants but amongst the higher animals, including mammals who, in all essentials of structure and function, are one with ourselves. It is not possible, I believe, to over-estimate the supreme importance of Mendelian enquiry for eugenics. Eugenics is founded upon heredity, and genetics, which is Professor Bateson's name for the physiology of heredity and variation, is now working at[307] the very heart of those natural phenomena upon which eugenics depends. This lecture of Professor Bateson's is by the far the best introduction to Mendelism that exists, besides being the most recent and the most authoritative possible. With the lucidity of the born teacher (whose faculty, I have no doubt, is a Mendelian unit, not always inherited by the born observer) the author explains the essence of Mendelism. The usual expositor has not proceeded far upon his way before he is encumbering himself and the learner with the phenomena of dominance and recessiveness, which are not cardinal and are highly involved. Professor Bateson makes no allusion to them. But he gives an account of Mendelism which it is impossible to put down without finishing, and which is elementary in the highest sense of the word. In the later pages the author preaches eugenics with a vigour and conviction not unworthy of notice as coming from the leader of a school which is utterly opposed in principle and in methods, if not in results, to the school of biometrics founded by the founder of eugenics. I insist upon this because there is a half-instructed ignorance abroad which has heard the name of Mendel, and seeks thereby to discredit Darwin and natural selection, Mr. Galton and eugenics. Hear Professor Bateson:—
“If there are societies which refuse to apply the new knowledge, the fault will not lie with Genetics. I think it needs but little observation of the newer civilisations to foresee that they will apply every scrap of scientific knowledge which can help them, or seems to help them in the struggle, and I am good enough selectionist to know that in that day the fate of the recalcitrant communities is sealed.”
Hereditary Genius, An Inquiry into its Laws and Consequences. By Francis Galton.
This is the classical and pioneer enquiry, far beyond[308] my praise or appraisement. The main text is not long, is easily read and is extremely interesting. The reader should acquaint himself also with Mr. Constable's recent criticism, Poverty and Hereditary Genius.
A Study of British Genius. (1904.) By Havelock Ellis.
This is an extremely interesting book, which should be read in association with the foregoing, to which it is a criticism and supplement. The greater part of the volume is concerned with the study of genius from the point of view of heredity—in terms of nationality and race, and of individual parentage. Very great labour and scholarship have been expended to very high purpose in this work.
Inquiries into Human Faculty. (1883.) By Francis Galton.
This is the next in order of Mr. Galton's works, Hereditary Genius dating from 1869. It has recently been reprinted in Dent's “Everyman's Library,” and can thus be purchased for one shilling.
Natural Inheritance. (1889.) By Francis Galton.
Memories of my Life. (1908.) By Francis Galton.
This is Mr. Galton's latest book, and apart from its personal fascination must be read by the serious eugenist if only on account of its last five chapters, and especially the last two, which deal with Heredity and Race Improvement. What could be more interesting and significant, for instance, than to find Mr. Galton in 1908 saying of himself in 1865, “I was too much disposed to think of marriage under some regulation, and not enough of the effects of self-interest and of social and religious sentiment.” Mr. Galton comments on the wrongheadedness of objectors to eugenics. I fancy, however, that the familiar misrepresentations will soon cease to be possible. The whole of this brief last chapter must be carefully[309] read and studied. At least I must quote the following paragraph:—
“What I desire is that the importance of eugenic marriages should be reckoned at its just value, neither too high nor too low, and that eugenics should form one of the many considerations by which marriages are promoted or hindered, as they are by social position, adequate fortune, and similarity of creed. I can believe hereafter that it will be felt as derogatory to a person of exceptionally good stock to marry into an inferior one as it is for a person of high Austrian rank to marry one who has not sixteen heraldic quarterings. I also hope that social recognition of an appropriate kind will be given to healthy, capable, and large families, and that social influence will be exerted towards the encouragement of eugenic marriages.”
This volume, a model for all future autobiographers, ends with the following splendid statement of the eugenic creed:—
“A true philanthropist concerns himself not only with society as a whole, but also with as many of the individuals who compose it as the range of his affections can include. If a man devotes himself solely to the good of a nation as a whole, his tastes must be impersonal and his conclusions so far heartless, deserving the ill title of ‘dismal’ with which Carlyle labelled statistics. If, on the other hand, he attends only to certain individuals in whom he happens to take an interest, he becomes guided by favouritism and is oblivious of the rights of others and of the futurity of the race. Charity refers to the individual; Statesmanship to the nation; Eugenics cares for both.
“It is known that a considerable part of the huge stream of British charity furthers by indirect and unsuspected ways the production of the Unfit; it is most desirable that money and other attention bestowed on harmful forms of charity should be diverted to the production and well-being of the Fit. For clearness of explanation we may divide newly married couples into three classes, with respect to the probable civic worth of their offspring. There would be a small class of ‘desirables,’ a large class of ‘passables,’ of whom nothing more will be said here, and a small class of ‘undesirables.’ It would clearly be advantageous to the country if social and moral support as well as timely material help were extended to the desirables, and not monopolised as it is now apt to be by the undesirables.
[310]“I take eugenics very seriously, feeling that its principles ought to become one of the dominant motives in a civilised nation, much as if they were one of its religious tenets. I have often expressed myself in this sense, and will conclude this book by briefly reiterating my views.
“Individuals appear to me as partial detachments from the infinite ocean of Being, and this world as a stage on which Evolution takes place, principally hitherto by means of Natural Selection, which achieves the good of the whole with scant regard to that of the individual.
“Man is gifted with pity and other kindly feelings; he has also the power of preventing many kinds of suffering. I conceive it to fall well within his province to replace Natural Selection by other processes that are more merciful and not less effective.
“This is precisely the aim of eugenics. Its first object is to check the birth-rate of the Unfit, instead of allowing them to come into being, though doomed in large numbers to perish prematurely. The second object is the improvement of the race by furthering the productivity of the Fit by early marriages and healthful rearing of their children. Natural Selection rests upon excessive production and wholesale destruction; Eugenics on bringing no more individuals into the world than can be properly cared for, and those only of the best stock.”
[311]Heredity and Selection in Sociology. (1907.) By George Chatterton-Hill.
This is a useful and interesting work, the nature of which is well indicated by its title. It contains many purely eugenic chapters, and cannot be ignored by the student.
The Germ-plasm, A Theory of Heredity. (The Contemporary Science Series. 1893.) By August Weismann.
This is Weismann's great work. It should be studied by politicians and others who still interpret all social phenomena in terms of Lamarckian theory, and also by modern writers who are so much more Weismannian than Weismann.
The Evolution Theory. (1904.) Translated by J. Arthur Thomson and M. R. Thomson. By August Weismann.
The Principles of Heredity. (1905.) By G. Archdall Reid.
This is a very interesting and extremely Weismannian book which contains the most recent statement of the author's remarkable enquiries into the influence of disease as a factor of human selection.
Variation in Animals and Plants. (The International Scientific Series. 1903.) By H. M. Vernon.
Variation, Heredity and Evolution. (1906.) By R. H. Lock.
The Origin of Species. (1869. Last (sixth) edition. Reprinted 1901.) By Charles Darwin.
The Descent of Man. (1871. Second edition, 1874. Reprinted 1906.) By Charles Darwin.
These classics now cost only half-a-crown apiece.
The beginner should read The Descent of Man first,[312] I think. Some of the earlier chapters are of the utmost eugenic value, and would be found immensely interesting by modern lecturers on decadence, and the like.
Darwinism To-day. (1907.) By Vernon L. Kellogg.
An interesting and scholarly recent criticism, containing much matter strictly relevant to eugenics.
The Evolution of Sex. (The Contemporary Science Series. Revised edition, 1901. Originally published in 1899.) By Patrick Geddes and J. Arthur Thomson.
A famous book, yet to be discovered by most “authorities” on the Woman Question.
A History of Matrimonial Institutions. (1904.) By G. E. Howard.
This is a three-volume treatise, extremely comprehensive, and especially valuable as a guide to the literature of the subject. Only the professional student can be expected to read it from cover to cover, but it is invaluable for purposes of reference.
The History of Human Marriage. By E. Westermarck.
This rightly celebrated and epoch-making work demonstrates in especial the survival-value of monogamy, and its historical dominance as a marriage form.
The Evolution of Marriage. (The Contemporary Science Series.) By Professor Letourneau.
The Principles of Population. By T. R. Malthus.
The substance of this may be conveniently read in the extracts published in the Economic Classics by Macmillan (1905).
The Principles of Biology. By Herbert Spencer.
The last section, “The Laws of Multiplication,” must be read as the expression of the missing half of the truth discovered by Malthus. It is tiresome, nearly half a century after Spencer's enunciation of his law, to have to read the remarks of some modern writers who continue[313] to assume that Malthus expressed not merely the truth but the whole truth.
The Republic of Plato.
Apart from the lines of Theognis quoted by Darwin in The Descent of Man, which are some two centuries older than Plato, the fifth book of the Republic is the earliest discussion in literature of the idea of eugenics, and utterly wild though we may consider most of the proposals of Plato—or Socrates—to be, these early thinkers are yet more modern and more scientific and more fundamental than all their successors, even including our modern Utopia makers who have come after Darwin, in recognising that it is the quality of the citizen which will make a Utopia possible. The following will suffice to show that after more than two thousand years we can still learn from the fundamental idea of Plato's fifth chapter:—
“It is plain, then, that after this we must make marriages as much as possible sacred; but the most advantageous should be most sacred. By all means. How then shall they be most advantageous? Tell me that, Glauco, for I see in your houses dogs of chace, and a great many excellent birds. Have you then indeed ever attended at all, in any respect, to their marriages, and the propagation of their species? How? said he. First of all, that among these, although they be excellent themselves, are there not some who are most excellent? There are. Whether then do you breed from all of them alike? or are you careful to breed chiefly from the best? From the best. But how? From the youngest or from the oldest, or from those who are most in their prime? From those in their prime. And if the breed be not of this kind, you reckon that the race of birds and dogs greatly degenerates. I reckon so, replied he. And what think you as to horses, said I, and other animals? is the case any otherwise with respect to these? That, said he, were absurd.”
Plato proposed to destroy the family, and to “practise every art that no mother should know her own child.” He also approved of infanticide. Nevertheless, this fifth[314] book of the Republic is interesting and valuable reading, and it is especially well to note that this pioneer of Utopianism and Socialism possessed the idea which almost all living Socialists, except Dr. A. R. Wallace and Professors Forel and Pearson, lack, that we must first make the Utopian and Utopia will follow.
The Family. (1906.) By Elsie Clews Parsons.
This recent, scholarly and lucid book, of which any living man might well be proud, may follow the reading of the utterly unconcerned and taken-for-granted fashion in which Socrates and Plato proposed to destroy the family. Lecture VIII., on “Sexual Choice,” is brief, but the references following it are extremely valuable and complete. It is evident that one of the books which will have to be written on eugenics in the near future must deal with the whole question of marriage and human selection both in its historical and in its contemporary aspects.
“The Possible Improvement of the Human Breed under Existing Conditions of Law and Sentiment.” Nature, 1901, p. 659; Smithsonian Report, Washington, 1901, p. 523. By Francis Galton.
This was the Huxley Lecture of the Anthropological Institute in 1901, and the contemporary interest in eugenics may be said to date from it.
“Eugenics, its Definition, Scope and Aims.” (Sociological Papers. 1904.) By Francis Galton.
This remarkable lecture constituted a further introduction of the subject, and it is somewhat of the nature of an impertinence for the professional jester, who is not acquainted with a line of it, to dismiss eugenics with a phrase as if this lecture had never been written or were unobtainable. Mr. Galton there defined eugenics as “the science which deals with all influences that improve the inborn qualities of a race....” The definition given[315] in the Century Dictionary is unauthoritative, incorrect, and misses the entire point.
An extremely valuable discussion follows this lecture, and it is absolutely necessary for the student to acquaint himself with the whole of these pages (45–99).
Restrictions in Marriage: Studies in National Eugenics: Eugenics as a Factor in Religion. By Francis Galton.
These are memoirs communicated to the Sociological Society in 1905, and published together with the subsequent discussions in Sociological Papers (1905). The three memoirs are also published separately under one cover.
Probability, the Foundation of Eugenics. The Herbert Spencer Lecture of 1907. By Francis Galton.
This lecture contains a very brief historical outline of the recent progress of eugenic enquiry and a simple discussion of the mathematical method of studying heredity. It must, of course, be read by every serious student.
National Life from the Standpoint of Science. (1905.) By Karl Pearson.
This is a reprint of a lecture delivered by Professor Pearson in 1900, together with some other valuable contributions of his to the subject. There is scarcely a better introduction to eugenics.
The Scope and Importance to the State of the Science of National Eugenics. The Robert Boyle Lecture, 1907. (Second edition, 1909.) By Karl Pearson.
This fine lecture should be carefully read. It gives some index to the quantity and quality of the work done by Professor Pearson and his followers since the Francis Galton Eugenics Laboratory was founded.
Population and Progress. (1907.) By Montague Crackanthorpe, K.C.
Though only published recently, part of this book goes[316] back far. The first chapter is indeed a reprint of a eugenic article published in the Fortnightly Review as far back as 1872. Some of us may perhaps be inclined to forget that more than a generation ago Mr. Crackanthorpe had grasped the great truths which we are now trying to spread, and had courageously expressed them in the face of ignorance and prejudice even greater than those of to-day. This is unquestionably a book which every student must read, but the press generally, with some notable exceptions, have fought rather shy of it. It was sent to the present writer at his request from a leading morning paper which trusts him, and he wrote a column on it, most careful in diction and moderate in opinion, which was, nevertheless, not printed. One of the leading medical papers devoted a long article to the book, written on the general principle that it is right for a medical paper to differ from any non-medical person who approaches the closed neighbourhood of medical enquiry. Another leading medical paper considered Mr. Crackanthorpe's “ideal” to be “beyond present accomplishment,” and feared it must have “many generations of probation before it could hope to enter the sphere of practical politics.” I venture to say that Population and Progress, dealing, as it does, with a subject that really matters, contains more fundamental practical politics—in the true sense of that word—than has been discussed in most of our current newspapers since they were first established.
Race-Culture or Race-Suicide. (1906.) By R. R. Rentoul.
This is a second and enlarged edition of a remarkable pamphlet published by Dr. Rentoul in 1903 under the title Proposed Sterilisation of Certain Mental and Physical Degenerates. An Appeal to Asylum Managers and Others. Dr. Rentoul's own description of this pamphlet is as[317] follows:—“In it I called attention to the large and increasing number of the insane in the United Kingdom; to our disgraceful system of child-marriages; to the growing suicide rate; to our disgusting system of inducing certain mentally and physically diseased persons to marry; and to a slight operation which I was the first to propose as a means of checking the increase in the number of the insane, and in preventing innocent offspring from being cursed by some parental blemish.”
Education. (Originally published in 1861. New edition, with the author's latest corrections, 1906.) By Herbert Spencer.
This is the classic which marks an epoch in the personal development of every one who reads it, and which made an epoch in the history of education: the book was probably of more service to woman, owing to its liberation of girlhood, than any other of its century.
The Study of Sociology. (International Scientific Series. Originally published in 1873. Twentieth edition, 1903.) By Herbert Spencer.
This is, of course, the introduction to sociology, written for that purpose by a master, and in every respect a masterpiece. It contains many eugenic references and arguments. As far as the eugenic education of the adult is concerned, this is rightly the preliminary work.
Besides The Evolution of Sex and Mrs. Parson's book on The Family, there are many others relevant to the question of woman and eugenics, of which one or two may be noted here.
Sex and Society, Studies in the Social Psychology of Sex. (1907.) By W. I. Thomas.
This is a very readable and recent work, and for the general reader much the most suitable of any that I know.
Man and Woman. (Contemporary Science Series.) By Havelock Ellis.
A very clear and readable book.
Youth—its Education, Regimen and Hygiene. (1907.) By Stanley Hall.
This is a new and abbreviated version of Professor Stanley Hall's two well-known volumes on Adolescence, published in 1904. For the general reader this much smaller work is very suitable, and especial attention may be directed to Chapter XI., “The Education of Girls.”
It would have been presumptuous and absurd to attempt, in the course of a merely introductory volume, to deal, by anything more than allusion to its existence, with the great question of human parenthood in relation to race. Most urgently this question, of course, concerns the negro problem in America. The student who has to trust entirely to second-hand knowledge had best be silent. Lest, however, the reader should imagine that the older doctrines of race can be accepted without reserve, he will do well to study very carefully the latter part of Dr. Archdall Reid's book, already referred to, and, with extreme caution, the following:—
Race Prejudice. (1906.) By Jean Finot.
This book most of us must believe to be extreme, but it should be read: it bears on what may be called international eugenics, and the whole question of inter-racial marriage.
On matters of transmissible disease and racial poisons there is much literature. Only one or two books can be referred to here.
The Diseases of Society: The Vice and Crime Problem. (1904.) By G. F. Lydston.
This, of course, is not a pleasant book, and it is open to much criticism in many respects, but it is well worth[319] reading, especially in association with Dr. Rentoul's work.
Malaria—A Neglected Factor in the History of Greece and Rome. (1907.) By W. H. S. Jones, with an introduction by Ronald Ross.
This is a recent historical study and may be a very substantial contribution to the study of decadence.
Alcoholism. (1906.) By W. C. Sullivan.
This little book of Dr. Sullivan's contains a useful and scrupulously moderate chapter on the relation of alcohol to human degeneration.
The Drink Problem. (1907.) By Fourteen Medical Authorities.
The Children of the Nation. (1906.) By Sir John Gorst.
Infant Mortality. (1906.) By George Newman.
The Hygiene of Mind. (1906.) By T. S. Clouston.
Diseases of Occupation. (1908.) By Sir T. Oliver.
The Prevention of Tuberculosis. (1908.) By A. Newsholme.
These volumes all deal in part with questions of racial poisoning and racial hygiene.
Alcoholism—A Study in Heredity. (1901.) By Archdall Reid.
Alcohol and the Human Body. (1907.) By Sir Victor Horsley and Mary D. Sturge.
Hygiene of Nerves and Mind. (The Progressive Science Series. 1907.) By August Forel.
Inebriety—Its Causation and Control. (The second Norman Kerr Memorial Lecture, published in the British Journal of Inebriety, January, 1908.) By R. Welsh Branthwaite.
Reports of the Inspector under the Inebriates Acts. Especially those for the years 1904, 1905, 1906.
The Cry of the Children: The Black Stain. (1907.) By G. R. Sims.
The above are especially recommended to politicians. Sooner or later, as never yet, knowledge will have to be applied to the drink question as it bears upon the quality of the race. The knowledge exists, and is not difficult to acquire or understand. The references given are quite sufficient to enable any one of mediocre intelligence to frame a bill dealing with alcohol which would be worth all its predecessors put together, and would arouse far less opposition than any one of them.
Reports of the National Conference on Infantile Mortality 1906 and 1908 (P. S. King & Co.). In the 1906 Report note especially Dr. Ballantyne's paper on the unborn infant, and in the 1908 Report, Miss Alice Ravenhill's paper on the education of girls.
It must be repeated that the foregoing names are merely noted as including, perhaps, the greater number of the books with which the serious beginner would do well to make a start. That is all. It would be both unfair and unwise, however, to omit any mention of at least three wonderful little books of John Ruskin's: Unto this Last, Munera Pulveris and Time and Tide, which add to their great qualities of soul and style some of the most forcible and wisest things that have ever been written on race-culture and its absolutely fundamental relation to morality, patriotism and true economics.
If the reader desires the name of only one book, that is certainly The Sexual Question (1908), by Professor August Forel. This has no rival anywhere, and cannot be overpraised.