in the other."

If it were possible to improve or eradicate these defective strains by
giving them better surroundings, the nation might easily get rid of this
burden. But we have given reasons in Chapter I for believing that the
problem can not be solved in that way, and more evidence to the same
effect will be present in other chapters of the book.

An understanding of the nature of the problem will show that present
methods of dispensing justice, giving charity, dealing with defectives
and working for social betterment need careful examination and numerous
modifications, if they are not to be ineffectual or merely palliative,
or worse still, if they are not to give temporary relief at the cost of
greatly aggravating the social disease in the end.

In the past America has given and at present still gives much thought to
the individual and little, if any, to posterity. Eugenics does not want
to diminish this regard for the individual, but it does insistently
declare that the interests of the many are greater than those of the
few, and it holds that a statesmanlike policy requires thought for the
future as well as the present. It would be hard to find a eugenist
to-day who would propose, with Plato, that the infants with bad heredity
should be put to death, but their right to grow up to the fullest
enjoyment of life does not necessarily include the right to pass on
their defective heredity to a long line of descendants, naturally
increasing in number in each generation. Indeed a regard for the
totality of human happiness makes it necessary that they should not so
continue.

While it is the hope of eugenics that fewer defective and anti-social
individuals shall be born in the future, it has been emphasized so much
that the program of eugenics is likely to be seen in false perspective.
In reality it is the less important side of the picture. More good
citizens are wanted, as well as fewer bad ones. Every race requires
leaders. These leaders appear from time to time, and enough is known
about eugenics now to show that their appearance is frequently
predictable, not accidental. It is possible to have them appear more
frequently; and in addition, to raise the level of the whole race,
making the entire nation happier and more useful. These are the great
tasks of eugenics. America needs more families like that old Puritan
strain which is one of the familiar examples of eugenics:

"At their head stands Jonathan Edwards, a