velop a
permanent trust to maintain, educate and send out all their children
into the world, a trust to which their childless friends and associates
could contribute by gift and bequest, and to which the irregular good
fortune that is not uncommon in the careers of these exceptional types
could be devoted. I do not mean any sort of charity but an enlarged
family basis.
Such an idea passes very readily into the form of a Eugenic association.
It would be quite possible and very interesting for prosperous people
interested in Eugenics to create a trust for the offspring of a selected
band of beneficiaries, and with increasing resources to admit new
members and so build up within the present social system a special
strain of chosen people. So far people with eugenic ideas and people
with conceptions of associated and consolidated families have been too
various and too dispersed for such associations to be practicable, but
as such views of life become more common, the chance of a number of
sufficiently homogeneous and congenial people working out the method of
such a grouping increases steadily.
Moreover, I can imagine no reason to prevent any women who are in
agreement with the moral standards of the "Woman who Did" (standards I
will not discuss at this present point but defer for a later section)
combining for mutual protection and social support and the welfare of
such children as they may bear. Then certainly, to the extent that
this succeeds, the objections that arise from the evil effects upon the
children of social isolation disappear. This isolation would be at worst
a group isolation, and there can be no doubt that my friend is right
in pointing out that there is much more social toleration for an act
committed under the sanction of a group than for an isolated act that
may be merely impulsive misbehaviour masquerading as high principle.
It seems to me remarkable that, to the best of my knowledge, so
obvious a form of combination has never yet been put in practice. It
is remarkable but not inexplicable. The first people to develop novel
ideas, more particularly of this type, are usually people in isolated
circumstances and temperamentally incapable of disciplined cooperation.
3.11. OF AN ORGANIZED BROTHERHOOD.
The idea of organizing the progressive elements in the social chaos into
a regular developing force is one that has had a great attraction
for me. I have written upon it elsewhere, and I make
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