origin and
development of his conception of the science of eugenics. The
term, "eugenics," he first used in 1884, in his _Human Faculty_,
but the conception dates from 1865, and even earlier. Galton has
more recently discussed the problems of eugenics in papers read
before the Sociological Society (_Sociological Papers_, vols. i
and ii, 1905), in the Herbert Spencer Lecture on "Probability the
Foundation of Eugenics," (1907), and elsewhere. Galton's numerous
memoirs on this subject have now been published in a collected
form by the Eugenics Education Society, which was established in
1907, to further and to popularize the eugenical attitude towards
social questions; _The Eugenics Review_ is published by this
Society. On the more strictly scientific side, eugenic studies
are carried on in the Eugenics Laboratory of the University of
London, established by Sir Francis Galton, and now working in
connection with Professor Karl Pearson's biometric laboratory, in
University College. Much of Professor Pearson's statistical work
in this and allied directions, is the elaboration of ideas and
suggestions thrown out by Galton. See, e.g., Karl Pearson's
Robert Boyle Lecture, "The Scope and Importance to the State of
the Science of National Eugenics" (1907). _Biometrika_, edited by
Karl Pearson in association with other workers, contains numerous
statistical memoirs on eugenics. In Germany, the _Archiv fuer
Rassen und Gesellschafts-biologie_, and the
_Politisch-Anthropologische Revue_, are largely occupied with
various aspects of such subjects, and in America, _The Popular
Science Monthly_ from time to time, publishes articles which have
a bearing on eugenics.

At one time there was a tendency to scoff, or to laugh, at the eugenic
movement. It was regarded as an attempt to breed men as men breed animals,
and it was thought a sufficiently easy task to sweep away this new
movement with the remark that love laughs at bolts and bars. It is now
beginning to be better understood. None but fanatics dream of abolishing
love in order to effect pairing by rule. It is merely a question of
limiting the possible number of mates from whom each may select a partner,
and that, we must remember, has always been done even by savages, for, as
it has been said, "eugenics is the oldest of the sciences." The question
has merely been transformed.