the production of the record at marriage, and no opportunity for fraud.
The _dossier_ of each person might well be registered by the State, as
wills already are, and, as in the case of wills, become freely open to
students when a century had elapsed. Until this has been done during
several centuries our knowledge of eugenics will remain rudimentary.

There can be little doubt that the eugenic attitude towards
marriage, and the responsibility of the individual for the future
of the race, is becoming more recognized. It is constantly
happening that persons, about to marry, approach the physician in
a state of serious anxiety on this point. Urquhart, indeed
(_Journal of Mental Science_, April, 1907, p. 277), believes that
marriages are seldom broken off on this ground; this seems,
however, too pessimistic a view, and even when the marriage is
not broken off the resolve is often made to avoid procreation.
Clouston, who emphasizes (_Hygiene of the Mind_, p. 74) the
importance of "inquiries by each of the parties to the
life-contract, by their parents and their doctors, as to
heredity, temperament, and health," is more hopeful of the
results than Urquhart. "I have been very much impressed, of late
years," he writes (_Journal of Mental Science_, Oct., 1907, p.
710), "with the way in which this subject is taking possession of
intelligent people, by the number of times one is consulted by
young men and young women, proposing to marry, or by their
fathers or mothers. I used to have the feeling in the back of my
mind, when I was consulted, that it did not matter what I said,
it would not make any difference. But it is making a difference;
and I, and others, could tell of scores of marriages which were
put off in consequence of psychiatric medical advice."

Ellen Key, also, refers to the growing tendency among both men
and women, to be influenced by eugenic consideration in forming
partnerships for life (_Century of the Child_, Ch. I). The
recognition of the eugenic attitude towards marriage, the
quickening of the social and individual conscience in matters of
heredity, as also the systematic introduction of certification
and registration, will be furthered by the growing tendency to
the socialization of medicine, and, indeed, in its absence would
be impossible. (See e.g., Havelock Ellis, _The Nationaliz