|
| --- | ---- |
| (Ratio of Increase in | (Ratio of Decrease in |
| each successive | each successive Generation |
| Generation being 1.15.) | being 0.85.) |
-------------+--------------------------+----------------------------|
108 | 175 | 61 |
216 | 299 | 38 |
324 | 535 | 23 |
======================================================================

The general result is that the group B gradually disappears, and the
group A more than supplants it. Hence if the races best fitted to
occupy the land are encouraged to marry early, they will breed down
the others in a very few generations.

MARKS FOR FAMILY MERIT

It may seem very reasonable to ask how the result proposed in the
last paragraph is to be attained, and to add that the difficulty of
carrying so laudable a proposal into effect lies wholly in the
details, and therefore that until some working plan is suggested,
the consideration of improving the human race is Utopian. But this
requirement is not altogether fair, because if a persuasion of the
importance of any end takes possession of men's minds, sooner or
later means are found by which that end is carried into effect. Some
of the objections offered at first will be discovered to be
sentimental, and of no real importance--the sentiment will change
and they will disappear; others that are genuine are not met, but
are in some way turned or eluded; and lastly, through the ingenuity
of many minds directed for a long time towards the achievement of a
common purpose, many happy ideas are sure to be hit upon that would
not have occurred to a single individual.

* * * * *

This being premised, it will suffice to faintly sketch out some sort
of basis for eugenics, it being now an understanding that we are
provisionally agreed, for the sake of argument, that the improvement
of race is an object of first-class importance, and that the popular
feeling has been educated to regard it in that light.

The final object would be to devise means for favouring individuals
who bore the signs of membership of a superior race, the proximate
aim would be to ascertain what those signs were,