Abstract
IN his Galton Lecture, Dr. C. G. Darwin discussed a positive eugenic policy (Eugenical News, 31, No. 1). He pointed out that a eugenic policy could only exist under conditions of civilization. In centuries up to the nineteenth, populations were stationary or increased but slowly. Then wages began to rise or the price of wheat went down, and with it tho mortality rates in infancy and adulthood. It was no longer essential to have a certain level of intelligence in order to stay alive. Natural selection ceases to operate in civilization, and the things on which surpluses shall be spent are determined by advertisements. The relative absence of natural selection inevitably leads to degeneration unless eugenic selection can take its place. As regards negative eugenics, the propagation of mental weakness is much more serious than the transmission of a bodily weakness with a high intellect. As regards positive eugenics, we need not wait for full knowledge of the human genetic constitution, to construct human beings as an engineer constructs a bridge. Quite enough is already known with reasonable probability for immediate eugenic action. Bohr's principle of complementarity, implying a mutual effect of subject and object, comes in here. The need is urgent for a simple national eugenic policy which will induce the better endowed to have larger families, and history will not spare us if we do not set to work at once to carry it out.
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Positive Eugenic Policy. Nature 144, 67 (1939). https://doi.org/10.1038/144067c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/144067c0