The limits of eugenics / by Albert Galloway Keller.

  • Keller, Albert Galloway, 1874-1956.
Date:
[1910?]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The limits of eugenics / by Albert Galloway Keller. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    this expression is, in reality, that feeling—sentiment—apart from intellect shall be enlisted in the establishment of eugenics; that some sort of motive beyond and above reason, be it fear or what not, must sanction what has been celebrated out in the threshing-over of the new idea, before the latter can become a reality.1 In this latter proposition is the heart of the whole matter of popularization, for we might well say that if eugenics can be lent the sanction of religion, or a sanction comparable in weight to that of religion, it is sure to prevail; but that if, on the other hand, it must take recourse to rational sanction alone, it is sure not to prevail, at least for long ages, except among very limited groups and classes. Here is a question whose clarification plainly falls to the student of human societies and of their evolu¬ tion; and since this is the vital issue, within it must lie all the serious “limits of eugenics”—which is the specific subject be¬ fore us. Our first concern must be to develop the implications of that phrase, “into the national conscience like a new religion,” and this carries us back at once into general principles of social evo¬ lution, and of the science of society. I do not know how the phil¬ osophers define “conscience” or would define “national con¬ science,” nor do I care; what Galton has in mind in the use of the phrase is perfectly plain. To show that there has been some control of sex-passion in the activity of what he might call “tribal conscience”—which he evidently regards as at least the germ of his “national conscience”—he cites, chiefly from primitive life, a series of instances: for example, monogamy, taboo, prohibited degrees, celibacy. He is entirely correct in stating that these are cases of almost absolute control of one of the strongest, and on many occasions, by far the most powerful of human passions; and what is more to his point, here are cases of control of the very passion which the eugenists are most bent upon controlling. Incestuous union, for example, is regarded by many peoples with a horror that precludes the thought of 1 Most of the above paragraph is taken from an article by the author on “Eugenics, The Science of Rearing Human Thoroughbreds,” in the Yale Review for August, 1908, pp.127-155.