Eugenics and the future progress of man / by A.F. Tredgold.

  • Tredgold, A. F. (Alfred Frank), 1870-1952.
Date:
[1911]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Eugenics and the future progress of man / by A.F. Tredgold. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    be debarred from propagation. There is great need for further systematic enquiry, and especially for the careful compilation of family histories. Until this is done, and until a definite clinical type has been clearly associated with morbid heredity and germinal impairment, no wholesale application of the principles of Eugenics is possible. The point I wish to emphasise, how¬ ever, is that the Eugenist is not concerned with actual qualities but with the seed of which these qualities are the expression. It is the good seed which he desires to select, and the bad seed which he wishes to reject. Coming now to the question of Constructive Eugenics, it is obvious that the chief instruments must be the force of public opinion and the education of the people regarding their duty to posterity. It is not every person who knows anything about his ancestry, but there are thousands of persons who do, and who know that they are the descendants of sound, healthy stock. It is little short of high treason for these persons to deliberately refrain, as so many of them are doing, from the propagation of their kind. But they must take care that their partners are equally sound. There is no more precious heritage than that of “ fitness,” and no possession more worthy of being passed on unsullied to another generation. With regard to the fit amongst the working classes, it has to be admitted that the coat is often limited by the cloth available—that the means do not admit of more than a small family. It should be the duty of the state to redress this grievance, and to encourage, not discourage, their propagation. I believe that if a tithe of the money which now goes to support the unfit members of the community were directed towards the encouragement and betterment of the fit, one great cause of impending national disaster would be removed. There is another present-day condition tending to restrict the propagation of the fit to which I must allude. It is far from my desire to enter into any discussion as to the rights or wrongs of woman suffrage, but it is impossible to avoid seeing that a great change has taken place in the ideals of many of the most capable and most fit women of the present time. From the biological aspect, which in my opinion is the fundamental one, and the only one with which I am concerned, the chief mission