The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 Part 9

SALVIATUS: I infer that the earth is not the centre of the planetary revolutions because the planets are at different times at very different distances from the earth. For instance, Venus, when it is farthest off, is six times more remote from us than when it is nearest, and Mars rises almost eight times as high at one time as at another.

SIMPLICIUS: And what are the signs that the planets revolve round the sun as centre?

SALVIATUS: We find that the three superior planets--Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn--are always nearest to the earth when they are in opposition to the sun, and always farthest off when they are in conjunction; and so great is this approximation and recession that Mars, when near, appears very nearly sixty times greater than when remote. Venus and Mercury also certainly revolve round the sun, since they never move far from it, and appear now above and now below it.

SAGREDUS: I expect that more wonderful things depend on the annual revolution than upon the diurnal rotation of the earth.

SALVIATUS: YOU do not err therein. The effect of the diurnal rotation of the earth is to make the universe seem to rotate in the opposite direction; but the annual motion complicates the particular motions of all the planets. But to return to my proposition. I affirm that the centre of the celestial convolutions of the five planets--Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, and Mercury, and likewise of the earth--is the sun.

As for the moon, it goes round the earth, and yet does not cease to go round the sun with the earth. It being true, then, that the five planets do move about the sun as a centre, rest seems with so much more reason to belong to the said sun than to the earth, inasmuch as in a movable sphere it is more reasonable that the centre stand still than any place remote from the centre.

To the earth, therefore, may a yearly revolution be a.s.signed, leaving the sun at rest. And if that be so, it follows that the diurnal motion likewise belongs to the earth; for if the sun stood still and the earth did not rotate, the year would consist of six months of day and six months of night. You may consider, likewise, how, in conformity with this scheme, the precipitate motion of twenty-four hours is taken away from the universe; and how the fixed stars, which are so many suns, are made, like our sun, to enjoy perpetual rest.

SAGREDUS: The scheme is simple and satisfactory; but, tell me, how is it that Pythagoras and Copernicus, who first brought it forward, could make so few converts?

SALVIATUS: If you know what frivolous reasons serve to make the vulgar, contumacious and indisposed to hearken, you would not wonder at the paucity of converts. The number of thick skulls is infinite, and we need neither record their follies nor endeavour to interest them in subtle and sublime ideas. No demonstrations can enlighten stupid brains.

My wonder, Sagredus, is different from yours. You wonder that so few are believers in the Pythagorean hypothesis; I wonder that there are any to embrace it. Nor can I sufficiently admire the super-eminence of those men's wits that have received and held it to be true, and with the sprightliness of their judgments have offered such violence to their senses that they have been able to prefer that which their reason a.s.serted to that which sensible experience manifested. I cannot find any bounds for my admiration how that reason was able, in Aristarchus and Copernicus, to commit such a rape upon their senses, as in despite thereof to make herself mistress of their credulity.

SAGREDUS: Will there still be strong opposition to the Copernican system?

SALVIATUS: Undoubtedly; for there are evident and sensible facts to oppose it, requiring a sense more sublime than the common and vulgar senses to a.s.sist reason.

SAGREDUS: Let us, then, join battle with those antagonistic facts.

SALVIATUS: I am ready. In the first place, Mars himself charges hotly against the truth of the Copernican system. According to the Copernican system, that planet should appear sixty times as large when at its nearest as when at its farthest; but this diversity of magnitude is not to be seen. The same difficulty is seen in the case of Venus. Further, if Venus be dark, and shine only with reflected light, like the moon, it should show lunar phases; but these do not appear.

Further, again, the moon prevents the whole order of the Copernican system by revolving round the earth instead of round the sun. And there are other serious and curious difficulties admitted by Copernicus himself. But even the three great difficulties I have named are not real. As a matter of fact, Mars and Venus do vary in magnitude as required by theory, and Venus does change its shape exactly like the moon.

SAGREDUS: But how came this to be concealed from Copernicus and revealed to you?

SIR FRANCIS GALTON

Essays in Eugenics

Sir Francis Galton, born at Birmingham, England, in 1822, was a grandson of Dr. Erasmus Darwin. He graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1844. Galton travelled in the north of Africa, on the White Nile and in the western portion of South Africa between 1844 and 1850. Like his immortal cousin, Charles Darwin, Sir Francis Galton is a striking instance of a man of great and splendid inheritance, who, also inheriting wealth, devotes it and his powers to the cause of humanity. He published several books on heredity, the first of which was "Hereditary Genius." The next "Inquiries into Human Faculty," which was followed by "Natural Inheritance."

The "Essays in Eugenics" include all the most recent work of Sir Francis Galton since his return to the subject of eugenics in 1901.

This volume has just been published by the Eugenics Education Society, of which Sir Francis Galton is the honorary president. As epitomised for this work, the "Essays" have been made to include a still later study by the author, which will be included in future editions of the book. The epitome has been prepared by special permission of the Eugenics Education Society, and those responsible hope that it will serve in some measure to neutralise the outrageous, gross, and often wilful misrepresentations of eugenics of which many popular writers are guilty.

_I.--The Aims and Methods of Eugenics_

The following essays help to show something of the progress of eugenics during the last few years, and to explain my own views upon its aims and methods, which often have been, and still sometimes are, absurdly misrepresented. The practice of eugenics has already obtained a considerable hold on popular estimation, and is steadily acquiring the status of a practical question, and not that of a mere vision in Utopia.

The power by which eugenic reform must chiefly be effected is that of public opinion, which is amply strong enough for that purpose whenever it shall be roused. Public opinion has done as much as this on many past occasions and in various countries, of which much evidence is given in the essay on restrictions in marriage. It is now ordering our acts more intimately than we are apt to suspect, because the dictates of public opinion become so thoroughly a.s.similated that they seem to be the original and individual to those who are guided by them. By comparing the current ideas at widely different epochs and under widely different civilisations, we are able to ascertain what part of our convictions is really innate and permanent, and what part has been acquired and is transient.

It is, above all things, needful for the successful progress of eugenics that its advocates should move discreetly and claim no more efficacy on its behalf than the future will justify; otherwise a reaction will be justified. A great deal of investigation is still needed to show the limit of practical eugenics, yet enough has been already determined to justify large efforts being made to instruct the public in an authoritative way, with the results. .h.i.therto obtained by sound reasoning, applied to the undoubted facts of social experience.

The word "eugenics" was coined and used by me in my book "Human Faculty," published as long ago as 1883. In it I emphasised the essential brotherhood of mankind, heredity being to my mind a very real thing; also the belief that we are born to act, and not to wait for help like able-bodied idlers, whining for doles. Individuals appear to me as finite detachments from an infinite ocean of being, temporarily endowed with executive powers. This is the only answer I can give to myself in reply to the perpetually recurring questions of "why? whence? and whither?" The immediate "whither?" does not seem wholly dark, as some little information may be gleaned concerning the direction in which Nature, so far as we know of it, is now moving--namely, towards the evolution of mind, body, and character in increasing energy and co-adaptation.

The ideas have long held my fancy that we men may be the chief, and perhaps the only executives on earth; that we are detached on active service with, it may be only illusory, powers of free-will. Also that we are in some way accountable for our success or failure to further certain obscure ends, to be guessed as best we can; that though our instructions are obscure they are sufficiently clear to justify our interference with the pitiless course of Nature whenever it seems possible to attain the goal towards which it moves by gentler and kindlier ways.

There are many questions which must be studied if we are to be guided aright towards the possible improvement of mankind under the existing conditions of law and sentiment. We must study human variety, and the distribution of qualities in a nation. We must compare the cla.s.sification of a population according to social status with the cla.s.sification which we would make purely in terms of natural quality.

We must study with the utmost care the descent of qualities in a population, and the consequences of that marked tendency to marriage within the cla.s.s which distinguishes all cla.s.ses. Something is to be learnt from the results of examinations in universities and colleges.

It is desirable to study the degree of correspondence that may exist between promise in youth, as shown in examinations, and subsequent performance. Let me add that I think the neglect of this inquiry by the vast army of highly educated persons who are connected with the present huge system of compet.i.tive examination to be gross and unpardonable.

Until this problem is solved we cannot possibly estimate the value of the present elaborate system of examinations.

_II.--Restrictions in Marriage_

It is necessary to meet an objection that has been repeatedly urged against the possible adoption of any system of eugenics, namely, that human nature would never brook interference with the freedom of marriage. But the question is how far have marriage restrictions proved effective when sanctified by the religion of the time, by custom, and by law. I appeal from armchair criticism to historical facts. It will be found that, with scant exceptions, marriage customs are based on social expediency and not on natural instincts. This we learn when we study the fact of monogamy, and the severe prohibition of polygamy, in many times and places, due not to any natural instinct against the practice, but to consideration of the social well-being. We find the same when we study endogamy, exogamy, Australian marriages, and the control of marriage by taboo.

The inst.i.tution of marriage, as now sanctified by religion and safeguarded by law in the more highly civilised nations, may not be ideally perfect, nor may it be universally accepted in future times, but it is the best that has. .h.i.therto been devised for the parties primarily concerned, for their children, for home life, and for society. The degree of kinship within which marriage is prohibited is, with one exception, quite in accordance with modern sentiment, the exception being the disallowal of marriage with the sister of a deceased wife, the propriety of which is greatly disputed and need not be discussed here.

The marriage of a brother and sister would excite a feeling of loathing among us that seems implanted by nature, but which, further inquiry will show, has mainly arisen from tradition and custom.

The evidence proves that there is no instinctive repugnance felt universally by man to marriage within the prohibited degrees, but that its present strength is mainly due to what I may call immaterial considerations. It is quite conceivable that a non-eugenic marriage should hereafter excite no less loathing than that of a brother and sister would do now.

The dictates of religion in respect to the opposite duties of leading celibate lives, and of continuing families, have been contradictory. In many nations it is and has been considered a disgrace to bear no children, and in other nations celibacy has been raised to the rank of a virtue of the highest order. During the fifty or so generations that have elapsed since the establishment of Christianity, the nunneries and monasteries, and the celibate lives of Catholic priests, have had vast social effects, how far for good and how far for evil need not be discussed here. The point I wish to enforce is the potency, not only of the religious sense in aiding or deterring marriage, but more especially the influence and authority of ministers of religion in enforcing celibacy. They have notoriously used it when aid has been invoked by members of the family on grounds that are not religious at all, but merely of family expediency. Thus at some times and in some Christian nations, every girl who did not marry while still young was practically compelled to enter a nunnery, from which escape was afterwards impossible.

It is easy to let the imagination run wild on the supposition of a whole-hearted acceptance of eugenics as a national religion; that is, of the thorough conviction by a nation that no worthier object exists for man than the improvement of his own race, and when efforts as great as those by which nunneries and monasteries were endowed and maintained should be directed to fulfil an opposite purpose. I will not enter further into this. Suffice it to say, that the history of conventual life affords abundant evidence on a very large scale of the power of religious authority in directing and withstanding the tendencies of human nature towards freedom in marriage.

Seven different forms of marriage restriction may be cited to show what is possible. They are monogamy, endogamy, exogamy, Australian marriages, taboo, prohibited degrees, and celibacy. It can be shown under each of these heads how powerful are the various combinations of immaterial motives upon marriage selection, how they may all become hallowed by religion, accepted as custom, and enforced by law. Persons who are born under their various rules live under them without any objection. They are unconscious of their restrictions, as we are unaware of the tension of the atmosphere. The subservience of civilised races to their several religious superst.i.tions, customs, authority, and the rest, is frequently as abject as that of barbarians.

The same cla.s.ses of motives that direct other races direct ours; so a knowledge of their customs helps us to realise the wide range of what we may ourselves hereafter adopt, for reasons as satisfactory to us in those future times, as theirs are or were to them at the time when they prevailed.

_III.--Eugenic Qualities of Primary Importance_

The following is offered as a contribution to the art of justly appraising the eugenic values of different qualities. It may fairly be a.s.sumed that the presence of certain inborn traits is requisite before a claim to eugenic rank can be justified, because these qualities are needed to bring out the full values of such special faculties as broadly distinguish philosophers, artists, financiers, soldiers, and other representative cla.s.ses. The method adopted for discovering the qualities in question is to consider groups of individuals, and to compare the qualities that distinguish such groups as flourish or prosper from others of the same kind that decline or decay. This method has the advantage of giving results more free from the possibility of bias than those derived from examples of individual cases.

In what follows I shall use the word "community" in its widest sense, as including any group of persons who are connected by a common interest--families, schools, clubs, sects, munic.i.p.alities, nations, and all intermediate social units. Whatever qualities increase the prosperity of most or every one of these, will, as I hold, deserve a place in the first rank of eugenic importance.

Most of us have experience, either by direct observation or through historical reading, of the working of several communities, and are capable of forming a correct picture in our minds of the salient characteristics of those that, on the one hand, are eminently prosperous, and of those that, on the other hand, are as eminently decadent. I have little doubt that the reader will agree with me that the members of prospering communities are, as a rule, conspicuously strenuous, and that those of decaying or decadent ones are conspicuously slack. A prosperous community is distinguished by the alertness of its members, by their busy occupations, by their taking pleasure in their work, by their doing it thoroughly, and by an honest pride in their community as a whole. The members of a decaying community are, for the most part, languid and indolent; their very gestures are dawdling and slouching, the opposite of smart. They shirk work when they can do so, and scamp what they undertake. A prosperous community is remarkable for the variety of the solid interests in which some or other of its members are eagerly engaged, but the questions that agitate a decadent community are for the most part of a frivolous order.

Prosperous communities are also notable for enjoyment of life; for though their members must work hard in order to procure the necessary luxuries of an advanced civilisation, they are endowed with so large a store of energy that, when their daily toil is over, enough of it remains unexpended to allow them to pursue their special hobbies during the remainder of the day. In a decadent community the men tire easily, and soon sink into drudgery; there is consequently much languor among them, and little enjoyment of life.

I have studied the causes of civic prosperity in various directions and from many points of view, and the conclusion at which I have arrived is emphatic, namely, that chief among those causes is a large capacity for labour--mental, bodily, or both--combined with eagerness for work. The course of evolution in animals shows that this view is correct in general. The huge lizards, incapable of rapid action, unless it be brief in duration and a.s.sociated with long terms of repose, have been supplanted by birds and mammals possessed of powers of long endurance.

These latter are so const.i.tuted as to require work, becoming restless and suffering in health when precluded from exertion.

We must not, however, overlook the fact that the influence of circ.u.mstance on a community is a powerful factor in raising its tone. A cause that catches the popular feeling will often rouse a potentially capable nation from apathy into action. A good officer, backed by adequate supplies of food and with funds for the regular payment of his troops, will change a regiment even of ill-developed louts and hooligans into a fairly smart and well-disciplined corps. But with better material as a foundation, the influence of a favourable environment is correspondingly increased, and is less liable to impairment whenever the environment changes and becomes less propitious. Hence, it follows that a sound mind and body, enlightened, I should add, with an intelligence above the average, and combined with a natural capacity and zeal for work, are essential elements in eugenics. For however famous a man may become in other respects, he cannot, I think, be justly termed eugenic if deficient in the qualities I have just named.

Eugenists justly claim to be true philanthropists, or lovers of mankind, and should bestir themselves in their special province as eagerly as the philanthropists, in the current and very restricted meaning of that word, have done in theirs. They should interest themselves in such families of civic worth as they come across, especially in those that are large, making friends both with the parents and the children, and showing themselves disposed to help to a reasonable degree, as opportunity may offer, whenever help is really needful. They should compare their own notes with those of others who are similarly engaged.

They should regard such families as an eager horticulturist regards beds of seedlings of some rare variety of plant, but with an enthusiasm of a far more patriotic kind. For, since it has been shown that about 10 per cent. of the individuals born in one generation provide half the next generation, large families that are also eugenic may prove of primary importance to the nation and become its most valuable a.s.set.