The Dominion. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 1911. AN ILL-ADVISED SUGGESTION.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1246, 30 September 1911, Page 6

The Dominion. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 1911. AN ILL-ADVISED SUGGESTION.

The difficult and delicate problem of racial degcneracy is at tho present timo receiving the earnest attention of statesmen, scientists, and social reformers, and there seems to be a general agreement that it is timo some steps were taken to grapple with tho evil. Very great differences of opinion arise, However, as scon as proposed remedies come up for disoussion. The issues involved aro of such tremendous importance, and so many factors must bo taken into consideration, that tho average man is inclined to ask: "Who is sufficient for these things'!" Until ho has overwhelming proof that tho euro will not prove worse than the disease, he will be more inclined to put up with the evils ho knows than to take tho risks of new and greater troubles that the so-called remedies may bring upon the community. In this matter heroic schemes of social surgery simply give rise to feelings of suspicion and alarm, and block the way of more modest and practical efforts to grapple with the evil. For this reason the true friends of raoa betterment will deplore the unwise utterances of Dr. Stevens at the recont Australasian Medical Conforoncc, in which "the Spartan idea of putting to death the feebleminded early in life" is advocated. As a matter of fact, the ancient Spartans did not aim at the elimination of tho feeble-minded; it was the feeble-bodied that they wanted to get rid of. Military efficiency was regarded as almost the whole business of life for tho Spartans, and thoy began'to mako soldiors of their children at birth. Seignobos, in his history of ancient civilisation, tells us that

the newly-born infant was brought before ;i council; if it was found delormed it was exposed on the mountain to die; for nil army has uso only lor strong men. The children who were permitted to grow up wero taken from their parents at tho age of seven years, and wero trained together as members of a group. liotli riummer and winter they went barefoot, and ltad but a singles mantle. They lav on heaps of reeds and bathed in the cold w«vjer,s of tho Eurotas. They ate little and that quickly, and had a rudo diet. Often they had to contend together ,vith blows of feet and fist.s. At the least cf Artemis they were beaten before tio rtatua of the geddess till the blood llowcd; sonio died under tho ordeal, but their honour required them not to weep'. They wero taught to fig'ht and suffer.

This method of discipline might have been all very well for a people whoso sole ideal was to turn out efficient soldiers, but such an outlook on life is a very narrow and brutalising one, and certainly not worthy of a great civiliscd modern nation. In any case military efficiency was not able to save Sparta, any more than the other Greek States, when the Romans camo. Grecce had becomc exhausted by civil wars between rich and poor; many citizcns were massacred, and the great host of exiles, knowing no trade but war, entered as mercenaries into the army of any nation that would employ them. Not seldom they fought against their own country. In this way the cities lost their people, anc) at the' same time the families becamo smaller, many men preferring not to marry or raiso children, and others having but one or two. Thus in the course of time there_ were not enough men to resist the invader. All this goes to show that bodily vigour and military cflicicncy arc not the only factors in the making of a nation. The rise and fall of States is due just as much, if not more, to moral and mental causes, as to mere physical fitness for the business of war.

When Dr. Stevens goes 011 to state that "the question resolved itself into the survival of the fittest," lie seems to tako a rather superficial view of this often-quoted and muchmisunderstood scientific formula. The survival of the fittest does not necessarily mean the survival of the host, hut merely of those best able to adapt themselves to their environment, The old gladiatorial conccp.-

tion of Nature is now being abandoned, and leading modern scientists declare that there is another side to the picture, namely, "a recognition of the love of mates, parental sacrifice, filial affection, the kindliness of kindred, gregariousness, sociality, co-opcralion, mutual aid, and altruism generally." The business of life, we are told, includes care for others as well as for self. "Self-sacrifico' is no less primordial than self-preservation." If these things arc true of life as a whole, how much more must they bo true of humanity? One of the very latest declarations from the standpoint of scienco on this subject is that made by Professors J. A. Thomson and Patrick Geddes in their book on Evolution, aud it bears directly upon the matter under consideration. They state:

Huxley's tragic vision of Nature as a gladiatorial show, and consequently ethical life and progress as merely superposed by man, and therefore an 'interference with tho normal order of Nature, is still far too dominant among us. It threatens even to-day to conl'uso the nascent science, and still more to wreck tho incipient art, of Eugenics; in fact to encourago and defend that massacro of tho innocents which is expressed in tho deathrate of ever}' community, and to extend this to a oorre-sponding view of legislation and government. Here, in fact, is opening tho greatest practical controversy ot our science, in comparison to which all others have been but academic —that ultimately between tlie llerodian and the Majian view of the treatment of tho child.

Herod, it will bo remembered, wanted to kill the Child, while the Magi came to worship Him. But the Magian attitude to life does not imply that things should be allowed to drift, and that nothing should be dono to arrest the evils of degeneracy. As Professors Thomson and Geddes state, Draconian harshness and shallow philanthrophy aro but rival cruelties, and to determine tho ideal goal and true process of selection for our own species is the great problem which evolutionists have to solvo. As regards Dr. Stevens's suggestion that the best proccss is to put to death tho feeble-minded early in life, one is reminded of Nietzsche's saying that it would be a kindness to suppress a good many of us, and also of the inexpressibly sad end of the career of this great German philosopher, whose mind collapsed before he died, his last written words being: "To-day I will certainly take such a quantity [of narcotic] as will drive me out of my mind." It is one thing, as Professor Thomson states, "to discourago in every possiblo way the breeding of weaklings by weaklings; it is another thing to look a fellow creature in tho eyes and say, 'You must die.' Remove the woakiings, forsooth! Bead over the roll of them first; might they not say, 'Yet we are the movers and shakers of tho world for ever, it seems' 1 Tho biologist distrusts social surgery because of his ignorance; the sociologist rejects it because the thought of it makes the foundations of society tremble, and because the social ideal of good citizens is wider than the ideal of good physique; and the practical man will not hear of it because he knows it is not in us to practise it." Tho worst feature of the advocacy of these ill-advised heroic cures for stopping race deterioration is that they tend to discredit wiser and more practicable suggestions. In this way suspicion and distrust aro aroused in tho public mind and an almost insurmountable barrier is raised to any reform whatever, the result being that the evil, though recognised by all thoughtful people, is allowed ;to-pur-sue its course unchecked.