Philosophy

"Pick out any trait you want in your child... By surrounding this child with sunshine from the sky and your own heart, by giving the closest communion with nature, by feeding this child well-balanced, nutritious food, by giving it all that is implied in healthful environmental influences, and by doing all in love, you can thus cultivate in the child and fix there for all its life all of these traits."

"There is not a single desirable attribute which, lacking in a plant, may not be bred into it. Choose what improvement you wish in a flower, a fruit, or a tree, and by crossing, selection, cultivation, and persistence you can fix this desirable trait irrevocably."

"Do not be cross with the child; you cannot afford it. If you are cultivating a plant, developing it into something finer and nobler, you must love it, not hate it; be gentle with it, not abusive; be firm, never harsh. I give the plants upon which I am at work in a test, whether a single one or a hundred thousand, the best possible environment. So should it be with a child, if you want to develop it in right ways. Let the children have music, let them have pictures, let them have laughter, let them have a good time; not an idle time but one full of cheerful occupation. Surround them with all the beautiful things you can. Plants should be given sun and air and the blue sky; give them to your boys and girls. ...for all the years. We cannot treat a plant tenderly one day and harshly the next; they cannot stand it. Remember that you are training not only for to-day, but for all the future, for all posterity."

"Look at the material on which to draw. Here is the North, powerful, virile, aggressive, blended with the luxurious, ease-loving, more impetuous South. Again you have the merging of a cold phlegmatic temperament with one mercurial and volatile. Still again the union of great native mental strength, developed or undeveloped, with bodily vigor, but with inferior mind. See, too, what a vast number of environmental influences have been at work in social relations, in climate, in physical surroundings. Along with this we must observe the merging of the vicious with the good, the good with the good, the vicious with the vicious."

"Let me lay emphasis on the opportunity now presented in the United States for observing and, if we are wise, aiding in what I think it fair to say is the grandest opportunity ever presented of developing the finest race the world has ever known out of the vast mingling of races brought here by immigration."

"The mere crossing of species, unaccompanied by selection, wise supervision, intelligent care, and the utmost patience, is not likely to result in marked good, and may result in vast harm. Unorganized effort is often most vicious in its tendencies."

"During the course of many years of investigation into the plant life of the world, creating new forms, modifying old ones, adapting others to new conditions, and blending still others, I have constantly been impressed with the similarity between the organization and development of plant and human life."

"[T]his work is not written to gain a public, but piam memoriam prodere conditoris nostri and is intended especially for those who have known and loved Francis Galton in the past, or who may in the future desire to understand and honour him."

"[T]his work... is intended fundamentally as a permanent memorial to the Founder of the , and embraces material which may easily perish or be ultimately lost sight of. ...My object is... to issue a volume to some extent worthy of the name of the man it bears,—which may be studied hereafter by those who wish to understand him, his origin and his aims..."

"Those who know the real history of the one occasion on which Galton and Darwin disagreed know how loyal Galton was to Darwin—loyal with a loyalty far rarer to-day. Galton would not have wished me to put him in the same rank as his master, but the reader who follows my story to the end may possibly see that the ramifications of Galton's methods are producing a renascence in innumerable branches of science..."

"If my view be correct, Erasmus Darwin planted the seed of suggestion in questioning whether adaptation meant no more to man than illustration of creative ingenuity; the one grandson, Charles Darwin, collected the facts which had to be dealt with and linked them together by wide-reaching hypotheses; the other grandson, Francis Galton, provided the methods by which they could be tested..."

"[I]t was soon clear to me that I was collecting as much information bearing on the family history of Charles Darwin as on that of Francis Galton. It seemed desirable to place the two men to some extent in contrast in my volume, showing in ancestry, in methods of work and in outlook on life what they had in common and how they differed."

"It was only the feeling that, at least in one or two aspects of Francis Galton's later life and of his scientific work, I could perhaps put his contributions to human knowledge more adequately than possibly one or another who might take up the task, if I resigned it, and who would hardly grasp the bearing of that long and intimate scientific correspondence between Galton, Weldon and myself, that I persevered in my endeavour to give some account of a life, wherein an important chapter of personal development must remain largely unrecorded."

"A collection of living magnates in various branches of intellectual achievement is always a feast to my eyes; being, as they are, such massive, vigorous, capable-looking animals."

"The best form of civilization in respect to the improvement of the race, would be one in which society was not costly; where incomes were chiefly derived from professional sources, and not much through inheritance; where every lad had a chance of showing his abilities, and, if highly gifted, was enabled to achieve a first-class education and entrance into professional life, by the liberal help of the exhibitions and scholarships which he had gained in his early youth; where marriage was held in as high honour as in ancient Jewish times; where the pride of race was encouraged (of course I do not refer to the nonsensical sentiment of the present day, that goes under that name); where the weak could find a welcome and a refuge in celibate monasteries or sisterhoods, and lastly, where the better sort of emigrants and refugees from other lands were invited and welcomed, and their descendants naturalized."

"The long period of the dark ages... is due... in a very considerable degree, to the celebacy enjoined by religious orders on their votaries. Whenever a man or woman was possessed of a gentle nature that fitted... deeds of charity, to meditation, to literature, or to art... they had no refuge elsewhere than in the bosom of the Church. ...celibacy. ...thus, by a policy so singularly unwise and suicidal... the Church brutalized the breed of our forefathers. ...as if she had aimed at selecting the rudest portion of the community to be alone the parents of future generations. She practised the arts which breeders would use, who aimed at creating ferocious, currish, and stupid natures. ... The policy of the religious world in Europe... by means of persecutions... brought thousands of the foremost thinkers and men of political aptitudes to the scaffold, or imprisoned them during a large part of their manhood, or drove them as emigrants into other lands. ...Hence the Church, having first captured all the gentle natures and condemned them to celibacy, made another sweep of her huge nets ...to catch those who were the most fearless, truth-seeking, and intelligent ...and therefore the most suitable parents of a high civilization, and put a strong check, if not a direct stop, to their progeny. Those she reserved... to breed the generations of the future, were the servile, the indifferent, and again, the stupid. Thus, as she... brutalized human nature by her system of celibacy applied to the gentle, she demoralised it by her system of persecution of the intelligent, the sincere, and the free."

"I have no patience with the hypothesis occasionally expressed, and often implied, especially in tales written to teach children to be good, that babies are born pretty much alike, and that the sole agencies in creating differences between boy and boy, and man and man, are steady application and moral effort. It is in the most unqualified manner that I object to pretensions of natural equality. The experiences of the nursery, the school, the University, and of professional careers, are a chain of proofs to the contrary."

"Man must remake himself. And he cannot remake himself without suffering. For he is both the marble and the sculptor."

"The democratic creed does not take account of the constitution of our body and of our consciousness. It does not apply to the concrete fact which the individual is. Indeed, human beings are equal. But individuals are not. The equality of their right is an illusion. The feeble-minded and the man of genius should not be equal before the law. The stupid, the unintelligent, those who are dispersed, incapable of attention, of effort, have no right to a higher education. It is absurd to give them the same electoral power as the fully developed individuals. Sexes are not equal. To disregard all their inequalities is dangerous. The democratic principle has contributed to the collapse of civilization in opposing the development of an elite."

"The existence of finality within the organism is undeniable. Each part seems to know the present and future needs of the whole, and acts accordingly. The significance of time and space is not the same for our tissues as for our mind. The body perceives the remote as well as the near, the future as well as the present."

"The German government has taken energetic measures against the propagation of the defective, the mentally diseased, and the criminal. The ideal solution would be the suppression of each of these individuals as soon as he has proven himself to be dangerous."

"L'intelligence est presque inutile à celui qui ne possède qu'elle."

"[T]he conditioning of petty criminals with the whip, or some more scientific procedure, followed by a short stay in hospital, would probably suffice to insure order. Those who have murdered, robbed while armed with automatic pistol or machine gun, kidnapped children, despoiled the poor of their savings, misled the public in important matters, should be humanely and economically disposed of in small euthanasic institutions supplied with proper gasses. A similar treatment could be advantageously applied to the insane, guilty of criminal acts."

"The progress of the strong depends on the conditions of their development and the possibility left to parents of transmitting to their offspring the qualities which they have acquired in the course of their existence. Modern society must, therefore, allow to all a certain stability of life, a home, a garden, some friends. Children must be reared in contact with things which are the expression of the mind of their parents. It is imperative to stop the transformation of the farmer, the artisan, the artist, the professor, and the man of science into manual or intellectual proletarians, possessing nothing but their hands or their brains. The development of this proletariat will be the everlasting shame of industrial civilization. It has contributed to the disappearance of the family as a social unit, and to the weakening of intelligence and moral sense. It is destroying the remains of culture. All forms of the proletariat must be suppressed. Each individual should have the security and the stability required for the foundation of a family. Marriage must cease being only a temporary union. The union of man and woman, like that of the higher anthropoids, ought to last at least until the young have no further need of protection. The laws relating to education, and especially to that of girls, to marriage, and divorce should, above all, take into account the interest of children. Women should receive a higher education, not in order to become doctors, lawyers, or professors, but to rear their offspring to be valuable human beings. The free practice of eugenics could lead not only to the development of stronger individuals, but also of strains endowed with more endurance, intelligence, and courage. These strains should constitute an aristocracy, from which great men would probably appear. Modern society must promote, by all possible means, the formation of better human stock. No financial or moral rewards should be too great for those who, through the wisdom of their marriage, would engender geniuses. The complexity of our civilization is immense. No one can master all its mechanisms. However, these mechanisms have to be mastered. There is need today of men of larger mental and moral size, capable of accomplishing such a task. The establishment of a hereditary biological aristocracy through voluntary eugenics would be an important step toward the solution of our present problems."

"We have mentioned that natural selection has not played its part for a long while. That many inferior individuals have been conserved through the efforts of hygiene and medicine. But we cannot prevent the reproduction of the weak when they are neither insane nor criminal. Or destroy sickly or defective children as we do the weaklings in a litter of puppies. The only way to obviate the disastrous predominance of the weak is to develop the strong. Our efforts to render normal the unfit are evidently useless. We should, then, turn our attention toward promoting the optimum growth of the fit. By making the strong still stronger, we could effectively help the weak; For the herd always profits by the ideas and inventions of the elite. Instead of leveling organic and mental inequalities, we should amplify them and construct greater men."

"We must single out the children who are endowed with high potentialities, and develop them as completely as possible. And in this manner give to the nation a non-hereditary aristocracy. Such children may be found in all classes of society, although distinguished men appear more frequently in distinguished families than in others. The descendants of the founders of American civilization may still possess the ancestral qualities. These qualities are generally hidden under the cloak of degeneration. But this degeneration is often superficial. It comes chiefly from education, idleness, lack of responsibility and moral discipline. The sons of very rich men, like those of criminals, should be removed while still infants from their natural surroundings. Thus separated from their family, they could manifest their hereditary strength. In the aristocratic families of Europe there are also individuals of great vitality. The issue of the Crusaders is by no means extinct. The laws of genetics indicate the probability that the legendary audacity and love of adventure can appear again in the lineage of the feudal lords. It is possible also that the offspring of the great criminals who had imagination, courage, and judgment, of the heroes of the French or Russian Revolutions, of the high-handed business men who live among us, might be excellent building stones for an enterprising minority. As we know, criminality is not hereditary if not united with feeble-mindedness or other mental or cerebral defects. High potentialities are rarely encountered in the sons of honest, intelligent, hard-working men who have had ill luck in their careers, who have failed in business or have muddled along all their lives in inferior positions. Or among peasants living on the same spot for centuries. However, from such people sometimes spring artists, poets, adventurers, saints. A brilliantly gifted and well-known New York family came from peasants who cultivated their farm in the south of France from the time of Charlemagne to that of Napoleon."

"[M]en cannot follow modern civilization along its present course, because they are degenerating. They have been fascinated by the beauty of the sciences of inert matter. They have not understood that their body and consciousness are subjected to natural laws, more obscure than, but as inexorable as, the laws of the sidereal world. Neither have they understood that they cannot transgress these laws without being punished. They must, therefore, learn the necessary relations of the cosmic universe, of their fellow men, and of their inner selves, and also those of their tissues and their mind. Indeed, man stands above all things. Should he degenerate, the beauty of civilization, and even the grandeur of the physical universe, would vanish. ... Humanity's attention must turn from the machines of the world of inanimate matter to the body and the soul of man, to the organic and mental processes which have created the machines and the universe of Newton and Einstein"

"Evolution is path-dependent. Future populations will be shaped by the choices parents make now. These choices will be influenced by the social and political institutions they live under. It is up to us to think through what kinds of institutions we should create, and what kinds of future people should exist."

"I cannot shake the conviction that life is (usually) worth living, and that we should continue to create the conditions for intelligent life to experience beauty, create art, discover how the world works, and continue to set and satisfy goals that presuppose a complex form of intelligence. It is at this point that our intuitions bottom out. If you think that life is pointless, given that we will leave no trace in 20 billion years, it is hard to know how to convince you to believe otherwise. An obligation to reproduce, no matter how weak it is, cannot exist unless there is value to the future experiences intelligent creatures will have."

"Eugenics has become a dirty word in popular culture because of its excesses in the early twentieth century, including forced sterilization laws in the USA and Germany (which were applied to the ‘feebleminded’ but sometimes also to epileptics and even sexual deviants). But a lot of the criticism of eugenics conflates what Galton and many modern academics in bioethics mean by ‘eugenics’ with how the Nazis misused it [...] Moral grandstanding has become so common in connection with the word that journalists often use ‘eugenics’ to mean something like ‘unjust coercion of innocent parents’. But Galton and Darwin would have rejected this, and so should we. According to Leonard Darwin, Charles Darwin’s son and past president of the Eugenics Society of England, ‘Eugenics is the study of heredity as it may be applied to the betterment, mental and physical, of the human race’ [...] While people disagree about precisely which traits are worth promoting, what motivates eugenics is a concern that individual welfare depends in part on the average traits of a population, and that demographic trends matter to the extent that they influence the success or failure of entire populations."

"On the question of genetics and behavior, the egalitarians and the liberal media have tightly controlled public discourse, so for decades, only their side has been presented to the public. Is it any wonder the public accepts what they say uncritically? It’s certainly not anyone’s fault for believing it. If I didn’t happen to study and do research on IQ, I’d probably believe it, too. But then maybe someday, I might think to myself, “Why not just see what the other side has to say?” Many, many people are incapable of doing this, because they’re terrified the other side might be right, and to discover that they’ve been completely wrong would be such a jolt to their psyches they might never recover. Anyway, just imagine I summoned up the courage to venture into forbidden territory – I might read one really good book, such as The Bell Curve, by Herrnstein and Murray. I’d think to myself, “Gee, what a totally different world this is! It’s not a pretentious piece of propaganda like Gould’s The Mismeasure of Man – it’s down-to-earth, clearly stated, interesting, even engrossing. Hmmm . . . kind of exciting!”"

"The Encyclopedia Britannica defines eugenics as “the organic betterment of the race through wise application of the laws of heredity.” Yet most people draw a blank when they hear the word, or else it conjures up images of swastikas and jack‑booted Nazis. Contrary to this warped image, eugenics has had a long history, extending back to ancient Rome and beyond."

"Given how closely eugenics has been associated with Nazis and the Holocaust, it is interesting to consider the degree to which Jewish people have embraced eugenics. I wouldn’t be here to write this essay had my Jewish grandfather not fled the Nazis in the 1930s. The Talmud expressed eugenic principles about who could marry whom—for example, it is forbidden for a woman to marry a man with epilepsy— German genetic counselors are much more likely to express disapproval for eugenic principles than Israeli genetic counsellors. Israeli genetic counselors are more likely to endorse statements such as “it is socially irresponsible to knowingly give birth to an infant with a serious genetic disorder” and “it is important to reduce the number of deleterious genes in a population.” The Israeli National Program for the Detection and Prevention of Birth Defects offers free testing for many genetic diseases, and Israeli women are more likely to get tested than women in other countries."

"Those who rail against eugenics in any form engage in a technique where they conflate an easily defended position with a more difficult to defend position (AKA the Motte and Bailey strategy). The easily defended position is that we should not murder or forcibly sterilize people on the basis of their genetics or disability. This position is conflated with several more difficult-to-defend positions. These more difficult-to-defend positions include that we should not study the genetics of desirable or undesirable characteristics, that we should not label any characteristics as desirable or undesirable and that we should not consider how any policy could change the genetic propensities of future generations."

"Historically, eugenicists were focused not only on genetically heritable characteristics but also potentially effective environmental and cultural influences on children’s traits. Chinese eugenicists led the charge to eradicate foot binding, and implemented programs of maternal education so they could provide better care for infants. Eugenicists also initiated the mandatory treatment of infectious diseases like syphilis, which causes blindness, deafness, and cognitive disability. If you think women should be treated for sexually transmitted infections or rubella so they don’t have a disabled child, you’re advocating the same goals as many historical eugenicists"

"“There is strong reason for believing that national rise and decline is closely connected with this influence [“of the rates with which the various classes of society (classified according to civic usefulness) have contributed to the population”]"

"The practical application of the doctrine of deferred marriage would therefore lead indirectly to most mischievous results, that were overlooked owing to the neglect of considerations bearing on race. (1907, p. 207)"

"[P]ossibly the danger ultimately to be apprehended may be the very reverse of that which Malthus dreaded; that, in fact, when we have reached that point of universal plenty and universal cultivation to which human progress ought to bring us, the race will multiply too slowly rather than too fast. One such influence my be specified with considerable confidence,—namely, THE TENDENCY OF CEREBRAL DEVELOPMENT TO LESSEN FECUNDITY."

"Thus there are increasing reasons for fearing, that while the progress of medical science and sanitation is saving from death a continually increasing number of the children of those who are feeble physically and mentally; many of those who are most thoughtful and best endowed with energy, enterprise and self-control are tending to defer their marriages and in other ways to limit the number of children whom they leave behind them."

"It must be the duty of racial hygiene to be attentive to a more severe elimination of morally inferior human beings than is the case today [...] We should literally replace all factors responsible for selection in a natural and free life [...] In prehistoric times of humanity, selection for endurance, heroism, social usefulness, etc. was made solely by hostile outside factors. This role must be assumed by a human organization; otherwise, humanity will, for lack of selective factors, be annihilated by the degenerative phenomena that accompany domestication."

"Thomas A. Storey, General Hygiene, 1920"

"[T]he relation of pauperism, mental degeneracy and crime to heredity justifies community interference…"

"[I]t would, if possible, be best absolutely to prohibit in every State in the Union the marriage of the physically, mentally and morally unfit."

"[T]here is so much we might do if intelligence rather than emotions controlled the quality of the oncoming race."

"The title of this essay is deliberately provocative. Eugenics can be thought of as any attempt to harness the power of reproduction to produce people with traits that enable them to thrive. Nearly everyone agrees that parents should provide an environment that promotes the welfare of their children. Advocates of eugenics add that we should also manipulate biology to promote well-being, provided we can do so without imposing undue risk on our children or on other people with whom they will share the planet."

"The seeds of Rome's fall lay not in race nor in form of government, nor in wealth nor in senility, but in the influences by which the best men were cut off from parenthood, leaving its own weaker strains and strains of lower races to be fathers of coming generations."

"Indiscriminate charity has been a fruitful cause of the survival of the unfit. To kill the strong and feed the weak is to provide for a progeny of weakness."

"’’’The blood of a nation determines its history.’’’"

"The crétin of Aosta has been developed as a new type of man. In fair weather the roads about are lined with these awful paupers - human beings with less intelligence than the goose and less decency than the pig."

"What scientific eugenics does aim for is for the elimination, by restriction, of hopeless hereditary feeble-mindedness and of defects which must condemn one’s posterity to ineffective and joyless lives."