Part 2

This does not mean that there is no such thing as paternal heredity, in other words, that physical or moral characteristics do not descend from father to son throughout the generations. On the contrary, modern biology has demonstrated that a father does transmit any weakness he may possess to his progeny in a heavy percentage of cases, and more especially that the female members of a family will partake of this weakness; just as the mother passes on any tendency to disease or weakness of her own to her male offspring. These facts have a very important bearing on the transmission of disease, and it is obvious that the power of pre-determining sex would tend to result in a strong and healthy race. If physical and mental deficiency in the male parent tends to be reproduced in the female offspring, and conversely in the male by a like deficiency in the female parent, it becomes simply imperative to ensure that in the former case only male children should be born and in the latter only female. A tubercular father need have little anxiety if he confines himself to sons only. A mentally deficient mother might without apprehension have a family of girls. With such possibilities open to us, we might even be willing to admit with Marcus Aurelius that “an accident is a misfortune, but bearing it well turns it to advantage.”

Since people who suffer from chronic disabilities will insist on producing offspring, let them at least make use of the essentially eugenic law which is offered here. Let them understand that henceforth, if they produce a specimen of humanity inheriting their own defects, they are alone to blame.

From time immemorial parents have accepted in silence, but in bitterness of spirit, the advent of offspring of an unwanted sex. In 70 per cent. of these cases, it is roughly estimated, a girl has arrived when a boy was hoped for. In 30 per cent. only was a girl wished for and a boy born. Prayer without some kind of forethought must surely be unavailing. Help thyself, and Heaven will help thee. It would be of interest to turn for a moment to the East—to India in particular—and survey the conditions of life that prevail there. The abject plight of a great proportion of the women is largely the result of their lack of childhood, for among orthodox Hindus every girl must be married before her eleventh year; great numbers are married earlier still, some as soon as—if not before—they are born! The conditions under which the widows live—and these number over 20,000,000—are too tragic to contemplate, so trivial is their market value. In no country in the world is the Man-Child so ardently desired, for he is regarded as the Salvation of the household, as it is he who will ultimately be called upon to officiate at the death-ceremonies of his parents, requisite for their re-birth, which to them represents their whole eternity.

In this great Dependency the mere whisper of sex-control evokes unlimited joy and enthusiasm among all who have heard of it and even faintly realised its possibilities.

Hitherto the ignorance of parents has been shared by a whole world of unobservant people, convinced “that the science of life and being is unattained and unattainable by these weak organs.”

That this helpless and hopeless outlook has resulted in the voluntary limitation of many families is illustrated to absolute demonstration by almost innumerable correspondents. “Were I to be sure of providing my husband with a son to carry on his name, I should most certainly bear another child” is a typical assurance. Most poignant in its pathos is the lament: “My husband refuses to let me start a child for fear it may be a girl, and my heart is literally breaking for want of children.” Yet another epistle, several pages long, expresses the sorrows of an older woman, starved by an incomplete motherhood: “If only,” she writes, “I could make sure of a girl to be a sister to my three growing boys, I should willingly try my luck once more. But my husband absolutely refuses to have a fourth son to rear and start in life.”

Do not these extracts, which can be multiplied indefinitely, prove how essential is the choice of sex, in view of the perilous inroad birth-control is making amongst the classes from which we draw our best human material?

It behoves us, as human beings, to accept life with some degree of responsibility, not as animals pushed along the path of procreation by blind instinct alone. If, in the space of a generation or two, we have secured to mankind a better equilibrium of birth-rate, we shall have helped to make the world a far better place, and totally abolished that crying social evil “the superfluous female.”

II

THE EUGENIC POINT OF VIEW

“The destiny of organised nature is amelioration, and who can tell its limits?”—EMERSON.

Eugenics is the Science of producing offspring of as perfect a type as possible, which must eventually result in the general betterment of the human race. So closely allied is moral welfare to physical that when the one is directly improved, the other, too, is proportionately benefited. “Ideals are the very soul of life,” and when they are high, the trend is towards progress. Unfortunately, between the theoretical and the practical side of all things there is a huge gap. The essence of practical eugenics lies in the application of rules, already in use for the benefit of domestic animals, which, when applied to man, will bring about a higher physical standard than has hitherto been reached.

According to Professor Punnett “permanent progress is a matter of gametes, not of training—the man is not made, but born.”[3] Nature must therefore be helped in the creation of a finer and stronger human specimen by the selection of the fittest to fulfil the work of procreation. The diseased, the weak-minded, the consumptive and the crippled of the Universe would be prevented from producing offspring, and the race thus purged of necessarily inferior strains. The flotsam and jetsam of weakly humanity would die off after two or three generations, and but for sin and vice, which, like the poor, are ever with us, an utopian state of things would soon obtain. In other words, it only needs that human nature should be instructed and directed for all to be well with us, and eugenics, working on the principle that progress is a question of breeding rather than of pedagogics, would accomplish what has up to now defied us as impossible.

Unfortunately eugenists are all too apt to forget how great is the abyss separating the moral from the animal being in man. Much can be done to improve the physique of a whole nation, but it must be remembered that “the character of a generation is moulded by personality.” Until the end of time the morale of a people will be the cause rather than the effect, and here alone lies the divine spark that animates our whole physical being.

A happy antithesis to Eugenics is to be found—the science of psychotherapy, the essence of which has been summed up in the words, “It is fatal to trust in the squirrel-work of the industrious brain, instead of the piercing vision of the desirous heart.” Here the moral being of Man is placed far above his physical or even mental being, which are in more or less complete subordination to his soul, according to the degree of his spiritual development. Heredity is disregarded as a negligible quantity. It is environment, suggestion, willpower, faith, that wholly influence, compass, and direct the well-being of man.

With eugenics, on the other hand, heredity is the most potent factor, and this is perhaps why the key-note of materialism runs through the whole gamut of this idealistic striving towards a more flawless humanity.

Heredity allows for little freedom; so it must be curtailed. Human nature must either be completely held in check, or transformed beyond recognition. A check is provided by the simple method of isolating those human beings who, as a result of disease, are unfit to bear or beget children. Thus in time the birth of mentally deficient creatures, who are prolific out of all proportion, would come to an end, and other forms of inferiority might in time be enormously reduced, and finally eradicated.

So far, so good, but there are other whisperings in eugenist circles, and particularly in their outer fringes, which deal with subjects so intimately human and personal that one is inclined to question the wisdom of attempting to rush in where angels have feared to tread. It is, for instance, not unusual to speak of the perfect mating of two physically superior beings who should produce perfect offspring. But so conspicuously inconsistent is human nature that often a healthy man will fall hopelessly in love with an inferior or even physically degenerate woman, and vice versa.

Then polygamy is hinted at; the strong man, as in Eastern countries, may remain mated to his love, but should wed another wife who will produce fine human stock. So, after a war, the strong man who survives will have two or even three wives to ensure the future welfare of the world. Such proposals have latterly been mooted by more than one writer, with so-called eugenists foremost among them. The decisive answer to all such schemes has been given in advance by Montesquieu, in his great work _L’esprit des Lois_. Very minutely and conclusively he has proved that polygamy never did, and never will, accomplish the desired end, and that it is invariably accompanied by race degeneracy and both mental and moral deterioration. It has appealed to some of the oldest civilisations all the world over, and, after devastating wars, plagues and famines, has been solemnly tried and encouraged. But from the national point of view, polygamy does not answer.

Family life, with all that it implies, is primarily responsible for the healthy moral and physical upbringing of normal human beings, and true family life can only exist in a state of unimpeachable monogamy. One father and one mother, welded together in a common desire to work for the good of their children, can alone produce a truly healthy and superior race.

In polygamy wifehood becomes a farce, and motherhood a mere animal function, generally limited to a single attempt, and followed usually by a state of lymphatic inertia and gross self-indulgence. The parental instinct here is blunted on both sides, and all that can reasonably be looked for in an institution so closely resembling the farmyard is a purely physical relationship between man and woman, mother and child. Marvellous results have been achieved in animal breeding by the coupling of superior males and females singled out for the sole purpose of providing superior progeny. As regards humanity this can never become a feasible condition and polygamy remains a form of barbarism or gross degeneracy. Turkey gives us a fair example of civilised polygamy. In her essay on the harem, Lady Cook describes the Turkish woman as being “the most depraved in the world.”[4] My personal experience of Turkish society, which is not slight, has led me to a similar opinion; indeed, the results of polygamy on the race where it is practised to-day are too obvious to require further comment.

Shortly before he died, Mr. Montague Crackanthorpe, the eminent Eugenist, in a discussion on this subject, remarked, “There is no doubt that animal life, in its natural state, is essentially monogamous. How much more is man then by nature, let alone by civilisation, intended to generate after the highest form of monogamy.”

It has been proved too often to admit of doubt that the moral influence of the mother on her unborn infant is omnipotent. Prenatal sensations may well account for the whole trend of the child’s life. In the words of Dr. E. Sloan Chesser: “Socially, the mother is the basis of racial progress: ethically, enlightened motherhood is the strongest force in the world. Intelligent mother-love can alone bring about the inculcation of higher ideals of citizenship and social obligations.” The need of the hour is the training of mothers in the deeper questions of life, so that the new generation of men and women may have a sane and strong sense of human responsibility and a better understanding of international morality and friendship and the unity of the human race.

Much can and should be done by encouraging those who are fit and healthy to have larger families. The Malthusian theory has proved itself a dangerous menace to civilisation. It is threatening the safety of depopulated France, and in Great Britain it should be discouraged in every possible way as an insidious and treacherous enemy to the laws of God and man.

III

THE SELECTION OF THE FIT

“I do not fear to follow out the truth Albeit along the precipice’s edge; Let us speak plain.”—LOVELL.

In every kind of animal life, with but few exceptions, the males exceed the females in number, so that for the female the field of choice remains a wide one. Among birds it is the cock who acquires the outward adornments of feathers and the sweet singing voice wherewith to woo the hen. She, in her turn, selects the mate she prefers to help her build the nest which is to receive the offspring of their union. Similarly, various kinds of animals, when the mating season approaches, acquire new fur or horns to help them with their courtship.

With us it is otherwise. In the civilised countries of to-day it is the female element which exceeds the male, so that the choice of a mate lies necessarily with the latter part of the community. The woman is compelled to show some special advantage, whether beauty, wealth or some other feature, which will make her peculiarly desirable to the man she wishes to attract. For this reason we often see women lose their self-respect or indulge in the most absurd extravagances in the hope of distinguishing themselves from the mass of their own sex. In the poorer classes, this condition prevails only to a minor degree, and for purely economic reasons nature has her own way to a greater extent. But even here, as everywhere, women are far too prone to take what they can get, rather than remain unmarried. We still find the loafer, the diseased and the drunkard, if like Barkis, they be willing, turned into benedicts, almost before they realise it themselves. Hence the heavy percentage of imbeciles, cripples and degenerates which burden the country and fill the lunatic asylums, hospitals and prisons. This unfortunate condition is due to the fact that in the British Isles there are, according to the statistics of the Registrar-General for 1923, at least 107 women to every 100 men.

More men must be provided to ensure offspring as perfect as the human race can create. Once the heart and imagination of the woman are satisfied, she will spontaneously fulfil her great rôle of mother. Thus equipped, she will carry on her work conscientiously, fully alive to the importance of her child’s welfare. It is the mother’s morale that counts in reproduction: she takes the giant share of the responsibility.

She represents the Sex, self-contained and all-containing; _Le sexe, c’est la femme_. And yet, in preparing for the ordeal of motherhood—the pivot on which the whole world revolves—her chance of selecting a partner, worthy to become the father of her children, is comparatively small.

The wonder is that more unhealthy children are not born as the result of such a limitation of choice. By the subsequent exercise of great care, many are reared to become useful citizens, but a vast army of permanent inefficients is born into our midst every year. In a population of 40,000,000 there are 300,000 mentally defective persons, most of whom are in asylums, but many still free to marry and procreate. Thus one person in every 118 of England’s population is either mad, idiotic or feeble-minded. Among criminals alone, the fruit of degeneracy, there are in England 30,000 in the jails, besides some 5,000 classed as convicts. There are also every year in England and Wales some 3,800 people who died by their own hands. All these degenerates contribute but little benefit to the State, which is in fact often called upon to support them and their offspring entirely.

In these years of progressive enlightenment it should, above all, be recognised that the general welfare of the nation is immediately dependent on the common sense and morale of its women. It is of primary importance that they should make use of all their intelligence and all their forethought before embarking on the hazardous venture of matrimony.

IV

THE MOTHERS’ RESPONSIBILITY

“The only science of mankind is man.”—WARBURTON.

We have spoken of the advantages to be obtained from a eugenic point of view for women and their children by providing a larger selection of suitable males. But we must not forget how innumerable are the influences which can affect the unborn infant. It has been asserted that the phlegmatic and lazy woman is more prone to female offspring, whereas her sanguine, hardworking sister is usually blessed with male children.

There is a reason for this. The natural state of every healthy woman is to produce more males than females. In Russia, where the peasant-women do heavy manual work on their homesteads, the percentage of male births far exceeds that of female. Among the French peasantry the same condition prevails. During the war it was commonly acknowledged that the male birth-rate increased greatly. When one bears in mind the enormous amount of hard physical work that was accomplished by women, who otherwise would have led a sedentary, or at least a far more passive existence, one can hardly be surprised at it. For this unusual outlay of muscular energy resulted in the strengthening of the whole right side of these women, and incidentally of that organ from which male issue springs.

Most decidedly it takes a stronger and more normal organism to bear male progeny than female. Regular work and exercise, combined with favourable moral and physical conditions, are necessary to the conceiving of boys. There should be no exaggerated zeal in the pursuit of sports and games, but a wife should take a moderate part in all her husband’s pleasures and occupations, and reserve enough leisure to ensure a tranquil and contented brain. To keep cheerful and happy is half the battle for the unborn infant.

A lady I knew, who had thirteen sons and two daughters, was so strong and muscular that up to the age of 85 she could take a very active part in any furniture-moving that had to be done. A friend of my mother’s, who had twelve sons, remarked one day, “I think I ought to have been a man, I am so much more muscular and powerful than my husband.”

A certain amount of intellectual activity is desirable, such as reading, music, or any form of accomplishment hitherto cultivated. Any talent to which active expression is given during pregnancy greatly affects the unborn child, in whom the seeds of so-called facility, talent, or genius are thus sown. Once pregnant a woman should never forget for one minute that her burden must be considered at every step she takes, just as later on she will hope to watch over her infant’s welfare at every hour of its existence.

Much can be done to ensure the safety of pregnancy, especially during the first four months, by early hours, easy-going occupations, and above all no giving way to worry, morbidity or temper. A morbid mother produces a fretful baby, who may quite possibly develop a “kink” in his brain or character. Here also should be underlined the necessity of guarding against the fatal catastrophe of miscarriage, only too often brought about by sheer carelessness.

The following are a few typical cases. A lady of my acquaintance, when pregnant, was in the habit of riding in the Row every morning, up to the sixth month. Three times in succession the child was a girl, and no apparent trouble ensued. When, however, she became pregnant a fourth time, I warned her against the risk that to my mind she was incurring. But she continued to take the same exercise, and shortly after she miscarried of a boy, which proved to be her only attempt at male issue.

A young woman who had a boy of two years, and was pregnant of a second child, insisted, in spite of all the friendly advice offered to her, in going to Switzerland for the winter sports. She skied all day and danced all night. Shortly after she became ill, was seized with pains, and miscarried of a four-month boy.

A lady, who already had a daughter, much needed a son to carry on her husband’s title. She became pregnant, and went comfortably on till the fourth month, when, at the time when quickening was due, she was invited to join a party to go on a long excursion in a coach-and-four. Though warned beforehand by all her friends, she persisted in accepting the invitation. She came home worn out, and miscarried next day of a healthy male fœtus.

A lady, who was inclined to feel ill for two or three days each month, was warned by her doctor to lie up at these times. She insisted however, on one such occasion, in taking a long train journey, with the result that pains came on, and she was delivered of a four-month male child.

Another correspondent recently wrote:—“I started a baby immediately after marriage, but stupidly did far too much and had a miscarriage in July and another in December last.”

On the other hand, many of these mishaps may be due to unavoidable accidents, shocks, and mental worry. But this only emphasises the desirability of avoiding all imprudence at the first suspicion of pregnancy, and of using the greatest foresight and self-control when there is any smallest symptom of “bearing-down” or “malaise.” The old saying, “A sick pregnancy is a safe one” is doubtless true.[5] But sickness would appear to be more prevalent in girl-pregnancies, and this goes far to support the fact of partial immunity in pregnancy from female abortions.

A lady pregnant of a boy wrote to me as follows: “I am not a bit sick this time ... but with my first and second babies (both girls) I was terribly sick and could keep nothing down for weeks on end.” A lady in Paris assured me that with her four girls she suffered very greatly from nausea, but that with her two boys she was free from all such discomfort. A woman who had eight daughters and four sons told me that she invariably knew of which sex her baby would be, as sickness was always present during the first three months of girl-pregnancies. Of such cases I could quote many instances.

Here let me say that miscarriage is one of the direct causes of a lack of males in the world. Statistics show that of the miscarriages within my own experience no less than 80 per cent. are male. To this I must refer later on.

There are other causes responsible for the dearth of boy-babies, all more or less capable of adjustment. For instance, the fact that it is more difficult to rear boys depends on two special causes. The first is the boy’s digestion, which, in my opinion, is more delicate than that of a girl. This I have noted in hundreds of cases, extending over many years, and certainly boys are more inclined to sickness than girls. An elderly monthly nurse of great experience used to say, “my _sick babies_ are the fattest and the biggest, and are generally boys,” and she always maintained that “small babies” were easier to rear than big ones. A mother of ten children recently remarked to me, “My girls were no trouble, but the boys were so difficult to suit with their foods.” This is a matter of experience which I have confirmed in countless cases.