Chapter I: Preface

In 1890 I gave a lecture to the Edinburgh Health Society, which appeared as No. 2 of their Eleventh Series. Its title is “The Importance of Ideals of Health, Beauty, etc., in Race Progress.”

Much the same thesis considerably expanded was given by me in the form of three Milroy Lectures to the Royal College of Physicians of London in March, 1894, and appeared at the time almost verbatim in the _Lancet_.

The present volume contains these lectures somewhat arranged to suit a less technically instructed audience. I am indebted to my colleague, Professor Richards, for his kindness and care in revising the proofs.

JOHN BERRY HAYCRAFT.

UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, CARDIFF.
_18th October, 1894._

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.
PAGE
Muscle and Brain versus Political Organisation--The
Muscles and Brains of a Race are not bound to
decay--The Fall of Greek and Roman Political
Organisation--The Permanence of the Scandinavian
and Jewish Types--Possible Racial Degeneration in
Spain--Our Power to ensure our own Racial Progress--The
Knowledge we possess regarding the Laws of Racial
Change--Evolution--Modern Philanthropic Effort--Are
these conducive to Racial as well as to Individual
Well-being? 1–18

CHAPTER II.
THE STANDPOINT OF BIOLOGISTS.

Lamarck’s View on Heredity--Darwin’s Law of
Selection--Three Ideas involved in Selection--Selection
is a Fact, not a Theory--How much is explainable
by Selection?--Galton and Weismann--Are Acquired
Characters Transmitted?--Many Cases of Supposed
Transmission to be explained by Selection--Paucity
of Experimental Evidence of such Transmission--The
Reproductive and the Body Cells--Reproductive
Cells unaffected by Local Changes in the Body
Cells--Constitutional Change may, though it rarely
does, affect the Reproductive Cell--The Facts of
Evolutive Selection known to the Gardener and Breeder 19–43

CHAPTER III.
CAUSES AND SIGNS OF PHYSICAL DETERIORATION.

Modern Care for the Individual--Preventive
Medicine--Micro-organisms of Diseases and their
Extermination--The Reproductive Cells as a Rule
unaffected by them--Man has been selected by
the Action of the Microbes of Fever--Leprosy an
Exterminator of the Unhealthy--Germs of Phthisis
and Scrofula, our Racial Friends--If we stamp out
Infectious Diseases we perpetuate Poor Types--Births,
Deaths, and Marriages--Increase of Constitutional
Weakness--Death-rate for Advanced Years on the
Increase--Life Tables compared--Physical Degeneration
of the Race already indicated 44–68

CHAPTER IV.
INSANITY AND ALCOHOLISM.

Nerve Derangements, Insanity--The Importance of
preventing its Transmission--Marriages of Insane
Persons--Alcoholism a Habit, and Alcoholism a
Sign of Mental Instability--Drink is a Selective
Agency--Parents who drink from Habit may have
Debilitated Offspring--Preventive Measures--Drink
among Australian Convicts--Drink and Prevention
in America--Public Habit and Conscience the best
Preventive--The Power of the Community over the
Individual--The Necessity for replacing one Selective
Agency by another--How it is that the Production
of Children by Diseased Parents is tolerated--The
Necessity for producing Posterity out of our Best Types 69–89

CHAPTER V.
THE CRIMINALS, INCAPABLES, AND THOSE IN DISTRESS.

Crime is often an Acquired Habit--The Innate Criminal--The
Jukes Family--Intermarriage does not stamp out Criminal
Tendencies--Segregation of the Criminal an Ultimate
and Effectual Resort--Our Unfortunate Use of the Word
“Poor”--The Unfortunate, the Aged, the Incapables, and
the Vicious, are treated alike--Our Poor-law Regulations
are at Fault--The Idle and Vicious are Subjects for
the Criminal Law--The Poor in very Deed--Our Misguided
Attitude to these--The Incapables--Segregation
Ultimately Required for their Elimination--Incapables
to be Treated like Chronic Hospital Patients 90–110

CHAPTER VI.
COMPETITION.

Competition of Brain against Brain--Does the Race show
Increased Brain Capacity?--The Neolithic compared
with the Modern English Skulls--Abeyance of Brain
Development since Neolithic Times--Social Communities
do not permit of the Destruction of the Less
Intellectually Capable--Human Brain Power results
merely in Wealth Accumulation--Further Study of
Individual Competition--Those Competing are Handicapped
by Property--Property is not always acquired by the
Most Capable--Property Holders Less Capable than
Property Acquirers--The Poor Child is scratched against
the Rich Child--Modern Democratic Attempts to equalise
the Struggle--Those who Succeed are Not Always the Best 111–134

CHAPTER VII.
STERILITY OF THE CAPABLES.

Are the More Capable Relatively Sterile?--If so, we are
Breeding from our Incapables--Capable and Ambitious
Men Marry Late in Life--Many Unmarried Persons among
Upper Classes--Lower Class Marriages are the Most
Prolific--Their Infant Mortality is Greater--Artificial
Restriction of the Family--Fertility of French and
English Marriages Contrasted--Possible Swamping of the
Capables by the Incapables--Artificial Restrictions at
Present Most Disastrous 135–153

CHAPTER VIII.
OBLIGATION IN PARENTHOOD.

Are we prepared to carry out Selective Methods?--Rights
of the Individual, and Obligations to the
Community--Rights of Children and our Obligation to
them--Our Sense of Obligation is Developing--Social
Philosophers and Social Reformers--Segregation is
Not yet Practicable--Segregation no New Idea, and
ultimately a Necessary Practice--The Masses must be
Taught the Main Facts of Heredity and Evolution--The
End and Aim of Marriage--Our False Ideas regarding
Marriage--The Stream of Life 154–170

APPENDIX 171–180

DARWINISM AND RACE PROGRESS.