increased means of comfort, and to obtain an everincreasing comprehension of the processes of nature. Poverty, disease, moral degradation, and crime would be eliminated from the earth, and the conceptions of our most optimistic dreams would be surpassed by the glories of reality.

It may be said that, even under the most favorable conditions, an appreciable advance of our race must ever be a matter of weary ages, because such has been the record of the past. But the past was comparatively without science. Our innumerable experiments in artificial selection among the lower animals, and the extraordinary endowments which occasionally appear among men who are the offspring of exceptionally favorable unions, would indicate that a marvellous uplifting of the human race might be speedily effected, were we able to regulate wisely the matter of parentage. Says Galton: Each generation has enormous power over the natural gifts of those that follow. It is a duty we

owe to humanity to investigate the range of that power, and to exercise it in a way that, without being unwise toward ourselves, shall be most advantageous to future inhabitants of the earth."" Here lies a field which promises rich fruits to earnest inquiry, in the course of which a modicum of intelligence would have far more worth than a flood of sentiment. Not to that tenderness of heart which seeks no farther than the binding of immediate wounds and the lifting of those just fallen, may we look for the race's earthly salvation, but to that

1 Francis Galton, Hereditary Genius, p. 1. London, 1892.

spirit of deep and highly intelligent sympathy which would extinguish the causes of our degradation and our tears. In the day when our altruism has become duly enlightened, it may well appear that there is no nobler, no tenderer, charity than the methodic but gentle extinction of the very weak and the very vicious.

When attention is called to the magnitude of our present evils, it is a common reply that the world is not so bad a place after all, and evidence is adduced to show that our manners are growing less rude and that our general comfort is constantly increasing. But, had we all-seeing eyes, in the very moment that these cheering words are spoken, we should observe innumerable breaking human hearts, ubiquitous discord and strife, and here and there a ruthless murder. Contentment with the present status of the world is possible only during the occasional relaxation of fate's stern grip; it is usually shortlived, and our optimistic platitudes are soon, and abruptly, silenced by some fresh wound at the hand of relentless destiny. It is to such of my readers as have had to endure more than the average share of life's evils, to those who have fallen victims in unusual degree to human incompetence or malevolence, and to those who, in a measure, make the sorrow of the world their own, that I appeal for an earnest consideration of the remedy which I advocate.

It is my hope that this plea may induce many persons to speak out boldly for our deliverance from a bondage under which civilized society now groans -bondage to an altruistic doctrine which, while at

first sight beautiful to look upon, is really morbid, false, and cruel. The unreasonable dogma that all human life is intrinsically sacred is, as I believe, now the greatest obstacle to the entrance of the race upon its birthright, the main cause through which we still wallow in the mire when we might mount, as upon eagle's wings, to the accomplishment of a sublime destiny.

To those who are shocked by the remedy here suggested I would say that I, too, am shocked by it; but to me it seems a hard necessity laid upon us because our fathers failed to perceive their duty in this regard and to assume their proper burden. Upon us who recognize this necessity there will rest in the eyes of our posterity a very great responsibility.

We have altered somewhat, in these recent years, our ideas of man's dignity, and are now less proud, perhaps, of our place in nature, but we must still believe that man is the highest product of evolution. In the extinguishing of human suffering, the expanding of human faculty, and the developing of all that is god-like in man, we find the noblest end for which humanity may strive, and it is for the consideration of those who labor along this path that the present book has been written.

APPENDICES

Appendix 1.-The influence of many of our almshouses is similarly pernicious, but rather through indifference than sentimentality on the part of the authorities. Of the Home for Paupers, Long Island, Boston, it is said: "Here are found the aged, sick, and demented, as well as criminals and lewd women and able-bodied loafers, young and old. Admission and discharge and free passes to the city are easily gained. The inmates may spend the winter only and go tramping in the summer, or they may stay for years. The able-bodied may live with little work, and dissolute men and women may visit their old haunts in the city, spend days in carousing, and return to find shelter here and a comfortable retreat in which to recruit for further recklessness. It may be truly said that for such as these this institution has in fact become a free boarding-house kept by the city. It should deeply concern the city to discover how far it is thus itself creating the situation with which it has to deal.

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1

Two years later, it is said of this institution: Decrepit old men, cripples, and sturdy loafers eat together in one dining-room, and lounge and smoke

1 Final Report, Special Committee app. by Mayor to inspect Publ. Inst. of Boston, p. 31, 1892.