class of children over another, but in this they do not attempt to distinguish between the effect of environment and the natural endowment. Positive Eugenics is not yet beyond the stage of research. Such research, if conducted without academic prejudice (which is too apparent in many Eugenic papers), is of very great service; and, if ever a firm proposal lies before us, we may trust that rhetorical phrases and clerical prejudices will not be allowed to bar the way.
In the case of negative Eugenics we are nearer agreement. Here again, however, research is not always candid. Inquiries have been made into the lineage of American criminals, and the large percentage of criminals in one family is held to indicate a tainted stock: it is not sufficiently noticed that they all lived in the same crime-breeding environment. Other Eugenists try to intimidate us with the cry that lunacy and crime are increasing rapidly: whereas (as I showed in the Hibbert Journal, April 1912) there is no proved increase of lunacy and no increase of crime, in proportion to the growth of population. These methods bring discredit on the Eugenic proposals. It is, however, now agreed that certain diseases, including certain forms of mental disease, are transmissible, and common-sense suggests that we should prevent their transmission. It is well to bear in mind, however, that these things affect only a fraction of the community. As is the case with every new social proposal, Eugenics is being pressed as a panacea;
