Page 191 - The Social Weapon: Darwinism

189

Supporters of eugenics claimed that only their own race or class

needed protection and improvement, and that other races or classes
needed to be subjected to "artificial selection." According to Galton,
only the British upper class needed such protection. He therefore pro-
posed that the poor, the sick, the weak and the untalented should be
prevented from multiplying.
The Nazis, on the other hand, maintained that those who were
not healthy Aryans were a burden on the state and needed to be elim-
inated by means of sterilization or extermination. They then put these
ideas into practice. While sterilizing hundreds of thousands as part of
their eugenics policy, the Nazis also killed more thousands for being
sick, crippled, mentally handicapped, elderly, unskilled or without

families, by sending them to the gas chambers, poisoning them, or
leaving them to starve.
Proponents of eugenics think that most of the features of a per-
son's character is inherited, or make partial claims to that effect.
According to the supporters of eugenics, including Galton himself,
undesirable characteristics like laziness or poverty are inherited.