Page 198 - The Social Weapon: Darwinism
P. 198

196


                  would be social collapse. Obviously however, real social col-
                  lapse would come about when the model proposed by Galton

                  and the like, based on slaughter, conflict, violence, and slaugh-
                  ter, were put into practice. During a lecture to the Huxley
                  Institute in 1901, Galton claimed that "brains of our nation lie in
                  the higher of our classes." 111  In addition, he recommended that
                  children of the upper class should be identified at birth and
                  1,000 pounds be paid to their families. He suggested that upper-
                  class women should give birth to at least one extra son and
                  daughter. 112
                       Galton's belief—that an increase in the numbers of people
                  whom he regarded as superior class could lead to social
                  progress—is irrational, illogical, and unscientific. A great many
                  elements lead any society to progress, but the most important
                  are the moral values and characters of those who make up that
                  society. A society whose members possess strong moral values

                  and characters will progress swiftly, and permanently. It is
                  impossible for such features to be passed on genetically. If some-
                  one wants his society to make progress, he must turn his atten-
                  tion to the spiritual strengthening of individuals by various
                  cultural and educational means. Galton and those like him
                  sought to increase the numbers of the rich and reduce those of
                  the poor by treating human beings literally like animals in the
                  countries in which they were influential, and even sought to jus-
                  tify even murder on that account—a terrible cruelty and inde-
                  scribable ignorance.

                       Nonetheless, at Galton's prompting, the first activity of the
                  eugenics movement in Britain was based on birth control. This
                  measure, taken by those who had been deceived by the decep-
                  tions of the theory of evolution, was aimed solely at the poor
                  and those whom they regarded as of an "inferior" race.




                                  The Social Weapon: Darwinism
   193   194   195   196   197   198   199   200   201   202   203