On Catholicism 43 and health of the future child - which, indeed, is not contrary to right reason - but put eugenics before aims of a higher order, and by public authority wish to prevent from marrying all those who, even though naturally fit for marriage, they consider it according to the norms and conjectures of their investigations, would, through hereditary transmission, bring forth defective offspring. And more, they wish to legislate to deprive these of that natural faculty by medical action despite their unwillingness; and this they do not propose as an infliction of grave punishment under the authority of the State for a crime committed, nor to prevent future crimes by guilty persons, but against every right and good, they wish the civil authority to arrogate itself a power over a faulty which it never had and can never legitimately possess... "Those who act in this way are at fault in losing sight of the fact that the family is more sacred than the State, and that men are begotten not for the earth and for time, but for Heaven and eternity. Although often these individuals are to be dissuaded from entering into matrimony, certainly it is wrong to brand men with the stigma of crime because they contract marriage, on the ground that, despite the fact that they are in every respect capable of matrimony, they will give birth only to defective children, even though they use all care and diligence. "Public magistrates have no direct power over the bodies of their subjects; therefore, where no crime has taken place and there is no cause present for grave punishment, they can never directly harm, or tamper with the integrity of the body, either for the reasons of eugenics or for any other reason..." The authority here quoted is St. Thomas Aquinas ([italics]Summ. Theol.[end italics] 2a, 2ae, q.1080a 4 ad 2 um.), which is curious, since the Angelic Doctor himself, in a much more relevant passage, gives express permission to the State to protect itself even by castration (see the January 1930 issue of this Review). Surely what the State can do by force, is still more permissible with the consent of the object? And if the major operation of castration is allowable, how much more so must be the minor operation of sterilization? But this is another lapse into dialectics on premisses with which no non-Catholic can agree. The important point is that Catholics, who have hitherto been in many ways strongly sympathetic with eugenic aims, though disapproving of some eugenic methods, have now declared themselves unalterably opposed to the two remaining methods, whether they affect themselves or those of other faiths. But there is more than that. Science and Liberty of Thought At the beginning of this survey it was written advisedly that the Encyclical was a return to the Middle Ages. Its mediaevalism is carried so far as to ignore all anthropology, all history not contained in Genesis, and to attack not only the practice of eugenics, but also the underlying biological bases. Not only is current biology specifically attacked, but an onslaught is made on the whole texture of science and the liberty of thought. Witness these passages: "They are greatly deceived who having underestimated or neglected these [religious] means which rise above nature, think that they can induce men by the use and discovery of the natural sciences, such as those of biology, the science of heredity, and the like, to curb their carnal desires. We do not say this in order to belittle those natural means which are not dishonest . . . for God is the Author of nature as well as of grace, and He has disposed of the good things of both orders for the beneficial use of men. The faithful, therefore, can and ought to be assisted also by natural means. But they are mistaken who think that these means are able to establish chastity in the nuptial union, or that they are more effective than supernatural grace . . . "But everyone can see to how many fallacies an avenue would be opened up [end]