ID# 1841:
"Eugenics and Society" (The Galton Lecture given to the Eugenics Society), by Julian S. Huxley, Eugenics Review (vol 28:1)
Date:
1936
Pages: (1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8|9|10|11|12|13|14|15|16|17|18|19|20|21)
Source:
Cold Spring Harbor, ERO, The Eugenics Review, 28

&quote;Eugenics and Society&quote; (The Galton Lecture given to the Eugenics Society), by Julian S. Huxley, Eugenics Review (vol 28:1)

Eugenics and Society 29 progress in practice. These are the prevailing individualist attitude to marriage, and the conception, based on this and on the long religious tradition of the West, of the subordination of personal love to procreation. The two influences together prevent us collectively from grasping the implications of the recent advances in science and technique which now make it possible to separate the individual from the social side of sex and reproduction. Yet it is precisely and solely this separation that would make real eugenics practicable, by allowing a rate of progress yielding tangible encouragement in a reasonable time, generation by generation. The recent invention of efficient methods on the one hand of birth-control and on the other of artificial insemination have brought man to a stage at which the separation of sexual and reproductive functions could be used for eugenic purposes. But it is of real interest to note that these inventions represent merely the last steps in an evolutionary process which started long before man ever existed. In lower mammals, the existence of limited breeding seasons, and, during these, the restriction of mating to the oestrus phase in the female's reproductive cycle, do in fact link sexual behaviour firmly with reproduction. But in the great primate stock to which we belong, a new trend early becomes apparent. Breeding seasons are less definite, and mating may occur at any time during the female cycle, so that most acts of union are in fact and of necessity infertile, without reproductive consequences. This trend becomes more marked as we ascend the evolutionary scale, and culminates in man. In civilized man, the faint traces of breeding season apparent in certain primitive ethnic stocks have wholly disappeared, and there is no greater readiness to mate during the short period when alone conception is possible that at most other times of the female cycle.* This has already led in point of fact to the widespread separation of the personal function of sexual union from its racial consequences, of love from reproduction. It is true that some persons and bodies on theological or metaphysical grounds either ostrich-like deny the existence of this separation, or assert that it ought not to be practised; but this does not alter the fact. The perfection of birth-control technique has made the separation more effective; and the still more recent technique of artificial insemination has opened up new horizons, by making it possible to provide different objects for the two functions. It is now open to man and woman to consummate the sexual function with those they love, but to fulfil the reproductive function with those whom on perhaps quite other grounds they admire. This consequence is the opportunity of eugenics. But the opportunity cannot yet be grasped. It is first necessary to overcome the bitter opposition to it on dogmatic theological and moral grounds, and the widespread popular shrinking from it, based on vague but powerful feelings, on the ground that it is unnatural. We need a new attitude to these problems, an attitude which for want of another term we may still call religious. We need to replace the present attitude fostered by established religions by a new but equally potent attitude. As regards the sense of salvation, we need to substitute social salvation for individual salvation; and as regards the need of some escape-mechanism from the pressure of present difficulty, we need to substitute the real possibility of evolutionary progress for other-worldy phantasies. Once this possibility of true human progress, both social and genetic, is generally apprehended, and the social system remodeled so that individual success does not conflict with communal welfare, and self-expression and personal satisfaction can be largely achieved in serving society, then sex and reproduction can take their due places as individual and social functions respectively. Gone will be many of the conflicts inherent in present-day marriage: any sacrifice involved in parenthood will be made on the altar of the race, and in the knowledge that it will be acceptable. Those who wish to pursue further the possibilities of such a step should consult [left column-width hairline rule over footnote] [footnote]*Zuckerman, 1932, p. 73f. [end]

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