ID# 782:
Sermon #36 exerpt: "Eugenics," AES Sermon Contest 1926, #4
Date:
1926
Pages: (1|2|3|4|5)
Source:
American Philosophical Society, AES, 57506: Am3

Sermon #36 exerpt: &quote;Eugenics,&quote; AES Sermon Contest 1926, #4

[page number] -3- [end page number] intelligence to human evolution by such measures as will gradually reduce the number of those who would better never have been born. And the Christian eugenist believes that in the spirit and purpose of his work he would have the unqualified approval of Jesus. There is in the public mind much confusion concerning the meaning and methods of eugenics. Let it be noted most emphatically that eugenics is not public health, nor sex-hygiene, nor birth-control, nor a plan for killing weaklings, nor a scheme for scientific love-making and for breeding human beings like animals. Eugenics has been well defined by Sir Francis Galton, the father of this science, as "the study of agencies under social control that may improve or impair the racial qualities of future generations either physically or mentally." Eugenics, therefore, seeks first to know the forces of heredity which make men what they are at birth: and then to use these forces to improve the inborn qualities of the race. Wonderful progress has been made in this science in recent years, a firm foundation for which was laid in 1865 by Gregor Mendel, an Austrian monk, by certain great discoveries made in a long series of experiments. The laws he announced did not attract much attention until thirty-five years later, since which time hundreds of scientists have made thousands upon thousands of experiments which seem to show that the Mendelian laws are fundamentally correct; which means that in this field discoveries have been made which some of us believe will have a more far-reaching effect for the improvement of mankind than anything science has hitherto invented or discovered. [numbered point] I [end numbered point] What have we learned for sure about the laws of heredity as

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