Note 7 — THE MONIST. (continued 2)

In an article in The Arena for June, 1890, I endeavored to plainly set forth the renewal of society from its lowest elements as the greatest disease in our social life, and to show that the remedy lies in a thorough application of science to human breeding. Just how this application was to be made I did not state, for I did not include this in the scope of my discussion. Mr. Stead in his Review of Reviews for July, 1890, and Mr. Wallace in the September Fortnightly Review and October Popular Science Monthly, 1890, have drawn inferences on this point which I am not prepared to allow. Mr. Stead speaks in headlines and in text of “murder, mutilation, or imprisonment” as the methods which I hint at, and Mr. Wallace remarks upon my views “that such interference with personal freedom in matters so deeply affecting individual happiness will never be adopted by the majority of any nation, or if adopted would never be submitted to by the minority without a life-and-death struggle.” It seems incumbent then on me to state more clearly what I understand by artificial selection, and what forms of it are most expedient at the present time.