Note 259 — Front matter (continued 6)

I would again repeat that I do not regard legislation as a channel of true eugenic reform. As Bateson well says (op. cit. p. 15); "It is not the tyrannical and capricious interference of a half-informed majority which can safely mould or purify a population, but rather that simplification of instinct for which we ever hope, which fuller knowledge alone can make possible." Even the subsidising of unexceptionable parents, as the same writer remarks, cannot be viewed with enthusiasm. "If we picture to ourselves the kind of persons who would infallibly be chosen as examples of 'civic worth' the prospect is not very attractive."