Personal beauty and racial betterment by Dunlap Knight 1875-1949

Author:Dunlap, Knight, 1875-1949
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Beauty, Personal, Sex, Eugenics
Publisher: St. Louis, C.V. Mosby Company
Published: 1920-09-23T04:00:00+00:00

be put on a plan of equality; there would undoubtedly be a consensus of opinion that society loses by a repression of the emotional life of females. Hence, the only benefit we can assume from prostitution is the reduction of reproduction by the feeble-minded. And this, in contrast with the serious racial effects of venereal disease which prostitution facilitates: with the even more serious evil of unmated women which prostitution augments: and with the psychological effects on the men who resort to prostitutes—effects which have not been given due consideration as yet—^is a contribution so small that it is not worth consideration.

Practical Steps in Conservation

Any consideration of the propagation of the most beautiful types involves a consideration of the standard of beauty; and as I have pointed out, there is a diversity in this respect, not only nationally, but to a lesser degree even within a single civilized nation. This diversity, however, is not a serious impediment, since any practical steps which might be taken would be based, not upon a narrow type-classification, but rather on a broad grouping of types including all divergencies which do not involve disregard of the fundamental principles of fitness.

In effect, we are considering, at the most, not

the extreme selection as carried out in stock-breeding, where a definite, narrowly defined character (such as speed, milk secretion, or color) is desired, even at the expense of other characters; but the elimination of the obviously unfit, and the promotion of the breeding of a wide range of more fit types. In so far as positive selection, as contrasted with elimination, is concerned, this can safely be accomplished by facilitating and fructifying the natural process of sexual selection rather than by arbitrary regulation.

In considering elimination, two questions are equally important: first, what classes of individuals should theoreticallv bo eliminated? and second, wJiat machinery of elimination is possible, and how far is it safe to allow this machinery to operate?

If we do not allow the second question to disturb us, the first question may readily receive a partial answer. Feeble-mindedness, hereditary insanity, and hereditary criminal tendencies (if such occur) should be nipped in all the buds they show. Individuals showing these traits definitely should not be allowed to reproduce. Diseases and organic weaknesses which arc transmissible to offspring (if there be such diseases) should come under the same rigid ban. Although additions would need to be made to this list, the program indicated

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