Eugenics, as Havelock Ellis has well pointed
out,[100] is not plotting against love but against those influences that
do violence to love, particularly: (1) reckless yielding to mere
momentary desire; and (2) still more fatal influences of wealth and
position and worldly convenience which give a factitious value to
persons who would never appear attractive partners in life were love and
eugenic ideals left to go hand in hand.
"The eugenic ideal," Dr. Ellis foresees, "will have to struggle with the
criminal and still more resolutely with the rich; it will have few
serious quarrels with normal and well-constituted lovers."
The point is an important one. To "rationalize" marriage, is out of the
question. Marriage must be mainly a matter of the emotions; but it is
important that the emotions be exerted in the right direction. The
eugenist seeks to remove the obstacles that are now driving the
emotions into wrong channels. If the emotions can only be headed in the
right direction, then the more emotions the better, for they are the
source of energy which are responsible for almost everything that is
done in the world.
There is in the world plenty of that love which is a matter of mutual
service and of emotions unswayed by any petty or sordid influences; but
it ought not only to be common, it ought to be universal.
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