Lately one campaigner has raised this figure to
15,000,000. Such fantastic proposals are properly resented by socialists
and nearly every one else, but they are invariably associated in the
public mind with the conception of eugenics, in spite of the fact that
99 out of 100 eugenists would repudiate them. The authors can speak only
for themselves, in declaring that eugenics will not be promoted by
coercive means except in a limited class of pathological cases; but they
are confident that other geneticists, with a very few exceptions, hold
the same attitude. There is no danger that this surgical campaign will
ever attain formidable proportions, and the socialist, we believe, may
rest assured that the progress of eugenics is not likely to infringe
unwarrantably on the principle of individual freedom, either by
sterilization or by coercive mating.
2. Eugenists are further charged with ignoring or paying too little
attention to the influence of the environment in social reform. This
charge is sometimes well founded, but it is not an inherent defect in
the eugenics program. The eugenist only asks that both factors be taken
into account, whereas in the past the factor of heredity has been too
often ignored.
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