conservatism of the people as a whole; we may be quite sure that anything
beyond a very restricted application of eugenical notions will take a long
time to get itself established in our laws or even in our customs.
Nevertheless, it would be a great mistake to suppose that even the more
extreme forms of eugenical doctrine are not forces to be reckoned with as
affecting practical possibilities of a not distant future. Though no
results may appear on the surface, the leaven is working. It is consonant
with tendencies which in so many directions are becoming more and more
dominant. So long as those tendencies continue in anything like their
present strength, there can be little doubt that the idea of control in
the direction of eugenics, like that of the regulation of human life in
other fundamental respects, will continue to make headway, and may at any
time become one of the central issues of the day.

To adduce prohibition as an illustration of this same character in the
thought and the tendencies of our immediate time may seem like forcing the
point. It is true, it may be said, that there has been within the past few
years a rapid spread of prohibition in almost every part of the country;
but the thing itself is sixty years old, has had its periods of advance
and recession, and is now, in the fullness of time, reaping the fruits of
two generations of agitation, investigation, and education. But to say
this is to overlook the distinctive feature of the present situation
regarding prohibition in the United States. A Constitutional amendment
providing for the complete prohibition of the sale of liquor throughout
the Union is pending in Congress. A year ago--probably six months
ago--there was hardly a human being in the United States, other than those
in the councils of the Anti-saloon League, who had so much as thought of
national prohibition as a question of present-day practical politics.
Suddenly it is announced that there is a distinct possibility of a
prohibition amendment being passed by Congress in the near future; and one