THE MULTIPLICATION OF THE UNFIT IN RELATION TO THE STATE.


_Ancient methods of preventing the fertility of the unfit.--Christian
sentiment suppressed inhuman practices--Christian care brings many
defectives to the child-bearing period of life.--The association of
mental and physical defects.--Who are the unfit.--The tendency of
relatives to cast their degenerate kinsfolk on the State.--Our social
conditions manufacture defectives and foster their fertility.--The only
moral force that limits families is inhibition with prudence.--Defective
self-control transmitted hereditarily. Dr. Mac Gregorys cases.--The
transmission of insanity.--Celibacy of the insane is the prophylaxis of
insanity in the race.--The environment of the unfit.--Defectives
snatched from Nature's clutch.--At the age of maturity they are left to
propogate their kind_.

THE humanitarian spirit, born 1900 years ago, effectually
checked all inhuman practices for disposal of the unfit. Christ is the
Author of this spirit. The noisy triumph of His persecutors had scarcely
died away before His conception of the sanctity of human life found
expression in the mission of those Roman maidens who in His name devoted
their lives to collecting exposed infants from the environs of their
city--that they might rear and educate them and bring them to the
Church.

Not only has it done this, but it has taught society that its first and
highest duty is to its weaker brethren, who constitute the unfit. All
our modern institutions are based on this sentiment, and what is the
result? Weaklings are born into the world and the weaker they are the
more carefully are they tended and nursed. The law of the struggle for