The Inheritance of Morality:

The Theological Debate on Eugenics in Early Twentieth Century Britain

What is Eugenics?

The Early Twentieth Century British Eugenics Movement

“Racial Degeneration”

The Christian Moral Critique of Eugenics

Abstract

A Eugenic Christianity

Dean Inge: An Orthodox Eugenicist

Caleb Saleeby: A Eugenic Reformer

Conclusion: Modernism and Theology

Samuel Fishman

Francis Galton: The Progenitor

Evangelizing a New Religion

•Many intellectuals were express concern with faltering of British race late nineteenth and early twentieth century.

• Prevalence of physically unfit draftees during the Boer War (1899-1902) creates national paranoia.

•H.G. Wells The Time Machine (1895) to illustrate possible degenerate future of British people.

•The eugenics movement became very popular in twentieth century Britain.

•Many believed that eugenics would save the British people from “racial degeneration” and usher in utopia.

•Some eugenicists, such as Francis Galton and Caleb Saleeby, believed that eugenics could serve as the foundation for a humanistic religion.

•Other eugenicists, such as Dean Inge and E. W. Barnes, claimed that Christianity should adapt eugenics.

•Opponents of eugenics, Thomas Gerrard and G. K. Chesterton, attacked eugenics on the grounds of morality.

•The eugenicists were united by their willingness to adapt religion to current scientific thought.

•The anti-eugenicists rejected eugenics on the grounds that science must conform to fundamental Christian morals.

•The works of Gerrard and Chesterton likely played a significant role in restraining the British eugenics movement.

E. W. Barnes: A Christian Modernist

Thomas J. Gerrard: A Catholic Resistor

G. K. Chesterton: A Most Eloquent Critic“It (eugenics) must be introduced into the national conscience, like a religion. It has, indeed, strong claims to become an orthodox religion, tenet of the future, for eugenics co-operate with the workings of nature by securing that humanity shall be represented by the fittest races…The improvement of our stock seems to me one of the highest objects that we can reasonably attempt.”

“Eugenics: Its Definition, Scope, and Aims” (1904)

“It (eugenics) is at once a science, and a religion, based upon the laws of life, and recognizing them in the foundation of society.”

Parenthood and Race Culture (1909)

•Many British intellectuals called for empirical and humanistic civic religion based on eugenics.

•New religion will be based on scientific principles derived from eugenics.

“The aim of Christian ethics is, quite definitely, the production of ‘the perfect man.’ (The word translated perfect means full-grown, complete, and entire. The perfect man is the man who has realized in himself the ideal of what a man should be.) That this is the goal of Christian ethic may be proved by the impressive command in the Sermon on the Mount, ‘Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect …’”

“Some Moral Aspects of Eugenics ” (1909)

“Christianity seeks to crate the Kingdom of god, the community of the elect. It tries to make what we may call a spiritually eugenic society. It recognizes that by no means all human beings are fit for this society. ‘Many are called but few are chosen,’ is a saying of its Founder, the truth of which continuous experience has verified.”

“Some Reflections on Eugenics and Religion” (1926)

•A number of British Christian leaders spoke out against eugenics.

•Only Catholicism overtly opposed eugenics.

“The supreme mistake of the eugenist in dealing with the religious factor is in making religion the handmaid of eugenics, instead of eugenics the handmaid of religion. In this as in every other experience of life we have first to seek the Kingdom of God and His justice, and then, in so far as they help towards our highest well-being, the natural gifts of body and mind will be added unto us.”

The Church and Eugenics (1912)

•Purposeful manipulation of human breeding.

• Exists as a social theory and a scientific discipline.

•Heredity determines intelligence, health, and moral makeup.

•Occurs through several means: sterilization, contraceptives, incarceration, and encouraging procreation of the “fit.”

•Achieved great popularity among intellectuals.

•Numerous notables join movement including former and future prime ministers, Arthur Balfour and Winston Churchill,

•Mental Deficiency Act is passed in 1913.

•World War I interrupts success.

•After the war, eugenics movement becomes less politically active and more academically focused.

“We call in the doctor to save us from death; and, death being admittedly an evil, he has the right to administer the queerest and most recondite pill which he may think is a cure for all such menaces of death. He has not the right to administer death, as the cure for all human ills. And as he has no moral authority to enforce a new conception of happiness, so he has no moral authority to enforce a new conception of sanity.”

Eugenics and Other Evils (1922)

Eugenics, the use of regulated breeding practices to improve a population, became widely accepted in the twentieth century as a scientific theory and potential method for improving society. Despite the implementation of eugenics in many western countries, it never gained a strong foothold in Britain. One of the most important aspects of the British eugenics debate revolved around religion. The Modernism-influenced proponents of eugenics expressed an ideology that adapted religion to conform with scientific progress, while its opponents exclaimed that the practice and usage of science must conform to fundamental moral laws based on Christian theology.

•Leaders in British churches claimed that the eugenics complimented Orthodox Christianity.

•Most of these individuals had backgrounds in the Anglican Church.