Chapter IX.—­The multiplication of the unfit in relation to the state p. 85

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. MacGregor’s 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 clutches.—­At the age of maturity they are left to propogate their kind.

Chapter X.—­What ANAESETICS and antiseptics have made possible p. 99

Education of defectives in prudence and self-restraint of little avail.—­Surgical suggestions discussed.

Chapter XI.—­TUBO-ligature p. 110

The fertility of the criminal a greater danger to society than his depredations.—­Artificial sterility of women.—­The menopause artificially induced.  Untoward results.—­The physiology of the Fallopian tubes.—­Their ligature procures permanent sterility.—­No other results immediate or remote.—­Some instances due to disease.—­Defective women and the wives of defective men would welcome protection from unhealthy offspring.

Chapter XII.—­Suggestions as to application p. 118

The State’s humanitarian zeal protects the lives and fosters the fertility of the degenerate.—­A confirmed or hereditary criminal defined.—­Law on the subject of sterilization could at first be permissive.—­It should apply, to begin with, to criminals and the insane.—­Marriage certificates of health should be required.—­Women’s readiness to submit to surgical treatment for minor as well as major pelvic diseases.—­Surgically induced sterility of healthy women a greater crime than abortion.—­This danger not remote.

Conclusion p. 124

THE FERTILITY OF THE UNFIT.

* * * * *

INTRODUCTION.

Biology is the Science of Life.  It seeks to explain the phenomena of all life, whether animal or vegetable.  Its methods are observation and experiment.  It observes the tiny cell on the surface of an egg yolk, and watches it divide and multiply until it becomes a great mass of cells, which group off or differentiate, and rearrange and alter their shapes.  It observes how little organs unfold themselves, or evolve out of these little cell groups—­how gradual,