Theory of Eugenics.

In 1883 the English scientist Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin, coined the word eugenics to describe the science that concerned itself with those qualities that contributed to the improvement of the human race. Eugenists, as they were to call themselves, firmly believed, for example, that intelligence was an inherited trait that was relatively independent of any environmental consideration or influence. Eugenists portrayed themselves as being sincerely concerned about the future of the human race and maintained that efforts to ensure that the human race achieved its full potential could be successful only under the following condition: that those who bore the qualities most admired or valued among human beings were encouraged to reproduce those strengths in their progeny. It was, in essence, a theory based upon selective breeding, and it was given some urgency by the eugenists' fears...