Family Matters, Eugenics
Darwin's sons George and Horace were ill and arrived home at Christmas 1872 for nursing. Darwin turned from his insectivorous plants to a more leisurely update of his monograph on climbing plants.
He was intrigued by Galton's latest "hereditary improvement" ideas (which would be called Eugenics after 1883), proposing that society should breed out mental and physical disability and improve the nation's stock by introducing "a sentiment of caste among those who are naturally gifted". Families would be registered and incentives offered so that the best children chosen from each "superior family" would marry and reproduce. Darwin, aware that of his brood only William had good health, had already dismissed the aims as too "utopian" in the Descent of Man. He thought these new proposals impractical if voluntary and politically horrifying if enforced by compulsory registration, even were they the "sole feasible" way of "improving the human race". He felt it better simply to publicise the "all-important principle of inheritance" and let people pursue the "grand" objective for themselves. In any case it was too late for his own infirm offspring.
Huxley was also ill, needing a rest and harried by a neighbour suing over a damp basement. The X Club (a dining club formed in November 1864 to support the evolutionary "new reformation" in naturalism, including Huxley, Hooker, John Tyndall, Busk, Spencer, and Spottiswoode) raised a £2,000 collection for him, primed by Darwin with £300. Darwin's spirits were again downcast when Lyell's wife died.
In June 1873 Darwin resumed work on his insectivorous plants, with some distractions as his wife Emma took care of the seven Huxley children while Huxley and Hooker went on holiday to the continent. Having young children in the house was like the 1850s again.
Read more about this topic: Darwin From Insectivorous Plants To Worms
Famous quotes containing the word family:
“It is as when a migrating army of mice girdles a forest of pines. The chopper fells trees from the same motive that the mouse gnaws them,—to get his living. You tell me that he has a more interesting family than the mouse. That is as it happens.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)