Eugenics and other evils

This was a very interesting book to read, especially since it was written almost a century ago (in the time before WOII, when one could still openly be a eugenist). Chesterton spends quite some time explaining how eugenics is related to both capitalism and socialism; I was reminded of his analyses in the end of 'What's wrong with the world'.

Eugenics, socialism and capitalism

In part II of 'Eugenics and other evils', Chesterton analyzes the reasons for the move towards Eugenics in his time. Socialism, and the desire that the government control the health of its subjects, is one influence. Capitalism, though, is also guilty: "That this is so, that at root the Eugenist is the Employer, there are multitudinous proofs on every side, but they are of necessity miscellaneous, and in many cases negative. The most enormous is in a sense the most negative: that no one seems able to imagine capitalist industrialism being sacrificed to any other object.' Similar to other arguments in other books, Chesterton shows how we tend to forget what should be our primary focus (such as normal people and families) and treat modern and fleeting institutions as permanent. Chesterton uses one example to make his point clear (from chapter V):

To this [a specific paper] a man writes to say that the spread of destitution will never be stopped until we have educated the lower classes in the methods by which the upper classes prevent procreation. The man had the horrible playfulness to sign his letter "Hopeful". [-] The curious point is that the hopeful one concludes by saying, "When people have large families and small wages, not only is there a high infantile death-rate, but often those who do live to grow up are stunted and weakened by having had to share the family income for a time with those who died early. There would be less unhappiness if there were no unwanted children." You will observe that he tacitly takes it for granted that the small wages and the income, desperately shared,are the fixed points, like day and night, the conditions of human life. Compared with them marriage and maternity are luxuries, things to be modified to suit the wage-market. There are unwanted children; but unwanted by whom? This man does not really mean that the parents doe not want to have them. He means that the employers do not want to pay them properly.

Reading this, I think of the character of 'tiny Tim', from Dickens' 'Christmas Carol'...

Science

From 'Eugenics and other evils', chapter VII:

The thing that really is trying to tyrannise through government is Science. The thing that really does use the secular arm is Science. And the creed that is really levying tithes and capturing schools, the creed that really is enforced by fine and imprisonment, the creed that really is proclaimed not in sermons but in statutes, and spread not by pilgrims but by policemen - that creed is the great but disputed system of thought which began with Evolution and has ended in Eugenics. Materialism is really our established Church; for the Government will really help it to persecute its heretics. Vaccination, in its hundred years of experiment, has been disputed almost as much as baptism in its approximate two thousand. But is seems quite natural to our politicians to enforce vaccinations; and it would seem to them madness to enforce baptism. 

I am not frightened of the word "persecution" when it is attributed to the churches; nor is it in the least as a term of reproach that I attribute it to the men of science. It is as a term of legal fact. If it means the imposition by the police of a widely disputed theory, incapable of final proof - then our priests are not now persecuting, but our doctors are.

 I have to say that I do not agree with Chesterton completely; I do tend to trust specialists, and I do not necessarily believe the common man with his common sense will have the right view of scientific theories. But it is good to realize that the scientific worldview (even in a specific area) is not as immovable as some popular writers tend to express.

 

Euphemistic Eugenists

Before Chesterton tackles Eugenics itself in 'Eugenics and other evils', he spends a few sections discussing superficial proponents of the theory. Foremost are the 'euphemists': 'short words startle them, while long words soothe them. And they are utterly incapable of translating the one into the other, however obviously they mean the same thing'.
In Orthodoxy, years before, Chesterton already remarked: "It is a good exercise to try for once in a way to express any opinion one holds in words of one syllable."  

Pre-emptive action

The wisest thing in the world is to cry out before you are hurt. It is no good to cry out after you are hurt; especially after you are mortally hurt. People talk about the impatience of the populace; but sound historians know that most tyrannies have been possible because men moved too late. It is often essential to resist a tyranny before it exists. It is no answer to say, with a distant optimism, that the scheme is only in the air. A blow from a hatchet can only be parried while it is in the air.

This is how Chesterton begins his work on Eugenics in 1922. No comments needed.

St Thomas Aquinas

Chestertons's book about the 'dumb ox' or the 'angelic doctor' is very interesting: it does not pretend to be more than an introduction (or a 'plan'), but in these 250 pages there is enough information to have quite some idea about Thomas' life, his character, his philosophy and his impact. Chesterton heralds him as the defender of 'common sense' (a title later applied to himself); he insists that Thomas' philosophy was the perfect middle that corresponds to what the common man thinks (even though the syllogisms are quite technical). Affirming the world as being created good (opposed to the overly platonistic thinkers), but letting it find its final goal in God. Affirming the importance of Aristotle's philosophy, but rather by 'baptizing Aristotle' than by compromising Christianity.

The character

After a chapter on the Aristotelian revolution and a chapter on Thomas' thought about the Manichees, Chesterton suddenly inserts a chapter on St. Thomas' character. In some ways this chapter V is a continuation of chapter II, when we were told how St. Thomas became a Dominican. Why then the two other chapters inbetween, I wondered.
I think that the answer is that we will appreciate Thomas' character more after we know a little bit about his thinking. His absent-mindedness is more understandable, his humility more amazing, his faith more touching.