The Modern Utopia is not only to be a sound and happy World State, but it is to be one progressing from good to better. But as Malthus [Footnote: Essay on the Principles of Population.] demonstrated for all time, a State whose population continues to increase in obedience2 to unchecked instinct, can progress only from bad to worse. From the view of human comfort and happiness, the increase of population that occurs at each advance in human security is the greatest evil of life. The way of Nature is for every species to increase nearly to its possible maximum of numbers, and then to improve through the pressure of that maximum against its limiting conditions by the crushing and killing3 of all the feebler individuals. The way of Nature has also been the way of humanity so far, and except when a temporary alleviation4 is obtained through an expansion of the general stock of sustenance5 by invention or discovery, the amount of starvation and of the physical misery6 of privation in the world, must vary almost exactly with the excess of the actual birth-rate over that required to sustain population at a number compatible with a universal contentment. Neither has Nature evolved, nor has man so far put into operation, any device by which paying this price of progress, this misery of a multitude of starved and unsuccessful lives can be evaded7. A mere8 indiscriminating restriction9 of the birth-rate — an end practically attained11 in the homely12, old-fashioned civilisation13 of China by female infanticide, involves not only the cessation of distresses14 but stagnation15, and the minor16 good of a sort of comfort and social stability is won at too great a sacrifice. Progress depends essentially17 on competitive selection, and that we may not escape.
But it is a conceivable and possible thing that this margin18 of futile19 struggling, pain and discomfort20 and death might be reduced to nearly nothing without checking physical and mental evolution, with indeed an acceleration21 of physical and mental evolution, by preventing the birth of those who would in the unrestricted interplay of natural forces be born to suffer and fail. The method of Nature “red in tooth and claw” is to degrade, thwart22, torture, and kill the weakest and least adapted members of every species in existence in each generation, and so keep the specific average rising; the ideal of a scientific civilisation is to prevent those weaklings being born. There is no other way of evading23 Nature’s punishment of sorrow. The struggle for life among the beasts and uncivilised men means misery and death for the inferior individuals, misery and death in order that they may not increase and multiply; in the civilised State it is now clearly possible to make the conditions of life tolerable for every living creature, provided the inferiors can be prevented from increasing and multiplying. But this latter condition must be respected. Instead of competing to escape death and wretchedness, we may compete to give birth and we may heap every sort of consolation24 prize upon the losers in that competition. The modern State tends to qualify inheritance, to insist upon education and nurture25 for children, to come in more and more in the interests of the future between father and child. It is taking over the responsibility of the general welfare of the children more and more, and as it does so, its right to decide which children it will shelter becomes more and more reasonable.
How far will such conditions be prescribed? how far can they be prescribed in a Modern Utopia?
Let us set aside at once all nonsense of the sort one hears in certain quarters about the human stud farm. [Footnote: See Mankind in the Making, Ch. II.] State breeding of the population was a reasonable proposal for Plato to make, in view of the biological knowledge of his time and the purely26 tentative nature of his metaphysics; but from anyone in the days after Darwin, it is preposterous27. Yet we have it given to us as the most brilliant of modern discoveries by a certain school of sociological writers, who seem totally unable to grasp the modification28 of meaning “species” and “individual” have undergone in the last fifty years. They do not seem capable of the suspicion that the boundaries of species have vanished, and that individuality now carries with it the quality of the unique! To them individuals are still defective29 copies of a Platonic30 ideal of the species, and the purpose of breeding no more than an approximation to that perfection. Individuality is indeed a negligible difference to them, an impertinence, and the whole flow of modern biological ideas has washed over them in vain.
But to the modern thinker individuality is the significant fact of life, and the idea of the State, which is necessarily concerned with the average and general, selecting individualities in order to pair them and improve the race, an absurdity31. It is like fixing a crane on the plain in order to raise the hill tops. In the initiative of the individual above the average, lies the reality of the future, which the State, presenting the average, may subserve but cannot control. And the natural centre of the emotional life, the cardinal32 will, the supreme33 and significant expression of individuality, should lie in the selection of a partner for procreation.
But compulsory34 pairing is one thing, and the maintenance of general limiting conditions is another, and one well within the scope of State activity. The State is justified35 in saying, before you may add children to the community for the community to educate and in part to support, you must be above a certain minimum of personal efficiency, and this you must show by holding a position of solvency36 and independence in the world; you must be above a certain age, and a certain minimum of physical development, and free of any transmissible disease. You must not be a criminal unless you have expiated37 your offence. Failing these simple qualifications, if you and some person conspire38 and add to the population of the State, we will, for the sake of humanity, take over the innocent victim of your passions, but we shall insist that you are under a debt to the State of a peculiarly urgent sort, and one you will certainly pay, even if it is necessary to use restraint to get the payment out of you: it is a debt that has in the last resort your liberty as a security, and, moreover, if this thing happens a second time, or if it is disease or imbecility you have multiplied, we will take an absolutely effectual guarantee that neither you nor your partner offend again in this matter.
“Harsh!” you say, and “Poor Humanity!”
You have the gentler alternative to study in your terrestrial slums and asylums39.
It may be urged that to permit conspicuously40 inferior people to have one or two children in this way would be to fail to attain10 the desired end, but, indeed, this is not so. A suitably qualified41 permission, as every statesman knows, may produce the social effects without producing the irksome pressure of an absolute prohibition42. Amidst bright and comfortable circumstances, and with an easy and practicable alternative, people will exercise foresight43 and self-restraint to escape even the possibilities of hardship and discomfort; and free life in Utopia is to be well worth this trouble even for inferior people. The growing comfort, self-respect, and intelligence of the English is shown, for example, in the fall in the proportion of illegitimate births from 2.2 per 1,000 in 1846-50 to 1.2 per 1,000 in 1890-1900, and this without any positive preventive laws whatever. This most desirable result is pretty certainly not the consequence of any great exaltation of our moral tone, but simply of a rising standard of comfort and a livelier sense of consequences and responsibilities. If so marked a change is possible in response to such progress as England has achieved in the past fifty years, if discreet44 restraint can be so effectual as this, it seems reasonable to suppose that in the ampler knowledge and the cleaner, franker atmosphere of our Utopian planet the birth of a child to diseased or inferior parents, and contrary to the sanctions of the State, will be the rarest of disasters.
And the death of a child, too, that most tragic45 event, Utopia will rarely know. Children are not born to die in childhood. But in our world, at present, through the defects of our medical science and nursing methods, through defects in our organisation46, through poverty and carelessness, and through the birth of children that never ought to have been born, one out of every five children born dies within five years. It may be the reader has witnessed this most distressful47 of all human tragedies. It is sheer waste of suffering. There is no reason why ninety-nine out of every hundred children born should not live to a ripe age. Accordingly, in any Modern Utopia, it must be insisted they will.
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1
riddle
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| n.谜，谜语，粗筛；vt.解谜，给…出谜，筛，检查，鉴定，非难，充满于；vi.出谜 | |
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obedience
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| n.服从，顺从 | |
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killing
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| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
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alleviation
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| n. 减轻，缓和，解痛物 | |
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sustenance
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| n.食物，粮食；生活资料；生计 | |
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misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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evaded
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| 逃避( evade的过去式和过去分词 )； 避开； 回避； 想不出 | |
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8
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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restriction
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| n.限制，约束 | |
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attain
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| vt.达到，获得，完成 | |
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attained
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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homely
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| adj.家常的，简朴的；不漂亮的 | |
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civilisation
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| n.文明，文化，开化，教化 | |
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distresses
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| n.悲痛( distress的名词复数 )；痛苦；贫困；危险 | |
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stagnation
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| n. 停滞 | |
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minor
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| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
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essentially
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| adv.本质上，实质上，基本上 | |
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margin
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| n.页边空白；差额；余地，余裕；边，边缘 | |
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futile
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| adj.无效的，无用的，无希望的 | |
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discomfort
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| n.不舒服，不安，难过，困难，不方便 | |
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acceleration
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| n.加速，加速度 | |
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thwart
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| v.阻挠，妨碍，反对；adj.横(断的) | |
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evading
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| 逃避( evade的现在分词 )； 避开； 回避； 想不出 | |
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consolation
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| n.安慰，慰问 | |
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nurture
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| n.养育，照顾，教育；滋养，营养品；vt.养育，给与营养物，教养，扶持 | |
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purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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preposterous
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| adj.荒谬的，可笑的 | |
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28
modification
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| n.修改，改进，缓和，减轻 | |
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defective
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| adj.有毛病的，有问题的，有瑕疵的 | |
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platonic
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| adj.精神的；柏拉图（哲学）的 | |
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absurdity
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| n.荒谬，愚蠢；谬论 | |
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cardinal
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| n.(天主教的)红衣主教；adj.首要的，基本的 | |
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supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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compulsory
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| n.强制的，必修的；规定的，义务的 | |
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justified
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| a.正当的，有理的 | |
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solvency
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| n.偿付能力，溶解力 | |
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expiated
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| v.为（所犯罪过）接受惩罚，赎（罪）( expiate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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conspire
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| v.密谋，（事件等）巧合，共同导致 | |
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39
asylums
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| n.避难所( asylum的名词复数 )；庇护；政治避难；精神病院 | |
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40
conspicuously
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| ad.明显地，惹人注目地 | |
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41
qualified
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| adj.合格的，有资格的，胜任的，有限制的 | |
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42
prohibition
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| n.禁止；禁令，禁律 | |
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43
foresight
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| n.先见之明，深谋远虑 | |
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44
discreet
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| adj.(言行)谨慎的；慎重的；有判断力的 | |
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45
tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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46
organisation
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| n.组织，安排，团体，有机休 | |
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47
distressful
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| adj.苦难重重的，不幸的，使苦恼的 | |
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