Eugenics and Other Evils

Thank you for listening to Eugenics.  You might also want to listen to my other book projects here on Podiobooks.com.    

Part 2, Chapter 8 -- The End of the Household Gods: "The only place where it is possible to find an echo of the mind of the English masses is either in conversation or in comic songs. The latter are obviously the more dubious; but they are the only things recorded and quotable that come anywhere near it." Chapter 9 -- A Short Chapter: "Round about the year 1913 Eugenics was turned from a fad to a fashion. Then, if I may so summarise the situation, the joke began in earnest. The organising mind which we have seen considering the problem of slum population, the popular material and the possibility of protests, felt that the time had come to open the campaign. ... But as a matter of fact this is not the first chapter but the last. And this must be a very short chapter, because the whole of this story was cut short. A very curious thing happened. England went to war. This would in itself have been a sufficiently irritating interruption in the early life of Eugenette, and in the early establishment of Eugenics. But a far more dreadful and disconcerting fact must be noted. With whom, alas, did England go to war? England went to war with the Superman in his native home."

Part 2, Chapter 7 -- The Transformation of Socialism: "Socialism is one of the simplest ideas in the world. It has always puzzled me how there came to be so much bewilderment and misunderstanding and miserable mutual slander about it. At one time I agreed with Socialism, because it was simple. Now I disagree with Socialism, because it is too simple."

Part 2, Chapter 6 -- The Eclipse of Liberty: "If such a thing as the Eugenic sociology had been suggested in the period from Fox to Gladstone, it would have been far more fiercely repudiated by the reformers than by the Conservatives."

Part 2, Chapter 5 --The Meanness of the Motive: "Now, if any ask whether it be imaginable that an ordinary man of the wealthier type should analyse the problem or conceive the plan, the inhumanly far-seeing plan, as I have set it forth, the answer is: "Certainly not." Many rich employers are too generous to do such a thing; many are too stupid to know what they are doing."

Part 2, Chapter 4 -- The Vengeance of the Flesh: "By a quaint paradox, we generally miss the meaning of simple stories because we are not subtle enough to understand their simplicity."

Part 2, Chapter 3 -- True History of a Eugenist: "He does not live in a dark lonely tower by the sea, from which are heard the screams of vivisected men and women. On the contrary, he lives in Mayfair."

Part 2, Chapter 2 -- True History of a Tramp: "He awoke in the Dark Ages and smelt dawn in the dark, and knew he was not wholly a slave."

Part 2 -- The Real Aim Chapter 1 -- The Impotence of Impenitence "The root formula of an epoch is always an unwritten law, just as the law that is the first of all laws, that which protects life from the murderer, is written nowhere in the Statute Book."

Part 1, Chapter 8 -- A Summary of a False Theory: "I have up to this point treated the Eugenists, I hope, as seriously as they treat themselves. I have attempted an analysis of their theory as if it were an utterly abstract and disinterested theory; and so considered, there seems to be very little left of it."  

Part 1, Chapter 7 -- The Established Church of Doubt: "Let us now finally consider what the honest Eugenists do mean, since it has become increasingly evident that they cannot mean what they say."  

Part 1, Chapter 6 -- The Unanswered Challenge: "Dr. Saleeby did me the honour of referring to me in one of his addresses on this subject, and said that even I cannot produce any but a feeble-minded child from a feeble-minded ancestry. To which I reply, first of all, that he cannot produce a feeble-minded child. The whole point of our contention is that this phrase conveys nothing fixed and outside opinion."

Part 1, Chapter 5 - The Flying Authority: "It happened one day that an atheist and a man were standing together on a doorstep; and the atheist said, "It is raining." To which the man replied, "What is raining?": which question was the beginning of a violent quarrel and a lasting friendship."

Part 1, Chapter 4 -- The Lunatic and the Law: "The modern evil, we have said, greatly turns on this: that people do not see that the exception proves the rule. Thus it may or may not be right to kill a murderer; but it can only conceivably be right to kill a murderer because it is wrong to kill a man."

Part 1 Chapter 3 -- The Anarchy from Above: "A silent anarchy is eating out our society. I must pause upon the expression; because the true nature of anarchy is mostly misapprehended."

Part 1 Chapter 2 -- The First Obstacles: "Now before I set about arguing these things, there is a cloud of skirmishers, of harmless and confused modern sceptics, who ought to be cleared off or calmed down before we come to debate with the real doctors of the heresy."

Narrator's Introduction To the Reader Part 1 -- The False Theory Chapter One: "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."