Eugenics

„Eugenics is the self-direction of human evolution“: Logo of the Second International Eugenics Congress (1921).

Eugenics (from Greek: εὖ eũ "good, beautiful" and γένος génos "sex") is the application of the findings of human genetics to entire peoples. The term was coined in 1883 by British anthropologist Francis Galton (1822-1911), a first cousin of Charles Darwin, and ultimately aims at pure Social Darwinism. Galton saw eugenics as a science whose declared aim is to increase the proportion of positively evaluated hereditary traits in the population through right breeding selection. At the time of National Socialism, eugenics was propagated as racial hygiene. According to the ideas of some transhumanists, this concept is to be realised in modern form by means of genetic engineering.

Rudolf Steiner has repeatedly pointed out very emphatically the misguided nature of this purely materialistic concept, which is in no way appropriate to humanity's present state of development. Steiner's statements in this regard are also of burning relevance today with regard to modern genetic engineering and its possible direct or indirect application to human beings, despite the current international condemnation:

„There was a congress held in London in 1912 on a completely new science: eugenics. One usually has pompous names for what is in itself the most stupid. The ideas of this eugenetics actually emerged from people's brains, not from their souls. What does this eugenics want? It wants to establish institutions so that in future only a healthy human sex will be conceived, so that inferior individuals will not be conceived; it wants to gradually find laws by combining national economy and anthropology in order to bring men and women together by means of laws in such a way that the strongest possible sex will come into being.

Yes, one is already beginning to think about these things. The ideal of this congress, which was presided over by Darwin's son, was to examine different classes of society to see how large the skull is among the rich, how large the skull is among the poor, who are less able to learn, how large the sensibility is among the rich, how large the sensibility is among the poor, how strong is the resistance which the rich can offer to fatigue, how strong the resistance which the poor can offer to fatigue, and the like. And now one tries to gain views in this way about human corporeality, which may perhaps one day in the future lead one to establish precisely: this is how he must look, this is how she must look, if there is to be a real man of the future; such a degree of fatigability he must have, such a degree of fatigability she must have, such a size of skull in him, a suitable size of skull in her, and so on.

This is a rumbling, a natural rumbling in the brains that have become empty of souls, a rumbling of those ideas that had a reality in the Atlantean times. It was really the case that there were certain laws by which men could bring about greatness, growth and all sorts of things by crossing, crossing over and the like. That was a kind of science at that time, a broad science, which - as I indicated to you again yesterday - was so much abused precisely in the Atlantean age. This science, which worked out of the kinship of corporeality, knew that if you put such a man together with such a woman - and man and woman were much more different in those days than they are today - such a being comes into being, and then again, as the planter does today, you can vary. The Mysteries then made order out of this crossing, out of this bringing together of the related and different; they formed groups and withdrew from humanity what had to be withdrawn from it. But really black magical mischief arose from what was done in the Atlantean age, and order only came about by forming classes, by withdrawing these things from mankind. And in this way the nations came into being, the races of today came into being. This has contributed to the formation of today's races. And the question of nations is rumbling again in the present age as an echo of the soulless brains of the Atlantic period. How much is said today about questions of nations. But it is only physicality that speaks. The withdrawn spirituality already belongs to a completely different world today. That is the discrepancy between reality and all the declamations that today refer to the so-called national principle. This can never lead to salvation, but must always and again lead into chaos, if one wants to place politics on the questions of nations, which are no longer questions of the present, because the soul belongs to quite different orders and quite different connections than those which express themselves in the bodily being. These are all things that must be known, but which can only be known through spiritual science. This rumbling in the brains that have become empty of souls is the cause of the fact that in the present time such endeavours are appearing that want to shape man according to certain laws.“ (Lit.:GA 177, p. 91ff)

See also

• Eugenics - Article in the English Wikipedia
• Eugenic occultism

Literature

• Rudolf Steiner: Die spirituellen Hintergründe der äußeren Welt. Der Sturz der Geister der Finsternis, GA 177 (1999), ISBN 3-7274-1771-4 English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org

References to the work of Rudolf Steiner follow Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works (CW or GA), Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach/Switzerland, unless otherwise stated. Email: verlag@steinerverlag.com URL: www.steinerverlag.com. Index to the Complete Works of Rudolf Steiner - Aelzina Books A complete list by Volume Number and a full list of known English translations you may also find at Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works Rudolf Steiner Archive - The largest online collection of Rudolf Steiner's books, lectures and articles in English. Rudolf Steiner Audio - Recorded and Read by Dale Brunsvold steinerbooks.org - Anthroposophic Press Inc. (USA) Rudolf Steiner Handbook - Christian Karl's proven standard work for orientation in Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works for free download as PDF.