Pearson (1907) The Scope and Importance to the State of the Science of National Eugenics. 1st edition

Legacies of Eugenics project

Eugenics Laboratory Lectures 1: Pearson, Karl. 1907. The Scope and Importance to the State of the Science of National Eugenics (London: Frowde), 45 pp. Based on the Fourteenth Robert Boyle Lecture before the Oxford University Junior Scientific Club, 17 May 1907.

First edition is 1907 in Journal of the Oxford University Junior Scientific Club. Separately printed. (The edition printed in the Journal has not been located.) Pearson republished this as Eugenics Laboratory Lectures number 1 (1909 is “second edition”; 1911 is “third edition”).

Summary

 This lecture, delivered as the Fourteenth Robert Boyle Lecture by Karl Pearson, F.R.S., on May 17, 1907, establishes Eugenics as a new science essential to the welfare of the State. Pearson asserts that the science must move beyond merely ideological or observational phases and adopt a metrical approach founded upon measurement and rigorous numerical expression. He contrasts this scientific method with the purely verbal reasoning found in contemporary works on political economy.

Eugenics is defined as relying on the collection and analysis of large samples of data concerning the physique, mentality, fertility, and disease of wide classes of the nation. Pearson presents fundamental biometric data demonstrating that parental and fraternal inheritance of characters like stature, ability (Oxford Class Lists), and physical traits consistently show an intensity of association around 0.50 to 0.54. He contrasts this stability with the alarming trend of reproductive selection. Data on fertility illustrate that the intellectual or graduate classes average very low completed family sizes (e.g., American Graduates at 2.0; English Intellectuals at 1.5). Conversely, stocks marked by degeneracy or pathological conditions (like deaf-mutism, tuberculosis, criminality, and insanity) maintain high fertility, often averaging over five to seven children.

Pearson warns that this unchecked fertility of less fit stocks, combined with the suspension of natural selection by advanced civilisation, leads to ”Race-Suicide”. He concludes that racial purification requires selection of the germ—meaning changes in reproductive patterns—as relying purely on environmental improvements is insufficient.

Changes Across Editions:

The lecture, initially published in 1907, was later reissued as No. I of the Eugenics Laboratory Lecture Series in a Second Edition (1909). A Third Edition is also noted. The primary purpose of the reissuance was explicitly to meet the need felt by the Galton Eugenics Laboratory to provide an introduction to the science in a simple, non-technical form for the general reader. This confirmed the establishment of the Lecture Series as a mechanism for distributing quantitative findings concerning Eugenics investigations. The content itself, stressing measurement and the threat of declining intellectual fertility, remained the foundational statement of Pearson’s methodology and concerns. The Second Edition preface noted that an authorized translation had appeared in Germany and an unauthorized reprint in America.

Scope and Importance to the State of the Science of National Eugenics. 1st edition (1907)

Alternative:

Multiple editions: