THE Augustinian Abbot Gregor Mendel published the results of his experiments on garden peas from 1856-1863. He kept track of seven inheritable characteristics and summarized his findings using careful and detailed mathematical analysis. His findings included the designation of certain inherited characteristics as “dominant” or “recessive”. The significance of Mendel's findings for the developing science of genetics was not appreciated until the turn of the century. In retrospect, it seems ironic that one of the factors that rendered his findings obscure was his detailed mathematical analysis of his data. Although this is regarded today as an essential element of any serious, published scientific research, the majority of physicians and biologists in the nineteenth century found the mathematics of statistical analysis intimidating, if not impenetrable. It would not be until the twentieth century that the mathematics of statistics would be a required subject for all prospective scientists.
THE pseudo-science of eugenics attempted to twist Mendel’s science of heredity and fuse it in a muddled way with Friedrich Nietzsche’s notion of a philosophical “superman” (Übermensch) who would evolve beyond the constraints of bourgeois Christian morality and unlock the true potential of human beings. Nietzsche introduced the Übermensch in Also Sprach Zarathustra: he meditated on the coercive social methods that may be necessary for the creation of this new humanity in his The Will to Power.
Behold, I teach you the Superman: he is that sea in which you may drown your great contempt.
What is the greatest thing you can experience? It is the hour of the great contempt. The hour in which your happiness, too becomes disgusting [to you], and so also your reason and your virtue.
every marriage warranted and sanctioned by a certain number of trusted men of the community, as a matter of concern to the community.
jede Ehe verantwortet und befürwortet durch eine bestimmte Anzahl Vertrauensmänner einer Gemeinde: als Gemeinde-Angelegenheit.
Also a commandment of the love of humanity.— There are cases in which a child would be a crime: in the case of those who are chronically ill and neurasthenics of the third degree. Auch ein Gebot der Menschenliebe.– Es giebt Fälle, wo ein Kind ein Verbrechen sein würde: bei chronisch Kranken und Neurasthenikern dritten Grades.
One might at least try encouraging them to chastity, perhaps with the aid of Parsifal music: Parsifal himself, this typical idiot, had only too many reasons not to propagate himself. The trouble is that a certain inability to “control” oneself (—not to react to stimuli, even to very slight sexual stimuli) is one of the most regular consequences of general exhaustion. One would be mistaken, for example, to think of a Leopardi as chaste. Solche zur Keuschheit ermuthigen, etwa mit Hülfe von Parsifal-Musik, mag immerhin versucht werden: Parsifal selbst, dieser typische Idiot, hatte nur zu viel Gründe, sich nicht fortzupflanzen. Der Übelstand ist, daß eine gewisse Unfähigkeit, sich zu »beherrschen« (– auf Reize, auf noch so kleine Geschlechtsreize nicht zu reagiren) gerade zu den regelmäßigsten Folgen der Gesammt-Erschöpfung gehört. Man würde sich verrechnen, wenn man sich zum Beispiel einen Leopardi als keusch vorstellte.
The priest [and] the moral [philosopher] are playing a losing game in this case; it would be better to send the person off to a drug-store. Der Priester, der Moralist spielen da ein verlorenes Spiel; besser thut man noch, in die Apotheke zu schicken.
In the end, society has a duty here: few more pressing and fundamental demands can be made upon it. Society, as the great trustee of life, is responsible to life itself for every unsuitable [verfehlte] life—it also has to atone for them: thus it ought to prevent them.
Zuletzt hat hier die Gesellschaft eine Pflicht zu erfüllen: es giebt wenige dergestalt dringliche und grundsätzliche Forderungen an sie. Die Gesellschaft, als Großmandatar des Lebens, hat jedes verfehlte Leben vor dem Leben selber zu verantworten, – sie hat es auch zu büßen: folglich soll sie es verhindern.