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The author describes himself as an enthusiast for sterilization; especially, it would seem, for the sterilization of people he dislikes and doesn't understand—sexual perverts and the emotionally unstable. Apparently the victims should not regard it as a form of punishment but rather as a eugenic measure—that is for racial improvement. It would seem rather uneugenic to deprive the race of the offspring of people with such a developed social conscience. But one cannot expect these pseudoscientific enthusiasts to be logical, scientific or merely human. We, of course, encounter the Jukes and the Kallikatts again, but the author is not aware of the criticism of the records of the Kallikatts which deprives them of all scientific value. The wilder flights of Mr. Whitney's enthusiasm have frequently to be curbed by the editor. Hitler's order for wholesale sterilization receives Mr. Whitney's approval 'because it has served to bring dramatically to public attention a movement that I have long been interested in'; the editor, however, now agrees with Havelock Ellis and others (like the reviewer) 'that such legislation might be misused by some political party'. The editor correctly points out that scientists are no more to be trusted to remain fair and impartial under political enthusiasms than anybody else.
The work is superficial, shows an unusual ignorance of biological and psychological facts and principles which, despite the editor's correction of its many glaring errors, remains a book unworthy of serious consideration.