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Journal ofMedical Ethics 1998;24:263-267
Greek theories on eugenicsDavid J Galton St Bartholomew's
Hospital, London
AbstractWith the recent developments in the Human GenomeMapping
Project and the new technologies that aredevelopingfrom it there is
a renewal of concern abouteugenic applications. Francis Galton
(b1822,dl 911), who developed the subject of eugenics,suggested
that the ancient Greeks had contributedvery little to social
theories of eugenics. In fact theGreeks had a profound interest in
methods ofsupplying their city states with the finest
possibleprogeny. This paper therefore reviews the works ofPlato
(The Republic and Politics) and Aristotle(The Politics and The
Athenian Constitution)which have a direct bearing on eugenic
techniquesand relates them to methods used in the
presentcentury.(7ournal ofMedical Ethics 1998;24:263-267)Keywords:
Eugenics; ancient Greeks; Plato; Aristotle;contemporary methods
IntroductionEugenics (Gk eu- good, well; Gk gen-
genesis,creation), a term proposed by Francis Galton, wasdefined as
"the science of improving the inheritedstock, not only by judicious
matings, but by allother influences ...".' With the recent
develop-ments in the Human Genome Mapping Projectthe scope for
eugenics has enormously increasedbecause of the development of a
very powerfultechnology for the manipulation of DNA. A mul-titude
of gene sequences and genetic markers arenow becoming available to
predict risks ofdeveloping such common conditions as
cancer,ischaemic heart disease, diabetes mellitus andhypertension;
and in some cases it is possible totreat such disorders by gene
therapy (ie replace-ment of the LDL-receptor gene in patients
withhomozygous familial hypercholesterolaemia).2Gene manipulation
of germ-line cells is currentlyin use for animal models ofhuman
disease and nodoubt will soon become available for the supply
ofdonor organs for purposes of human transplanta-tion surgery. A
wider definition of eugenics mighttherefore be "the use of science
applied to thequantitative and qualitative improvement of thehuman
genome"; and this would cover methods ofregulating population
numbers as well as improv-ing genome quality by selective
artificial insemina-
tion by donor, gene therapy or gene manipulationof germ-line
cells.3 This definition does notinclude any terms related to the
acceptability orotherwise of the means to achieve these ends,
iewhether some methods should be made compul-sory by the state, or
left entirely to the personalchoice of the individual. A major
problem for thefuture will be where to draw the fine line
betweenstate control and personal choice for the manygenetic issues
that will arise with the application ofthe new DNA technology. This
is particularly soas some of the genetic issues related to
multifacto-rial disease are complex and may go beyond
theunderstanding of some citizens who may beinvolved in such
decisions.
Galton's work on eugenics makes very little ref-erence to Greek
social theories of eugenics andcurrent standard works on eugenics4
make no ref-erence to the Greek contribution. For exampleGalton
states in a letter, that he had read "Plato'sRepublic and Laws for
eugenic passages; but theydon't amount to much beyond the
purification ofthe city by sending off all the degenerates to
formwhat is termed a colony!".' It is not clear whereGalton
obtained this idea of colonisation as aeugenic measure; it does not
appear to occur any-where in Plato's works. In early ancient Greek
his-tory (from the eighth to sixth centuries BC)establishing
colonies was a way of coping withpopulation expansion and of
establishing tradingcontacts overseas. Perhaps Galton may have
beenrecalling Herodotus, Book IV, where Polymnes-tus, a man of high
repute in Thera, had a defectiveson with a speech impediment named
Battus(meaning stammerer); and Battus was dispatchedby the citizens
with sanctions from the Delphicoracle to found a colony in Libya.6
However,Herodotus does not say anything explicitly to sug-gest that
the disability was a motive for sendinghim to lead a colony. On the
other hand Plato'sworks do reveal a profound interest in eugenics
asa means of supplying the city state with the finestpossible
progeny. This was of vital significance forthe future of the city,
which needed to supply menfor its army which was continually at war
withother city states. The purpose of this paper is todescribe
prevailing ancient Greek views on
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264 Greek theories on eugenics
eugenic methods to improve the quality of theirprogeny.
Plato's Republic'This work was probably written before 368
BCwhen the author was in his fourth to fifth decade.It is a
blueprint for the organisation of an idealsociety and with regard
to eugenics adopts thepolicy of ensuring "judicious matings".
Platothought it vital to society that the correct arrange-ments
should be made for such matings. He pro-posed that marriage for the
guardian classes(guardians were the premier class of
Atheniancitizens, selected by their natural capacities
andattainments to govern the state) be abolished andthat provision
be made for men and women of thesame natural capacities to mate. He
drew an anal-ogy with the selective breeding of sporting dogsand
horses in order to obtain the desired stock.The members of the
guardian classes should onlybe allowed to breed in their prime, for
men, afterreaching the age of 25 years, for women 20 years.
Inferior members of the guardian classes shouldbe discouraged
from reproducing. Only the best ofthe offspring should be kept in
the guardian classand the inferior children should be relegated
tothe civilian classes (farmers or craftsmen). Thesewere the
general principles; and in practical termsthey could be implemented
by the institution of amarriage festival, bringing together
suitable youngpeople in the correct age band. Sacrifices,
poetry,songs and dance would set the atmosphere foryoung couples to
"marry" and cohabit during theperiod of the festival for about one
month, afterwhich the marriage would be dissolved and thepartners
remain celibate until the next festival.The number ofmarriages at
each festival would beat the ruler's discretion, to keep the
populationnumbers constant, taking into account lossescaused by war
or epidemics. Plato was more afraidof a decline than a rise in the
birth rate and con-sidered that the civilian classes could breed
with-out restriction so as to keep an average city statewith 5,000
citizens (as stated in The Laws). Toprevent marriage of the
inferior members of theguardian classes a lottery system would be
set upbut so rigged that young men acquitting them-selves well in
war and other duties would be giventhe first opportunities of
having a marriagepartner for the term of the festival to
producechildren whilst the inferior youth would draw lotswhich "by
chance" would not procure a partnerfor them. At the end of the
festival the marriageswould be dissolved but the superior youths
wouldbe able to draw by lot another (and different)partner at the
next festival.
The newborn children were to be taken fromtheir mothers and
reared in special nurseries in aseparate quarter of the city.
Family life was to bediscouraged as it provided a distraction from
thebusiness of governing, of defending or extendingthe city state
by conquest. Any children borndefective would be "hidden away" in
some appro-priate manner. This may actually be a euphemismfor
infanticide.8 However neither infanticide norexposure as practised
in Sparta and other Greekcities was recommended by Plato for his
republic.Women should be allowed to bear children from
the ages of 20 - 40 years, and men reproduce from25 - 55 years,
when the bodily and mental powersare at their best. Unofficial
unions which pro-duced children would be considered as a civil
(anddivine) offence and appropriate punishmentsinstituted. Men
should only have relations withwomen of a marriagable age if the
rulers hadpaired them together. Incestuous unions betweenparents
and children were to be forbidden; butthere were no sanctions
against brother-sisterunions. Brother-sister marriages were not
uncom-mon in Egypt and the Greeks had probably notnoticed the
increased frequency of defective chil-dren resulting from
consanguineous marriages.The main aim of brother-sister incest as
practisedby the royal families of Egypt was to keep thethrone
within the family. It appears clear fromportraits of the Ptolemies
of Egypt, the mostnotorious case of such incest, that some
memberssuffered from inherited endocrine disorders,9 butthere is no
evidence that this was connected by theancients themselves with the
practice of brother-sister incest. However, if all the newborn
Greekchildren were brought up communally in a creche,real brothers
and sisters would not perhaps knowthey were so related; especially
as there would beso many different marriage pairs from
eachsuceeding festival. Finally, men and women of theguardian
classes past the child-bearing age couldform relationships that
would fall outside thejurisdiction of the rulers.
Plato's Laws'°This is the last of Plato' dialogues, written in
hiseighth decade in about 350 BC, but it is highlylikely that he
was at work on The Laws for manyyears during intervals of writing
other texts, sinceit is his longest work and it may well
incorporatematerial for earlier projects at which he hints,
butseems never to have completed. It is a more prac-tical treatment
and extension of the politicalproblems raised in The Republic. He
attempts toframe a model constitution and legislation thatmight be
adopted by a society of average Greeks.He by now considers the
temporary unions at
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Galton 265
marriage festivals, with a community of wives andchildren, to be
impractical. Instead he would leg-islate for monogamous marriages
with strict chas-tity outside of that. Provision for this should
beinitially made by arranging sports and dance festi-vals so the
young people of the city could meeteach other. If a man of 25 years
or more finds asuitable partner he should submit his case to
thecurator of laws, and if the match is found suitable,should in
all cases marry her before the age of 30- 35 years. A girl could
marry from the age of 16 -20 years. With regard to fitness for
marriage a manshould primarily court a woman for the city'sgood and
not just because she takes his fancy. Theorigin of the bride and
her family should be care-fully scrutinised. The wealth or poverty
of thebride's family should not play a large part in hischoice.
If any fit young men did not, or refused tomarry, up to the age
of 35 years they then shouldpay an annual fine of 100 drachmas
ifbelonging tothe wealthiest class; 70 drachmas if to the second;60
if to the third and 30 drachmas if to the fourthclass. The fines so
collected would be dedicated tothe Temple of Hera.Married couples
should make it their first con-
cern to present the city with the best and finestprogeny. They
should therefore be under thesupervision of a board of matrons,
appointed bythe magistrates, to superintend the conduct of
themarried couples. For example, expectant mothersshould assemble
daily for a minimum period of 20minutes at the Temple of Ilithyia
(a goddess iden-tified with Artemis or Hera) to provide
sacrificesand rites to the Goddess of Matrimony. Theirperiod of
supervision by the board should last tenyears and the board would
provide advice andguidance on all problems connected with
child-birth (for example, if couples were infertile, orproducing
too many children). Infertile couplescould have their marriages
dissolved but the rela-tives of both parties were to have a voice
in theterms of the separation. Finally, an official registerof
births and deaths should be kept and made eas-ily accessible by the
recording of its details onwhitened walls. Such a record would be
requiredfor the proper observance of the laws fixing theages for
marriage, military service or qualifica-tions for various official
posts.
Regarding Plato's other political dialogues, TheStatesman" deals
with the different forms ofgovernment and the nature of political
science butmakes no reference to eugenics.
Aristotle's Politics12Aristotle initially studied with Plato at
theAcademy from 367-348 BC, but then left to
travel. He returned to Athens in 336 BC andfounded the Lyceum.
In his book Politics he firstcriticizes Plato's views and then
proposes his own.He thinks that the community of wives andchildren
for the guardian class is impractical and ifanything is better
suited to the civilian classes. Ifthe latter have wives and
children in common theywill be less closely united by bonds of
affectionand family ties and perhaps remain more obedientto the
ruling elite and be less likely to rebel. Also,would mothers in the
guardian class voluntarilygive up their children to be reared in a
communalnursery? If some of their inferior children are rel-egated
to the lower classes and eventually find outtheir true parents,
this may lead to quarrels andrecriminations and perhaps would
provide more asource of disorder in society.He also criticises
Plato's view that the birth rate
should be left unrestricted for the lower classes. Ifthis leads
to over-population, the attendant evils ofpoverty, crime and
revolution would most likelyfollow. In Aristotle's view the birth
rate should beregulated even more stringently than was done inc 330
BC. He quotes in support of this idea thatPhaedon of Corinth, an
early legislator, recom-mended that land allotments for families
and thenumber of citizens should be kept equal to oneanother,
implying a tight regulation of the birthrate.
Raw materialAristotle's own views agree in principle withPlato's
that conditions should be managed toensure the highest possible
state of health for thecity's newborn children. The quality and
quantityof their population depends on this and is the firstconcern
ofthe city state. The population is the rawmaterial on which the
statesman works. Aristotlewould therefore legislate for the
following propos-als. Strict monogamous marriages should be
insti-tuted, with women marrying at about 18 years andmen at 37
years, when he considers both sexes tobe at their prime. Pregnant
women must take careof their bodies with regular exercise each day
bywalking to the Temple of Ilithyia to worship at thealtar of the
gods presiding over childbirth.Expectant mothers should be given
nourishingfood and remain as tranquil as possible since theembryo
derives its nature from the mother, ratheras plants do from the
soil in which they grow.Laws should be introduced to oppose an
unre-
stricted birth rate, but no children should sufferexposure just
to limit the population. If couplesare having too many children
abortion must beprocured before the embryo has reached the stageof
"sensitive life". Infanticide should be practisedfor any children
born with deformities.
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266 Greek theories on eugenics
Other proposed ideal constitutions consideredby Aristotle, ie
those of Phaleas of Chalcedon orHippodamus of Miletus appear to
make no provi-sions for eugenics. The actual constitution ofSparta
appears to include eugenic measures butthese were mainly directed
to a single aspect,namely military prowess.'3 Their practice of
childexposure and infanticide was mainly aimed atdeveloping a cadre
of good soldiers but this led toa shortage ofmanpower which proved
to be one ofSparta's major social weaknesses. A law had even-tually
to be passed to encourage populationgrowth in which a father of
three sons was exemptfrom military service and a father of four
sons wasexempt from all state-imposed obligations, includ-ing
taxes. The actual constitution of Crete hadmeasures to regulate the
birth rate by segregatingwomen from men. However, Lycurgus,
thesupposed legislator for both Sparta and Crete,sanctioned sexual
intimacy between males as ameans of controlling reproductive rates,
themorality of which Aristotle appears to question.
CommentaryIt is of interest that neither Galton nor many
con-temporary commentators4 '5 appear to give creditto or even
mention the Greek contribution to thesubject of eugenics. In fact
Galton's proposals forthe development of the subject3 go very
little fur-ther than the measures proposed by Plato exceptthat
there was almost no element of coercion inthe former. Galton's main
proposals were: (1)Extensive family records should be kept and
incompetitive examinations for professional postsin, for example
the civil service, extra marksshould be awarded for "family merit".
The familyhistory as well as the personal history of the appli-cant
should be taken into account; (2) Early mar-riages for women from
"gifted" families should beencouraged by the award of financial
endow-ments, analogous perhaps to the use of grants forhigher
education for promising young adults; (3)Rules of celibacy for
gifted individuals ( for exam-ple Fellows at the older
universities) should beabolished; and finally (4) The state should
takesome form of action (unspecified) against theprocreation of the
feeble-minded, the insane, andsome classes of habitual
criminals.
Plato's methods to improve the genetic consti-tution of the
ruling elite class are far more originalthan those of Aristotle and
are in accord withmodern genetic theory. Different choices of
part-ners at serial marriage festivals amongst a selectedelite of
the population would be expected to leadto an optimal spread of
abilities for their offspring.He recommends systematic deception in
the pur-suit of these aims by rigging the lottery system for
marriage partners, and in Book Three of TheRepublic he states
that deception of citizens for thecity's welfare is justified for
political ends in thesame way that doctors may conceal the truth
fromtheir patients for their own good, but patientsshould conceal
nothing from their doctors (if theywant a correct diagnosis). In
practice, of course,justifying a means for political ends can be
atalmost total variance with justification for thebenefit of the
citizen's welfare. Aristotle criticisedthe social implications of a
community of wivesand children; but both Plato and Aristotle
appearto have overlooked the possibility of brother-sister(or half
brother-half sister) matings leading to theappearance of
deleterious recessive characters thatoccur at high frequency in the
human genome (c20%). Perhaps the adverse effects of consanguin-eous
marriages had not been recognised by theGreeks or Egyptians, since
brother-sister mar-riages were condoned.
Plato and Aristotle both recommended legisla-tion of social
methods aimed at promotingjudicious matings amongst an elite class,
methodsthat would be unacceptable today. Contemporarygenetics has
more aimed to discourage injudiciousmatings in the population by
methods that areequally questionable. In the early half of this
cen-tury state institutions introduced compulsorymeasures to
improve the "inherited stock" of theirsociety. For example from
1930 onwards 27 statesin the USA passed sterilisation laws to
preventvarious classes of people from having children.'6These
included the insane, those suffering fromepilepsy, and the
feebleminded. In some statesthese laws were applied to habitual
criminals and"moral perverts". Most states did not enforcethese
laws, but in California compulsory sterilisa-tions reached a total
of 9,930 by 1935. Othercountries, including Denmark, Switzerland,
Ger-many, Norway and Sweden also passed sterilisa-tion laws for
similar categories of people, andbetween 1935 and 1976 about 60,000
youngSwedish women deemed mentally defective orotherwise
handicapped, making them incapable oflooking after children, were
sterilised. The laws inSweden remained on the statute books
until1976.'7 Only in Germany have recent attemptsbeen made to
"breed" for an elite class. The Leb-ensborn (Spring of Life) state
programme of theNazis established Lebensborn homes
throughoutGermany where SS men and suitable youngAryan women were
encouraged to procreate. 8The policy never became firmly
established andthere were only 700 employees in all of
theLebensborn homes. It probably failed to realise itsfull
potential because of the overriding demands
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Galton 267
of the resettlement and extermination pro-grammes.
In the USA between 1969-73 many statesorganised compulsory
schemes to screen for sicklecell heterozygosity which occurs
primarilyamongst the black population. Carriers, who areentirely
healthy, had problems with obtainingmarriage certification,
employment and access tolife insurance. For example, carriers of
the sicklecell trait were excluded from positions in the AirForce
academy involved with flight training andfrom flight personnel
posts. In the Department ofthe Navy employees were screened and
heterozy-gote cases excluded from airborne, ranger or flightcrew
training. Such procedures could be inter-preted as racist and a
means of discriminatingagainst the black population by preventing
theirpromotion to officer class.'9 This could also havean indirect
eugenic effect although there is nodemographic evidence that
reproductive rateswere affected by this policy.More recently
insurance companies in the UK
(1997) required the declaration of previousgenetic tests for
susceptibility to such diseases ascancer, heart disease and
premature dementias;premiums are adjusted according to the
healthrisks involved.20 Since life insurance is frequentlytied to
mortgages this would tend to have an effectof discouraging (by
financial pressures) individu-als possessing an adverse genetic
constitutionfrom starting families and therefore could act as
acovert eugenic measure.
Currently the trend for eugenics has been verymuch away from
social coercion by various stateinstitutions to providing more
education and free-dom for citizens to make their own genetic
andreproductive choices. For example, mothers canchoose to have a
disabled child with trisomy 21even though the state may eventually
have to pro-vide for the child's long term care. If there were
agenetic "cure" for trisomy 21 the mother could beheld responsible
for injury to her child forwithholding it. If a pregnant mother can
take stepsto cure a disability affecting her fetus she shoulddo so,
or otherwise she could be held responsiblefor deliberately injuring
her child.21 The only"cure"5 at present for trisomy 21 is
termination ofpregnancy and perhaps a state body should inter-
vene in such cases if the mother is clearly unable toprovide
economically for the long term care of herhandicapped child.
However, each particular casefor state intervention has to be
scrutinised verycarefully in view of the gross abuse of such
meas-ures in the present century.
AcknowledgementsI am greatly indebted to Professor RW
Sharples,Department of Greek and Latin, UniversityCollege London,
for providing two critical reviewsof different versions of the
manuscript regardingthe accuracy of the Greek contents; and to
Profes-sor DAG Galton for helpful criticism.
David J Galton MD, FRCP, is Professor of HumanMetabolism in the
Department of Metabolism andGenetics, St Bartholomew's Hospital,
London, ECIA7BE, UK.
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K et al. Successful ex vivo
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5 Pearson K. The life, letters, and labours of Francis
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doi: 10.1136/jme.24.4.263 1998 24: 263-267J Med Ethics
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