Abstract
To use the title of George Bernard Shaw's play, in order to improve a so-called race, human beings should get rid of those who endanger the proper development of human species from "man" to "superman". Proponents of this theory forgot, however, that human beings and animals have an inherent and enormous difference. While the former are gifted with self-awareness, the latter are not. This difference renders the subject of racial improvement through human intervention ethically controversial. While a bird can throw a young out of the nest, can a mother put an unfit child in a bin? What must be done about the unfit who are already adults and able to give birth in their turn? All these questions were raised by the first eugenicists of England. Through different texts from eugenicists, politicians or journalists, we will try to understand what the basis of eugenics was and to what extent it intended to change people's minds and habits at the very beginning of the twentieth century. The question is not whether it is a good thing or not but to understand how fears of racial impurity fears emerged in the mind of people and how they wanted to cope with it.
