Pan, The Eugenics Thought

Pan Guangdan was the earliest eugenicist in Chinese modern history. From 1920's he had devoted himself to the research and popularization of the eugenics science. He sincerely hoped to improve the physical quality of Chinese people through the application of eugenic knowledge. But for the political reasons, his eugenic theory was rarely mentioned after 1949 and he himself also was treated unwell. By reviewing the former research achievements, this article explored all varieties of Mr. Pan's eugenic works and tried to represent his theory from all sides.The whole dissertation could be divided into five parts:At the beginning, the author firstly traced back the origin of the great thought—"to remould Chinese characteristics" in late Qing dynasty and tried to figure out its development course in the 20th century. Based on the exploration of Yan Fu, Liang Qichao and Lu Xun's viewpoints on this question, the author comprehensively detailed Pan Guangdan's understanding of this issue, which inspired him to devote himself to the eugenic research in later days.The second part briefly reviewed the history of the eugenics in the west and pointed out the special feature of the eugenic research—"to combine the genetics and the sociology study together". Furthermore the two essential philosophical principles of Mr. Pan's eugenic thought—"making people the center" and "admitting people's differences"—were also probed in this part. After that the author introduced the application methods of the eugenics in the period of marriage, gestation and the baby feeding. Otherwise the negative eugenics was also given enough explanation here.As a humanism biologist, the whole society was under the perspective of Pan Guangdan. So in the third part beyond the narrow sense of the eugenics, the author expounded Mr. Pan's eugenic views on various social problems, such as education system, family organization, economic fairness, freedom of speech, and environmental protection, etc. All of the reformations on these aspects were regarded beneficial to Chinese people's physical quality by Mr. Pan. In the fourth part the author introduced Mr. Pan's patriotic activities during the Anti—Japanese War. In order to rouse people to fight against the invaders Pan Guangdan wrote a great many articles to proclaim the significant meaning of the resistance war. And in 1944, he was elected the member of the population policy committee, where he put forward many constructive suggestions to the central government to make the proper population policy.In the last part the author summarized the special features of Mr. Pan's eugenic research and probed the research methods used in his study. At the same time the defects of his theory were also pointed out.