Gardner Murphy — 'Human Potentialities' (1958) and 'Positive and Negative Eugenics'
playerThe Vatican & Religious Power
The book that gave the Human Potential Movement its phrase has a section called 'Positive and Negative Eugenics'.
Who they are
Gardner Murphy, psychologist and former head of the American Psychological Association[1].
What they do
He is where the movement's key phrase meets eugenics.
How it works
His 1958 book 'Human Potentialities' says: 'We have preferred to emphasize positive rather than negative eugenics', and suggests people with 'like favorable mutations' could be encouraged, voluntarily, into particular kinds of work. A eugenics journal reviewed it in 1960.
Why it matters
The book is 1958, not 1953 as often claimed. The 1953 date is a papal statement he quotes.
The engine's record — word for word
[
Report #196] **In plain terms:** the psychologist whose book gave the human-potential movement its phrase — and which has a chapter section on eugenics.
APA president 1944. Human Potentialities (Basic Books, 1958 — not 1953) has a section headed 'Positive and Negative Eugenics' (index: pp. 231–39). His words: 'We have preferred to emphasize positive rather than negative eugenics'; 'many years will pass before negative eugenics will be generally accepted'; 'the concept of positive eugenics could well include the long-run arrangement by the human family that individuals with like favorable mutations might be encouraged on a purely voluntary basis to work at particular occupational tasks'. He cites 'the declaration by the Pope in 1953 regarding positive eugenics' — the likely source of the wrong '1953' date in circulation. Reviewed in Eugenics Quarterly 7:2 (1960), pp. 109–110. Kripal's Esalen note credits the phrase 'human potentialities' to this book. Held.
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