Arthur Conan Doyle, Eugenics, and the Hand of God.

This article examines Arthur Conan Doyle’s complex relationship with the discourse of eugenics, a prominent intellectual movement during his lifetime (1859–1930). While Conan Doyle engaged with eugenic themes such as race, inheritance, and national improvement in his fiction and non-fiction, he notably resisted the biopolitical interventions advocated by leading eugenicists like Francis Galton and Karl Pearson. Influenced by Darwinian evolution and a belief in providence, Conan Doyle favored natural processes of selection and moral progress over deliberate human interference in heredity. His imperialist views sometimes aligned with racial ideas common in eugenic thought, particularly regarding empire and national destiny, but he maintained a more charitable and cautious stance toward individuals deemed "unfit," diverging from the harsher policies promoted by eugenicists.