and Aristotle, though they were of inestimable service in guiding men's minds during the Renaissance, probably did little towards checking the advent of the Dark Ages. At any rate, my belief is that the presence of a large number of persons of fairly good intelligence is the most important factor in social progress; for numbers are needed to produce all such forward movements as depend on social contagion. The presence of the less fit in a nation acts in a similar way, but in a downward direction; and their harmful contagious influences have been here mainly emphasized merely because it is easier to visualize the evil effects produced by contact with the less fit than the beneficial effects thus produced by the more fit. Our aim should be, of course, to diminish the numbers of those who are defective in morals or intelligence, and in so far as this can be accomplished by improvements in their surroundings, we wish God-speed to all concerned. But here again let it be noted that the eugenic remedy, which consists in relatively decreasing the birth-rate in homes inhabited by the less fit, would produce beneficial effects even as regards all those differences which are acquired and which are not innate; for such homes are as a rule centres from which inferior contagious influences emanate. We must never, however, trust to environment alone; for innate qualities will always tell in the long run. The less fit are always dragging back the community in all things, whether moral, mental or material; and if ever the more fit come to be insufficiently numerous to counterbalance by their uplift this downward drag of the less fit, all hopes of progress will then have disappeared and a slow and irresistible deterioration in our civilization will have set in.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

We have seen that all the cost, trouble and care of maintaining all definite degenerates, including criminals, mental defectives and hopeless invalids, falls on their neighbours in the form of taxation or charity and in other ways. As to the less fit, including drunkards, the stupid, the careless, the intractable and the inefficient, as a rule

they pay less than their share in taxes; and as the value of what they produce is less than the value of what they consume, the balance has to be made up in some way or other by the nation at large. The honest man, unknown to himself, is always and in different ways helping to pay the debts of the fraudulent and the wastrel and to make up their insurance premiums to full value. The national dividend—the total output of goods and services—would be improved both in quality and quantity by any rise in the innate endowments of the people; for large numbers now produce but little or nothing or are employed in the manufacture of harmful commodities; whilst production is limited by the want of efficient leaders of all grades. Wealth should be as well distributed as possible; but the losses due to natural inefficiency would not thus be obviated. Neither remuneration in wages nor State aid could be regulated entirely in accordance with the value of the work done by each individual, and the more efficient must as a rule receive less than their deserts; for certainly the relatively few very wealthy tax-payers could not be made to make up the deficit due to the presence of the less fit, their riches being insufficient for the purpose. The mass of efficient workers, typified by the skilled artisan, are woefully ignorant of what is thrown on them by their natural inferiors. Our military strength depends mainly on the innate qualities of the people and on accumulated capital; and if all the nation were to be brought up to the natural level of our best battalions, we should be hard to beat either in peace or in war. This is far from being the case at present, and some day we may pay heavily for our present neglect of racial precautions. Social contagion will become a more and more powerful influence as time goes on, because of the increasing means of intercommunication between individuals; and social contagion is one of the most important factors to be considered in connexion with all reforms, whether eugenic or environmental. Some of the foregoing remarks may appear to be no better than a selfish demand on the part of the innately superior for the extermination of the innately inferior; but they have in truth been made

because we can best grasp the benefits which might be derived from eugenic reform by attempting to realize all the vast amount of existing mental and bodily pain, unrest, squalor, fatigue and hunger which might have been swept off the face of the earth if our ancestors had not transmitted to us so great a share of their harmful propensities. No doubt the healthy and the capable may look forward to their children reaping great benefits from any steps now taken in order to promote racial progress; but, if so, does not this form a legitimate reason why they should advocate all such eugenic reforms? All of those who are striving to ensure that the existing mass of human suffering will not continue in full measure in the coming generations can at all events claim that they are actuated by a spirit of unselfish patriotism; for surely every patriot must wish as far as possible to promote the removal in the future of all those natural disabilities from which the less fit suffer so grievously and which result in so heavy a burden being cast on the nation as a whole.

CHAPTER XVIII

IS THE RACE DETERIORATING ?

THE DECAY OF ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS

In the last chapter it was seen how heavy is the burden now cast by the less fit on the more fit; and from this conclusion we are naturally led on to inquire whether this burden is increasing or decreasing, or, more generally, whether our race is improving or deteriorating in inborn qualities. It may well be that the eugenic programme ought not to be greatly affected by a decision one way or the other on this point; for should we not strive either to retard a backward movement or to hasten an advance, whichever was needed? But, certainly, the greater the probability of a racial decline being now in progress whilst we meditate, the greater is the urgency for decision being obtained in regard to the problems at issue.

The student of nature must be impressed by the extraordinary unchangeability of certain organisms through periods of time estimated by millions of years; but if thus tempted to rely upon organic stability as a safeguard against racial deterioration, he should remember that during these long ages innumerable other species did disappear off the face of the earth. Those who hold that natural selection has been at all events one of the main factors in promoting evolution amongst animals and plants may, it is true, point to the fact that this process can be proved to be still in operation amongst us. But if it has often failed as a safeguard in the past, what right have we to rely on it as regards the future? The arguments

set forth in Chapter VIII, no doubt, indicated that unless all persons born and bred under similar external conditions have equal chances of survival and procreation, selection must continue to take place; or, in other words, as men are certainly not all born alike as regards hereditary endowments, it follows that natural selection must ever remain in operation in weeding out the less fit.' But we have here no guarantee that it will be the appearance in the future of the more desirable human qualities which will thus be promoted; and we have seen, in fact, that it seems probable that natural selection is now mainly operative in weeding out physical defects in human beings. Moreover, there are even more cogent reasons for placing little reliance on any past progress in the animal world as a good omen for the future. Wolves of a pack, no doubt, help one another against all common enemies; but the she-wolf is little, if at all, concerned as to the welfare of any cubs but her own. Amongst wild animals, no common action mitigates the struggle for existence amongst members of the same pack in regard to any circumstances affecting the pack as a whole or the whole pack alike; whilst with mankind, the more efficient strata of society are constantly aiding their less efficient neighbours in ways tending to promote their survival and multiplication. As long as philanthropy remains in active operation, without adequate racial safeguards, a whole nation may well be slowly and steadily descending to the level of its lowest types; whilst amongst the lower animals, the absence of all social differentiation and of all conscious philanthropic effort prevents any similar retrograde change taking place. A study of nature gives no ground for the belief that our nation cannot be slowly deteriorating in racial qualities.

As regards intellect, man is undoubtedly much superior to his animal ancestors; but I have the impression that wild animals produce a far smaller percentage of obviously defective offspring than do human beings. If this be so, man has no doubt deteriorated in this respect since the days when he was quite wild'; for then he was assuredly kept up to the mark in the same way that other wild