562 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



of proof lies definitely upon those who fear disastrous consequences from 

 biological degeneration to-day to show that those degenerative processes 

 are proceeding so rapidly as soon to threaten the rate of increase of 

 somatic and extra-somatic surplus energy combined. To prove their 

 case they must show that the decrease in somatic surplus, if it exists, 

 will offset the increase in extra-somatic surplus produced by invention 

 and imitation. There are two and apparently only two possible ways 

 of proving such a thesis. The first is to show that somatic surplus is 

 likely to decrease much more rapidly than it has in the past. The 

 second is to show that the increase in extra-somatic surplus, which has 

 registered itself in a continuous elevation of the plane of living since 

 voluntary imitation began, is to turn itself into a deficit. 



Now it is self-evident that, however much variation there may be 

 among men with respect to individual traits, the vast mass of humanity 

 is endowed at birth with potentialities that render an elementary edu- 

 cation of advantage. Though there are few men of genius, there are 

 also few individuals unable to exercise voluntary imitation. Even if 

 the devolutionary process feared by the eugenic school were to take 

 place with some degree of rapidity, it would take many generations of 

 " reversed selection " to undo the work of the indefinitely longer period 

 of evolution which was required to produce man's present equipment of 

 innate abilities. Genealogical records show no disappearance of family 

 names rapid enough to indicate that even under the most unfavorable 

 circumstances much change could be effected by selection in less than 

 several centuries. If this be true, sociologists, however much they may 

 approve the extension of particular eugenic methods that have demon- 

 strated their efficiency, may wait patiently, if necessary several cen- 

 turies, for the psychologist and biologist to produce exact results respect- 

 ing the variation and heredity of psychic traits before they admit great 

 danger from biological degeneration. 



It is undoubtedly true that the increased surplus has permitted 

 society to care for many of its unfortunates who in more strenuous 

 times would have been left to perish. But with all the assistance that 

 has been given for centuries the proportion of dependents does not seem 

 to have done more than retard the increase of social surplus in much 

 the same way that the surplus has been affected by modern expenditures 

 for luxuries, whether these have taken the form of individual extrava- 

 gance or national waste in accoutrements of war. 



At least such seems to be the case in the western world, where, thanks 

 to free land, a century of invention and a lowered birth rate, the 

 economic problem, we are told, has transformed itself from one of pro- 

 duction to one of distribution. Whether the eastern world is likely to 

 attain an equal surplus is perhaps to be the most interesting question 

 of the coming century. The western world is teaching the east the 



