522 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



of natural selection. The present policy, therefore, tends to reduce that 

 which in all ages has been the mainstay of every state, the middle class. 

 The yoemen of England, the free burghers of Germany and of Italy, 

 formed the best element in the Middle Ages. So was it also with the 

 great republics of the ancient world. Aristotle, in more than one 

 passage, has pointed out that the middle class, that which stands be- 

 tween the " excessively wealthy " and the " very poor," between the 

 " millionaire " and the " wastrel," are the mainstay of every state, and 

 he shows that, where the middle class has been crushed out by the mil- 

 lionaire or the mob, ruin has inevitably overtaken the state. Indeed, 

 it is clear that the chief defect in the Greek democracies was the small- 

 ness and weakness of the middle class, whilst it is notorious that Eome 

 prospered only as long as the middle-class citizens flourished. Her 

 downfall came when they were extinguished by the great capitalists, 

 who made common cause with the masses against them. The latter 

 had no patriotism, were incapable of bearing arms, and had no aspira- 

 tions beyond free meals and popular entertainments at the expense of 

 the state. 



It is of great scientific interest to discover how the short-skulled 

 peoples of Asia and Europe became differentiated from their long- 

 skulled congeners; it is of great practical importance to apply to the 

 administration of our great dependencies and colonies the lessons 

 taught by anthropology; but it is infinitely more important to main- 

 tain a vigorous stock of citizens for the kingdom and the empire. 

 Questions of the origin of races are, after all, only academic; but the 

 other two, more especially the last, are intimately bound up with the 

 life of the nation. If the present policy of our legislators is adhered 

 to, the moral and the physical standard of the British citizen will 

 steadily deteriorate, for the population will gradually come to consist 

 of the posterity of those who are themselves sprung from many genera- 

 tions of the most unfit. Should this unfortunately come to pass, it 

 will be the result of human pride refusing to apply to the human race 

 the laws which inexorably regulate all nature. 



