THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY. 607 



generations. There is no greater curse to posterity than that of be- 

 queathing them an increasing population of imbeciles and idlers and 

 criminals. To aid the bad in multiplying, is, in effect, the same as 

 maliciously providing for our descendants a multitude of enemies. 

 It may be doubted whether the maudlin philanthropy which, looking 

 only at immediate mitigations, persistently ignores remote results, 

 does not inflict a greater total of misery than the extremest selfish- 

 ness inflicts. Refusing to consider the remote influences of his incon- 

 tinent generosity, the thoughtless giver stands but a degree above the 

 drunkard who thinks only of to-day's pleasure and ignores to-morrow's 

 pain, or the spendthrift who seeks immediate delights at the cost of 

 ultimate poverty. In one respect, indeed, he is worse ; since, while 

 getting the present pleasure produced in giving pleasure, he leaves 

 the future miseries to be borne by others escaping them himself. 

 And calling for still stronger reprobation is that scattering of money 

 prompted by misinterpretation of the saying that " charity covers a 

 multitude of sins." For, in the many whom this misinterpretation 

 leads to believe that by large donations they can compound for evil 

 deeds, we may trace an element of positive baseness an effort to get 

 a good place in another world, no matter at what injury to fellow- 

 creatures. 



How far the mentally-superior may, with a balance of benefit to 

 society, shield the mentally-inferior from the evil results of their infe- 

 riority, is a question too involved to be here discussed at length. 

 Doubtless it is in the order of things that parental affection, the regard 

 of relatives, and the spontaneous sympathy of friends and even of 

 strangers, should mitigate the pains which incapacity has to bear, and 

 the penalties which unfit impulses bring round. Doubtless, in many 

 cases the reactive influence of this sympathetic care which the better 

 take of the worse, is morally beneficial, and in a degree compensates 

 by good in one direction for evil in another. It may be fully admitted 

 that individual altruism, left to itself, will work advantageously 

 wherever, at least, it does not go to the extent of helping the unworthy 

 to multiply. But an unquestionable mischief is done by agencies 

 which undertake in a wholesale way the preservation of good-for- 

 nothings : putting a stop to that natural process of elimination by 

 which otherwise society continually purifies itself For not only by 

 such agencies is this conservation of the worst and destruction of the 

 best carried further than it would else be, but there is scarcely any of 

 that compensating advantage which individual altruism implies. A 

 mechanically-working State-apparatus, distributing money drawn from 

 grumbling rate-payers, produces little or no moralizing effect on the 

 capables to make up for multiplication of the incapables. Here, 

 however, it is needless to dwell on the perplexing questions hence 

 arising. My purpose is simply to show that a rational policy must 

 recognize certain general truths of Biology, and to insist that only 



