ESSAYS 489 



(or least unmerciful), that the children and descendants ot capable and worthy 

 men should flourish and propagate their like, and that those of the incapable and 

 degenerate and worthless should fail and succumb and die out. I intentionally 

 state the contention in its hardest outlines, omitting all consideration of the scope 

 afforded to private philanthropy to mitigate the lot of the hapless during their life- 

 process of succumbing — for we are concerned with the legislative and economic 

 attitude of the State or Community to classes of men— and omitting also all 

 qualifications, on which no one could insist more strongly than did Spencer, as 

 to the essential and so hugely neglected duty of the State to sweep away all 

 artificial and State-imposed obstacles and disabilities of every sort that deny to 

 the meritorious the natural rewards of their merits ; for I wish to reduce the 

 antithesis between the Spencerian Individualist and the Collectivist-Socialist 

 doctrines to its naked essentials. If either be right, the other is disastrously 

 wrong ; any Community which systematically legislates and administers on the 

 wrong doctrine is heading for ultimate disaster : and any Community which 

 hovers and vacillates aimlessly between the tv/o without any fixed principles ot 

 scientific action is — well, to paraphrase Shelley — " Alas ! how many are the same." 

 Moreover, "right" and "wrong" here mean what they mean to the engineer or 

 chemist or physician when he decides from exact knowledge that a suggested 

 engine or process or cure will succeed or will fail disastrously because it conforms 

 with or runs counter to verified scientific "laws" of nature. Right and wrong in 

 sociology must mean scientifically right or wrong as in any other department of 

 science. 



Now, clearly Spencer's doctrine must be examined under two distinct 

 divisions — viz., (1) as regards the meritorious or incapable individual, and (2) as 

 regards the (possibly indifferently average) children of each, who, independently 

 of and additionally to their own merits or demerits, are to receive an initial start 

 or suffer an initial handicap from the merits or demerits of their parents. This is 

 clear enough ; but a very little biological and psychological analysis will suffice to 

 demonstrate that (1) must be subdivided into (a) the individuals who prosper on 

 account of sobriety, industry, honesty, thrift, forethought, self-denial, etc., and 

 their opposites who fail from neglect of some or all of these virtues ; and (6) the 

 individuals (and conversely their opposites) who prosper exceedingly — or would 

 do so under social conditions affording full play to merit, and tolerating no 

 artificial obstructions thereto — through inborn genius. It is necessary to consider 

 these two subdivisions separately, although the modern student of heredity and 

 applied psychology very fully realises how largely (a) may be subsumed under (6), 

 and how completely all character that is really character is inborn ' : but he also 

 realises that sufficiently powerful motives and systematic real education may do 

 much to educe or induce many of the qualifications of (a) to a practically appreci- 

 able degree ; whereas no human power, no ability however great for taking pains, 

 can implant genius or talent in any man in whom it is not inborn. 



IV 



The triple problem being thus definitely stated, we now proceed to attempt an 

 ethical and social solution based on biological and psychological science. First, 

 let us deal with (1 a), for here the problem is simplest. Here, too, the Indi- 

 vidualist seems to be on pretty safe ground ; since if of two men one declines to 



1 The psychological argument is discussed in detail in the third chapter of my 

 Prolegomena to The Influence of Religion upon Moral Civilisation. 



32 



