THE DANGERS OF SOCIALISTIC LEGISLATION 465 



not equivalent to his mental and physical efficiency ; but, as 

 a rule, there cannot be any doubt that the possessors of 

 favourable variations rise and that if these variations are handed 

 on to the children they continue the upward movement. The 

 converse is obviously true of unfavourable variations, particu- 

 larly when they are transmitted to the offspring. One excellent 

 feature of the process, from a biological point of view, is that 

 it is usually slow. An individual does not, as a rule, himself 

 rise directly from the lowest class to a high one and start his 

 children in life there ; for a substantial rise, several generations, 

 involving the continuance of favourable variations, are generally 

 necessary. The converse is true with regard to a fall. It is 

 far more probable that a high standard of capacity will recur 

 in the offspring of an individual whose ancestors, during many 

 generations, were of a high standard, though he himself varied 

 unfavourably, than that a high standard of capacity should 

 occur in the offspring of parents whose ancestors, during many 

 generations, had never risen from the lowest class. 



Now all the systems of socialism appear to me to aim at 

 mitigating the stringency of selection with regard to capacity. 

 The least that any of them aim at seems to make such provision 

 that every individual shall be able to live under healthy and 

 even comfortable and happy conditions and that all shall have 

 similar opportunities when starting in life. This involves a 

 limitation of selection, particularly in that the children of 

 efficient parents are not placed in a better position from which 

 to start than the children of inefficient parents. Competition 

 is selection in civilised communities and the ideal state of things 

 would be that all individuals who fail in this competition beyond 

 a certain point should be eliminated. On account of the senti- 

 mental feelings towards the individual which, in our country, 

 are concomitant with the advance of civilisation, active 

 measures in this direction are almost inconceivable. Hitherto, 

 a passive elimination of the inefficient has gone on to a con- 

 siderable extent, through the action of bad and insufficient food 

 and bad hygienic conditions generally upon the lowest classes 

 of society. There appears to be no doubt whatever that modern 

 legislation is removing this very necessary form of selection and 

 is giving us no protection in substitution for it. As it is impos- 

 sible to deal with many points in detail, I will select one or two 

 examples. 



