INTRODUCTORY 27 



sanitary surroundings. Such means may render the 

 individual members of the stock passable if not strong 

 members of society, but the same process will have to be 

 gone through again and again with their offspring, and 

 this in ever-widening circles, if the stock, owing to the 

 conditions in which society has placed it, is able to increase 

 in numbers. The suspension of that process of natural 

 selection which in an earlier struggle for existence crushed 

 out feeble and degenerate stocks, may be a real danger 

 to society, if society relies solely on changed environment 

 for converting its inherited bad into an inheritable good. 

 If society is to shape its own future — if we are to replace 

 the stern processes of natural law, which have raised us 

 to our present high standard of civilisation, by milder 

 methods of eliminating the unfit — then we must be 

 peculiarly cautious that in following our strong social 

 instincts we do not at the same time weaken society by 

 rendering the propagation of bad stock more and more 

 easy. 



If the views of VVeismann be correct — if the bad 

 man can by the influence of education and surroundings 

 be made good, but the bad stock can never be converted 

 into good stock — then we see how grave a responsibility 

 is cast at the present day upon every citizen, who directly 

 or indirectly has to consider problems relating to the state 

 endowment of education, the revision and administration 

 of the Poor Law, and, above all, the conduct of public 

 and private charities annually disposing of immense 

 resources. In all problems of this kind the blind social 

 instinct and the individual bias at present form extremely 

 strong factors of our judgment. Yet these very problems 

 are just those which, affecting the whole future of our 

 society, its stability and its efficiency, require us, as good 

 citizens, above all to understand and obey the laws of 

 healthy social development. 



The example we have considered will not be futile, 

 nor its lessons worthless, should Weismann's views after 

 all be inaccurate. It is clear that in social problems of 

 the kind I have referred to, the laws of heredity, whatever 



