632 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



The eugenic aspect of the question hes outside, although 

 only a little way outside, the field of political science. But it 

 is to be noted here that (a) the modern civil State restricts the 

 liberty of its subjects or citizens iil-many necessary (and con- 

 ceivably some unnecessary) ways, but in no case does it directly 

 forbid them to increase and multiply. It insists, indeed, that 

 they shall support their progeny, but every magistrate knows 

 that the provisions and penalties to that effect are largely 

 illusory. And (b) the only precedent for sexual restrictions of 

 this kind occurs in the theocratic State. The curious effects 

 which this produces are worth a moment's notice. 



The Roman Church is in many ways the ideal type of 

 theocracy. The mere fact that it is far older than any existing 

 civil State in Europe shows that it has solved the fundamental 

 problem of Governments — that of continuity — with success. 

 And it has solved it, paradoxically enough, with subjects who 

 are one and all sworn to celibacy. The symbolism of parentage 

 — " Holy Father " and " Mother Superior " — is preserved, but 

 this is purely mystical ; the genealogical tree of the Church is 

 the apostolic succession. 



Any system of policy which can last nearly two thousand 

 years must be regarded with respect, and even with astonish- 

 ment, by the student of statecraft. We are not concerned 

 here with religious doctrine ; but the following factors have 

 obviously played their part in preserving the stability of the 

 Catholic Church. 



I. Being celibate, its selection of lives has been far more 

 drastic than in the civil State, where selection hardly exists 

 at all. The Church can, of course, only accept those who offer 

 their services, but it can reject anybody it pleases. It is to be 

 presumed that it consistently rejects all demonstrably unsuit- 

 able applicants. In the case of the Jesuits, at least, Loyola 

 imposed a strict system of selection, and a long period of train- 

 ing, during which he invariably rejected all candidates and 

 novitiates who in any wa^^ fell short of his demands. This fact 

 alone gives the Church an enormous advantage over the secular 

 State ; in that sense, it approximates to the very highest type 

 of insurance corporation. 



II. It escapes the prime cost of rearing its subjects during 

 their unproductive years. This fact accounts (more largely 

 than Protestant propagandists have found it convenient to 

 admit) for much of the wealth of the Church. 



III. It is necessarily communist, which no civil State can 

 be. The civil State is an enlargement of the family, and the 

 family remains at once its basis and its inevitable limitation. 

 The Church dispenses with the family altogether, with the result 

 that its professed subjects are amenable to a single unitary 



