NOTES 631 



it at least renders the period of our first and second childhood 

 more tolerable. Its indiscriminate protection of infanc}^ and 

 youth might possibly be challenged as a merely calculated and 

 selfish policy, since the continuance of the State itself ultimately 

 depends on the supply of youth ; but the endowment of age 

 seems proof positive of a real ethical improvement. 



Ethics, however, have a disconcerting habit of dependence 

 on economics, and it will perhaps be wise to suspend judgment 

 on that point. The actual cost of old age pensions is relatively 

 small, and a comparison between these and the figures for 

 defence will show that the State is still primarily an insurance 

 corporation, and only in very minor degree a provider of en- 

 dowment assurance. That department of life it still leaves in 

 the main to the individual, or at least to the family. 



The fact that the modern civilised State exercises no such 

 stringent form of selection of lives as its primitive predecessor 

 may possibly indicate what theologians call " a change of heart ' ' ; 

 one hopes it does. But quite obviously it indicates that the 

 selection has been relaxed because the basis of the State is now 

 broader, and the business of carrying it on involves a great 

 deal more than the primary necessity of defence against external 

 aggression. The modern State admittedly requires soldiers, 

 and in grave emergencies, when its own continuity is threatened, 

 every subsidiary purpose still goes by the board, and every 

 man is required to be a soldier. But in normal times it 

 requires many other types of men ; and it seems probable 

 that the greater the variety of men it can produce the stronger 

 will that State be. The State is not a farmer who breeds for 

 one particular purpose. The suspicion that this is one of the 

 underh''ing ideas of eugenics probably accounts for some of 

 the public distrust of that society. 



There exists, however, another and supremely important 

 form of life selection controlled by the State, which is ignored 

 by most political theorists. The State incarcerates both its 

 criminals and lunatics, and thereby forbids them to propagate 

 their kind, at any rate during the period of incarceration. But 

 the prohibition is only indirect, and therefore (except in the 

 case of actual idiots) it is almost wholly ineffectual ; for both 

 criminals and lunatics are prolific, and both have generally 

 produced their offspring already before the prison or asylum 

 door closes behind them. And experience shows that these 

 are likely to be a double burden to the State, for not only can 

 the parent not support them while under lock and key, but the 

 children themselves are already tainted, both by heredity and 

 environment. The State, in rearing them, is likely to be at a 

 double loss — it is paying for the maintenance of the very type 

 that is least likely to be of service to it. 



