532 SOCIAL ASPECTS OF BIOLOGICAL RESULTS 



It may be that there are analogous phenomena awaiting dis- 

 covery in the case of man. 



Our general position is that among civilised men the sentiments 

 of solidarity and sympathy are too precious and too strong to 

 admit of much social surgery, or of the more thoroughgoing 

 methods of reproductive elimination, which moreover assume 

 the possession of more science than is really available. On the 

 other hand, there seems much to be said for restricting the repro- 

 duction of undesirables who fall back on the State for support, 

 for some sort of marriage- tests, for developing a social prejudice 

 against reproduction among the victims of markedly bad in- 

 heritance, for a fuller and deeper recognition of woman's rights 

 both as to mating and maternity, for eugenic devices such as 

 Mr. Galton has suggested, and so on. But there is one other 

 suggestion we wish to try to express. 



Militarism. — ^There is apt to be a vicious circle in our argu- 

 mentation over this difficult problem. To uphold our national 

 supremacy, it is said, we require, inter alia, a military organisa- 

 tion with alert scouting intelligence, not only among the officers 

 but in the rank and file. We are ceasing to breed this alert 

 scouting intelligence in sufficient numbers ; the nation is spawning 

 incapables. We cannot relax one spine of our bristling national 

 belligerence, for we have all our teeming millions to keep alive. 

 But the question rises whether it is not in great part our pre- 

 occupation with " Kriegspiel " that is responsible for that 

 relatively exaggerated multiplication of the repressed and non- 

 individuated, and for that relatively exaggerated infertility of 

 the fittest, or of what we think to be the fittest. If we indulged 

 in an era of " Friedenspiel," which may be even now approaching 

 like a long-delayed spring-time, might not the sociological 

 changes that ensued solve the problem which biologically seems 

 so hopeless ? 



Statistics of what is often called " racial deterioration " are 

 only too plentiful, and though they require more critical analysis 



