252 



The Journal of Heredity 



military or priestly caste is a familiar 

 feature of strong, centralized govern- 

 ments. This is not only because soldiers 

 and priests are found useful in main- 

 taining power, but because separate 

 tastes tend to seek their own interests 

 and readily serve the purposes of 

 parasitic governments in maintaining 

 forced control of the people. 



Mr. Ireland reflects on the fact that 

 there have been only a few hundred 

 men recognized as really great among the 

 thousands of milHons who have lived 

 on the earth, and that "we owe all the 

 inspiration of religion, philosophy, music, 

 art, and Hterature; all the benefactions 

 of science, discovery, and invention 

 to the genius of a few hundred in- 

 dividuals." The existence of such men 

 certainly must not be left out of account 

 in relation to the question of govern- 

 ment. If it appeared that more great 

 men were produced by centralized 

 governments, the argument for mon- 

 archies would be strengthened on the 

 biological side, but history shows that 

 many of the conspicuously great men 

 have lived and done their work in con- 

 flict with the monarchs of their time. 

 Kings and princes do not wish to be 

 overshadowed by any of their subjects. 

 Neither are great individuals developed 

 by governments that make the indi- 

 vidual a cog in a machine, or that exalt 

 the state in order to treat the existing 

 order as sacred and suppress individual 

 efforts for reform. 



Germany has contributed several of 

 the great individuals who have lived, 

 but the great Germans appeared while 

 the country was a fairly free though 

 chaotic aggregation of small states. 

 Since Germany became a very effi- 

 ciently organized empire she has pro- 

 duced no conspicuously great or famous 

 men. There are no Goethes, Schillers, 

 or Humboldts in Germany today, and 

 such personalities are not likely to 

 develop under the kind of government 

 Germany has had during the last fifty 

 years. 



To leave the government of a country 

 entirely to a group of experts who could 

 always be trusted to discharge their 

 duties in the most competent and 



benevolent manner, and who were en- 

 tirely incorruptible and free from dan- 

 gerous ambitions, might be approved as 

 an ideal plan, though without bringing 

 us nearer to a practical realization. Time 

 and again this ideal possibility has been 

 put to the test, when governments have 

 been taken in hand by those who had 

 shown themselves best qualified for 

 control. Many great men have served 

 as kings, or as rulers of other kinds, and 

 have organized their governments with 

 the help of the most competent advisers, 

 but nowhere in history has any family, 

 clan or class been able to maintain itself 

 permanently by capable leadership. 

 Vanity, ambition, and greed are so 

 general and so dominant, in human 

 psychology, that every system of arbi- 

 trary power gravitates naturally toward 

 oppression and parasitism. Eventually 

 the system decays so far that revolution 

 can put an end to it, or another party 

 grasps the power, and the cycle is 

 repeated. 



However well an autocracy works for 

 a time, the national interests run 

 eventually into the narrow channels of 

 arrogance, selfishness and stupidity of 

 the ruling class. Forgetting that their 

 authority was given them by man, they 

 end by claiming supernatural power, or 

 special relations with the Deity, beyond 

 the reach of any restraining idea. Fear 

 of God and regard for man alike disap- 

 pear in their exalted self-assurance. 

 The crux of the matter seems to be that 

 the exercise of arbitrary power is essen- 

 tially unjust, unsocial, immoral, and 

 destructive to those who use it. "For 

 somehow this malady attaches to tyr- 

 anny, not to put confidence in its 

 friends." 



That a system should be strong and 

 efficient, so that it can direct, dominate 

 and project itself widely is the ideal of 

 government inspired through the sense 

 of power. Many are fascinated by the 

 idea of one man or a small group of 

 men seated on a pinnacle of authority, 

 controlling the fate of millions. But we 

 are now beginning to see that this sense 

 of power is a primitive instinct, and is 

 being outgrown. It is much stronger 

 among savages or in barbarous coun- 



