VIRILE SENTIMENT 103 



brings destruction to the fit in order that the salvation 

 of the unfit may be attempted. 



There can, I think, be no doubt that those circum- 

 stances which are attendant upon the workings of a 

 democratic state of society tend to create and to fan 

 into larger size a flame of emotional sentiment that 

 becomes wildly excited over the imagined or exag- 

 gerated sufferings of the weak, incapable, and 

 generally unfit. We have only to listen to the hust- 

 ings speeches of the politicians, especially to those of 

 the type dehvered by Mr. Winston Churchill and Mr. 

 Lloyd-George, to see how pernicious are the workings 

 of democracy when the leaders are unworthy of their 

 position. 



The same type of morbid sentiment and craven 

 fear that gave the mob of Rome its free circuses and 

 free bread, that gave to the Athenian multitude 

 expensive theatrical shows free of cost to themselves, 

 and placed needy adventurers and profligate dema- 

 gogues of the type of Chares in positions of executive 

 and legislative power, is to-day in our own community 

 increasing the privileges and rights, and decreasing 

 the civic responsibilities of the lower classes of society, 

 and simultaneously is placing power in the hands of 

 men who either represent these classes or are sprung 

 from them. Greece and Rome possibly fell in ignor- 

 ance. There may have been none among their 

 counsellors who saw the importance of the facts of 

 heredity, or, even more probably, did not recognise 

 that such facts were part of the operations of Nature. 

 If England has reached her zenith it cannot be said 



