THE MEN WE WANT 27 



at high wages had families of sufficient size, the appearance 

 in the coming generations of good quahties of every variety 

 would be promoted. On the other hand, a proportion — 

 often but a small proportion — of those winning low wages, 

 or failing or not trying to get work of any kind, are thus 

 situated because of some natural defect of body, mind, or 

 character. If all such as these were to have few children, 

 though it would be an unmerited privation to many, yet the 

 result would be a lessening in the future of all natural 

 defects leading to low wages or unemplojmient. Some 

 suffering in this generation would thus be caused; but it 

 would lead to an immense saving of suffering in the future. 

 What has been said is perhaps enough to show that advan- 

 tages of many kinds would result from the size of families 

 being dependent on the positions held by the parents, and 

 that thus to advance on a wide front is the best eugenic 

 pohcy. This difficult subject will, it is hoped, be made 

 more clear in a later chapter, when it will be seen how very 

 far we now are from any such ideal condition of things. 



What would occur when the natural quahties of a nation 

 were being slowly improved in the ways above suggested 

 may be roughly illustrated by the following analogy. 

 When packs of cards are being dealt out at a whist drive, 

 good hands appear fairly frequently and very good hands at 

 rarer intervals. In somewhat the same way, the coming 

 together by chance of a number of good quahties in the same 

 individual before his birth results in the appearance of 

 superior individuals at frequent intervals, and of men of 

 genius much more rarely. Much the same might be said as 

 to the way in which inferior and very inferior individuals 

 make their appearance at intervals. Now, if some of the 

 very low cards were to be removed altogether from all 

 the packs, the differences between the hands as dealt out 

 would become somewhat less marked. In the same way, if 

 all the above-mentioned very defective types of individuals 

 were to have no children, there would in future generations 

 come to be somewhat less natural inequahty between human 

 beings. This would be an advantage as far as it went; 



