64 WHAT IS EUGENICS? 



more quickly as compared with those classes containing 

 artizans, clerks, and all drawing higher salaries. 



To illustrate what is now taking place, reference may 

 again be made to a game at cards. First let it be noted 

 that the hands dealt out are never the same in two successive 

 deals ; and yet the pack as a whole remains unaltered. In 

 somewhat the same way, although no individual in any one 

 generation is ever exactly like any individual in any 

 succeeding generation, yet the group to which they belong 

 may remain quite unaltered. That is to say, there may be 

 no change in the probability of superior or inferior persons 

 being born. This is, however, but a rough analogy, and it 

 may be as well to get nearer to the actual facts of life. 

 Man develops from a germ, and each such germ contains a 

 number of things called genes. The qualities of a man 

 depend largely on these genes. Some genes tend to promote 

 good qualities, and these may be called good genes. Other 

 genes have an opposite effect, and these may be called bad 

 genes. These genes alwaj^s go in pairs, one of each pair 

 coming from the father, and one from the mother. When 

 a new generation is being formed by the union of a male 

 and female germ, half the genes in each of the parent germs, 

 one from each pair, are thrown away, as it were, these dis- 

 carded genes being selected by chance. Thus m every 

 generation the genes in the germs remain in pairs. 



An exceptional number of good genes — like an exceptional 

 number of good cards — may come together by chance in a 

 germ. Then the person developing from that germ will be 

 exceptionally intelligent or efficient. If his parents are 

 labourers, he may rise out of that class. He will be lost to 

 the labourer group, and his good genes will go with him. In 

 subsequent generations these good genes cannot reappear 

 in that group, and in it ever afterwards remarkable men 

 will in consequence be less likely to appear. As long as the 

 labourer group continues thus to lose large numbers of its 

 best men, so long will it continue to deteriorate. Its 

 numbers may not diminish, because the gaps in its ranks 

 may be filled up by its high birth-rate. 



