HEREDITY IN MAN 113 



thoroughly ventilated in the popular press that everyone 

 is familiar with it. The really serious aspect of the 

 question, however, which has not been so well appreciated, 

 is the fact that the diminution has not affected all classes 

 of the community alike, so that very different birth- 

 rates obtain in the different classes of society. The 

 birth-rates for a number of different occupations are given 

 in the official publications of the 1911 Census of England 

 and Wales. A few representative samples, taken from 

 the two ends of the scale, are given in Table 7. 



TABLE 7. 



Now a differential birth-rate among the various sections 

 of the community means, unless there are counter- 

 balancing factors, that the sections with the lower birth- 

 rate will appear in smaller and smaller proportions in 

 succeeding generations. In other words, there is danger 

 of the average mental powers of the race declining, owing 

 to the failure of the more intellectual members to reproduce 

 themselves in proper proportion to the rest of the com- 

 munity. 



It will be noted that the above conclusion assumes that 

 the members of the intellectual professions have on the 

 average greater mental capacity than those in the unskilled 



S.H. H 



