ioo FROM AN EASY CHAIR 



or sterilises those which fail to satisfy his requirements. 

 He is perfectly confident that in this way he can ensure 

 the reproduction and exaggeration or dominance of the 

 characteristics which he desires ; he knows that he 

 cannot obtain a " strain " or " breed " by any treatment, 

 any feeding, or education of those which are born 

 without the natural, innate possession of the desired 

 quality, in a more or less marked degree. Once the 

 characteristic turns up as a congenital variation, it can 

 be intensified by coupling its possessor with a mate ot 

 like quality ; but both sire and dam have to be rigidly 

 selected with this purpose in view. Such methods are 

 not adopted in human families, even royal ones. 



In considering these questions as to characteristic 

 qualities or want of qualities in groups and classes ot 

 human communities, we see then that we have in the 

 first instance to distinguish very broadly between the 

 body or structure of the individual, and the " stirps " 

 or germ of the race which he carries within him. The 

 former may be vastly changed for the better or worse 

 as compared with average individuals, without affecting 

 in any way the latter. The germ is carried by the 

 individual member of the race in an almost complete 

 state of isolation or safety from the influences which 

 affect the individual's structure generally (his body 

 as distinct from his germinal or reproductive substance) 

 injuriously or beneficially. The germ varies also, but 

 independently. That is a matter of primary impor- 

 tance. Equally important in the case of man is a 

 peculiarity which affects his manifestation of qualities 

 in a way unknown in any other living thing. 



Human society, in more marked and dominating 

 form, in proportion as it is what we call " civilised, 1 ' 

 has created for itself an inheritance which is not 

 dependent on the variations of strains and the laws 

 of actual breeding. Over and above very much 

 above what each man inherits in the form of qualities 



