102 FROM AN EASY CHAIR 



selection in animals, and, further, the laws or formu- 

 lated results of enquiry as to the " educability " of the 

 human being, the range and the limits of " education," 

 the relation of hereditary quality to education, the 

 causes of mental aberration and defect, of mental 

 qualities of all kinds, the value and the dangers of all 

 kinds of educational influences, whether physical, social, 

 or intellectual. These are matters in regard to which 

 there must be in the future more and more of common 

 knowledge and agreement ; at present they are lightly 

 touched by politicians and journalists in a way which is 

 inconsistent with a knowledge of the facts or of their 

 importance. 



When publicists airily declare that the virtues of 

 kings and the vices of paupers are both due to the 

 hereditary transmission of characters acquired by the 

 peculiarities of diet and exercise of the progenitors 

 of these classes it is time to protest. To cite the name 

 of Darwin and "the laws which govern animal and 

 plant life,"" in support instead of in condemnation of 

 such baseless fancies, is, one must suppose, an evidence, 

 not of a desire to mislead, but of a regrettable indiffer- 

 ence to the conclusions of that branch of human know- 

 ledge which is of more importance than any other to 

 the statesman and the philanthropist. 



" Selection," whether due to survival in the struggle 

 for existence or exercised by man as a " breeder " or 

 " fancier," is the only way in which new characteristics, 

 good or bad, can be implanted in a race or stock, and 

 become part of the hereditary quality of that race or 

 stock. This applies equally to man and to animals and 

 plants. And this selection is no temporary or casual 

 thing. It means " the selection for breeding " of those 

 individuals which spontaneously by the innate 

 variability which all living things show (so that no two 

 individuals are exactly alike), have exhibited from birth 

 onwards, more or less clearly, indications of the charac- 



