QUESTION OF PHYSICAL DEGENERATION 275 



a progressive softening of the environment, is a poor substitute 

 for the strength that is born of conflict with hard conditions. 



VIII 



POSSIBLE CAUSES OF ACCELERATION IN THE FUTURE 



Socialism is protean in the forms it takes, but in whatever Socialism 

 shape it may manifest itself we may feel sure that consciously 

 or unconsciously it aims at putting a stop to the struggle for 

 existence. It must, therefore, be ruinous to the race though 

 in its milder forms it may conceivably benefit the generation 

 which introduces it by mitigating the strain of competition. 

 Mr Benjamin Kidd has explained the nature of socialism with 

 admirable clearness. He has shown how evolution has worked 

 in regions which writers on the subject had hitherto left almost 

 untouched. Human evolution was left in obscurity, avoided 

 by nearly all biologists since Darwin till Mr Kidd's book l 

 appeared. Thoroughly alive to the necessity of Natural Selec- 

 tion if the race is to be vigorous, he strongly condemns social- 

 ism as an attempt to put a stop to its working. But after 

 taking up this position he proceeds to advocate "equality of 

 opportunity" for all, not seeing, apparently, that this equality 

 of opportunity could only be brought about by socialistic means, 

 or, even if it could be realised by some other method, that it 

 would be in itself pernicious to the race. 



No part of life is more important than the first years of it. 

 If all children are to have equal opportunities they must be 

 taken as soon as possible after birth and brought up by the State 

 a most deplorable fate for them all. But if Mr Kidd means 

 only that education is to be open to all, made so cheap that a 

 poor man's son may get instruction sufficient to fit him for any 

 post, yet it must be remembered that education goes on largely 

 at home and that free schooling, the doing away with the heavy 

 expenses that debar the poor from many professions, is by no 

 means an equalising of opportunities. Apart from the question 

 of education, a man's strength depends much on the way his 



1 &,j/ vu/utivn. 



