28o PROBLEMS OF HUMAN EVOLUTION 



the environment less harsh, though by causing it to act through 



the mother indirectly upon the child we might seem to have 



immigra- heredity on our side and to have settled the whole problem of 



t ion of men race> Th e immigration of men of races as yet less weakened by 



of hardier . . 



races civilisation operates in the right direction and can do only good, 

 provided that (i) they come of Aryan stock; (2) that the 

 numbers admitted are not too large to allow of easy and rapid 

 assimilation. To introduce Chinamen or men of other inferior 

 breeds, as hewers of wood and drawers of water, while the 

 higher race expect to be all ladies and gentlemen, would be to 

 undermine the national strength. The ancient states, resting on 

 a basis of slavery, grew effete because they lacked the proper 

 substratum a large free population, of the same blood as the 

 upper classes and having the right of intermarriage with them 

 which is the primary condition of durability. When a nation 

 consists of an aristocracy et praterea nihil its end is not far off. 



But the gradual admission of hardier foreign races is but a 

 very slight mitigation of the evil. It remains to be considered 

 whether there is any means of bringing about race-improvement 

 in the strict sense of the term. This can only be effected by 

 selection, by elimination of the weak, and it is contrary to what 

 is best in man to refrain from using his science for the benefit 

 of all the children that are born into the world whether strong 

 or weak. We cannot have a Mount Taygetus attached to every 

 town. On the contrary, that very unspartan institution the 

 "parish incubator" is likely to become common. But if there 

 is to be any real check to degeneration it must come from re- 

 ligion and moral principle. They have largely guided evolution 

 in the past and they may in the future take upon them new 

 The work. But it will be better to postpone this question until 

 question mO ral and intellectual evolution have been discussed. 1 



postponed 



1 See chapter xii. 



