THE STATUS OF MAN. 273. 



hinder anybody from going a little further and after some 

 trekking to pick another estate to develop for himself and his 

 children. But it is very evident, that, as soon as through inher- 

 itance the growth of estates, which now can continue through 

 generations, has reached a certain point, there is not enough 

 for everybody, and some people will have to do without land 

 or other property and the economic freedom for which such 

 property stands. Through a continuance of the inheritance 

 privilege estates tend to grow to alarming proportions, and 

 consequently the owning class will tend to become a minority, 

 a numerical minority. 



But, through the fact that property makes possible self- 

 development and learning and thinking and culture, such a 

 class, which will be a species as truly as the meadow-lark or the 

 Airedale- terrier is a species, wil tend to dominate politically. 

 And all of these processes are automatic, and certainly not 

 based upon conscious scheming, or on a wish to dispossess the 

 other species, on the part of the cultured class. 



Politically, it is of the utmost importance to know in every 

 instance, whether a nation consists of one species or of several. 

 Upon this knowledge largely, depends whether, from the view- 

 point of each of the composing species, an existing system of 

 government and law-making is fair, right. And it is clear that, 

 unless in this respect the conditions of two countries closely 

 approach each other, it cannot be thought of, to adopt in one, 

 the political system of the other. In nations that consist of one 

 species, speaking biologically (if such exist), the variability 

 may yet be rather great. We know that variability within a 

 species is common. Varieties may be produced frequently. 

 In this way, we may have at any one time a number of aber- 

 rant inferior individuals, differing in moral or physical charac- 

 teristics from the type of the species. These are the varieties 

 with whom Eugenics has almost wholly concerned itself, neg- 

 lecting for a study of the inheritance of abnormalities the 

 causes of grouping of individuals, the study of evolution in 

 makind. At the same time, we may see a number of superior 



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