SELECTIVE BIRTH-RATE 149 



their ideas to impress on them the truth that they had 

 been " numbered and found wanting." 



In Greece and Rome the acknowledged dearth of 

 children in the patrician families, and in other families 

 as successively they came to the front, gradually 

 drained the races of all their finest innate qualities. In 

 vain did Greek philosophers construct in imagination 

 ideal states where only the best members should have 

 offspring, to be supported and reared by the public 

 wisdom and at the public cost. In vain did Roman 

 Emperors bestow special privileges on fathers of three 

 or more children. The duties and responsibilities 

 of family life fell into disfavour among many of the 

 best men and the ablest and most attractive women. 

 The stock deteriorated, and the fruits of centuries of 

 magnificent civilization were cast away. Mankind 

 relapsed into barbarism, where the beneficent if stern 

 effects of natural selection could again come into play. 



Once more, the decline of Spain as a world-wide 

 Empire was preceded by a drain of her best and most 

 adventurous blood to the countries of the New World, 

 a prolonged suppression of the finer and gentler 

 qualities of mind and soul in the monastery and the 

 convent, and a fierce destruction of all elements of 

 free thought and independent inquiry by the dungeons 

 and stakes of the Inquisition. Those alone who 

 escaped these three-fold dangers survived to become 

 the parents of each succeeding generation, and the 

 average quality of the nation suffered rapid deteriora- 

 tion. The character of the modern Spaniard, attractive 

 though it remains, has just those defects which would 

 be found in the remnant of a magnificent race when 



