THE KINGDOM OF MAN 235 



vidual freedom in this matter." If there is to be a mar- 

 riage inquisition, one would like to stipulate for a peri- 

 patetic, non-local tribunal, on which the family physician 

 might be an assessor, and for a court of appeal. 



(3) For natural selection from which man struggles 

 away there is need to substitute rational and social 

 selection. But it does not follow that all the modes 

 of this deliberate selection are for the good of society or 

 the race, or are wholly in that direction. It is often 

 suggested that obviously undesirable types who h-Bve 

 fallen back upon the community for support should 

 be prevented from reproducing their kind. But limits 

 to repression and segregation will be found in the pre- 

 vailing social sentiments of freedom and solidarity, and 

 it has to be borne in mind that in some measure society 

 may be itself responsible for the making of the failures 

 alluded to, so that we are bound to do something to 

 prevent their production as well as their reproduction ! 



(4) It is often suggested that there should be some 

 deliberate return to " the purgation of the State " which 

 Sparta to some extent practised and Plato approved. 

 It has been recommended that weakly infants, whose 

 life must be more or less miserable, should be allowed 

 to pass away in their sleep. This may be justifiable 

 in certain very clear cases, but it is open to serious 

 objections : — {a) that many weakHngs have been the 

 makers and shakers of the world, (6) that the Spartan 

 proposals outrun our present secure knowledge, (c) 

 that their operation would remove the results of evil 

 without touching the causes, and (d) that we cannot go 



