72 Appendix I 



science are drawn from the intellectual classes. 

 Ability, not entirely, but largely, runs in 

 stocks ; and these stocks by a long process 

 of social evolution form in the bulk the 

 upper social classes. Let us use every net 

 to catch and train ability for national pur- 

 poses, wherever it may be found ; yet in the 

 main able and capable men are largely the 

 product of capable and able parents, as tall 

 men are the product of taller stocks. If we 

 accept the fact that mental characters are 

 inherited, we are at once forced to ask 

 whether the intellectual classes are maintain- 

 ing their birth-rate. This is the third stage 

 in my argument. 



'III. The birth-rate of the abler and more 

 intellectual classes in this country is falling, 

 relatively to that of the poorer stocks. Does 

 anyone really venture to deny this proposi- 

 tion ? Statistics are forthcoming, and will be 

 shortly published, to show that the families of 

 the intellectual classes are smaller now, very 

 sensibly smaller, than they were in the same 

 classes fifty years ago ; that the same state- 

 ment is true of the abler and more capable 

 working and artisan classes ; but that as you 

 go down in the social grade the reduction 

 in size of families is less marked. This is 

 true not only of Great Britain, but of the 

 United States and of some of our colonies. 

 That the reduction is not in the main due to 

 the later marriage of the intellectual classes, 

 as Sir J. Crich ton- Browne suggests, would, 



