National Deterioration 73 



I think, be manifested at once if our leading 

 gynaecologists would give frank evidence on 

 the point. 



'A diminution of national fertility may 

 not be an unmixed evil, if it begins with the 

 less able, or better, with the mentally and 

 physically defective stocks in the community. 

 But if we once realize that ability, that mental 

 and moral characters are inherited, and that 

 the fertility of the better and abler, the 

 more intellectual and more socially valuable 

 stocks in the nation, is certainly diminishing 

 relatively to the feebler and poorer stocks, 

 then I think we must see approaching a 

 crisis which it will need a wide change in 

 present social views, possibly even legislative 

 action, to counteract. Is the dearth of ability 

 real ? Ask the men who have to appoint 

 headmasters to schools, engineers to India, 

 judges to dependencies, colonial governors, 

 or civil servants at home ! Nay, go further, 

 and, putting party aside, note how few are 

 the younger men who to-day have the power 

 to touch the nation as a whole and lead it 

 politically. The dearth of ability to-day must 

 indeed depress each thoughtful Englishman ; 

 but if its sources are to be found in the 

 two facts, first, that mental characters are 

 inherited, and secondly, that the fertility of 

 our abler and more intellectual stocks has 

 been relatively diminishing during the last 

 half of the nineteenth century, is not a 

 remedy still possible ?' 



