National Deterioration 83 



real seriousness from the national standpoint 

 of their reduced relative fertility. Town 

 life may lead to desire of ease and other 

 pleasures than those of the family, but no 

 nation can in the long-run survive if the 

 abler stocks do not provide their full share 

 of the population. In our case, probably 

 more than in that of any other nation, is 

 the productivity of these stocks of immense 

 importance. There is a great wastage, and 

 must be, of capable young men in India 

 and elsewhere, and this wastage has to be 

 supplied in addition to the ordinary drafts 

 needed for home service. 



' My difference with Sir James Crichton- 

 Browne is therefore this : I do not wish to 

 see what I hold and he admits to be a 

 vera causa of our present dearth of ability 

 placed on one side while time is spent in 

 investigating what is possibly a contributory 

 cause, but which at present is far from having 

 been established as a definite factor by any 

 adequate statistical evidence.' 



These letters are not republished here 

 because they endeavour to controvert the 

 views of Sir J. Crichton- Browne. He and 

 I may after all not be very far apart in our 

 aims or opinions. But they are reprinted 

 because they reiterate from a slightly different 

 aspect the lesson of my Newcastle lecture 

 namely, that from the standpoint of science 

 the nation has yet to learn that its relative 



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