538 SOCIAL ASPECTS OF BIOLOGICAL RESULTS 



acquire, ipso Jacto, an inertia which no belated conversion on 

 the psychical plane can ever do away with. Not less true, how- 

 ever, is it that sifting, informing, and ennobling of our idea- 

 systems will react on everyday practice and endeavour, for 

 ideas have hands and feet. What every one must agree on is 

 the imperativeness of strenuous effort on every plane -biological, 

 psychological, and social -to counteract the evil crop that always 

 springs from the sowing of dragons' teeth. 



Relative Infertility of more Individuated Stocks. Let us 

 briefly refer to the other aspect of the fertility problem. The 

 biologist accustomed to interpret great results in terms of 

 selection and isolation acting on germinal variations, is not 

 likely to be lacking in faith in what may be accomplished by 

 attention to eugenics. But he finds it difficult to dispel the 

 shadow cast by the fact of the relatively great infertility of what 

 we believe to be types and stocks of high social efficiency. Over 

 and over again, in the history of mankind, elect castes true 

 aristocracies have arisen, only to disappear ?.gain in sterility, 

 or in the course of inter-societary struggle. Even if the latter 

 doom be averted by more evolved social organisation and racial 

 pacification, how are we to face the fact of the dwindling fertility 

 of what we believe to be the better stocks ? It may be that the 

 relatively recent diminution of the birth-rate among skilled 

 workmen and the like is partly modificational or artificial, an 

 adaptation to altered social conditions ; but what can we say 

 of the generally low fertility of the most individuated stocks ? 



The factors which make towards this result are probably 

 manifold. There are probably, as Spencer maintained, auto- 

 matically working physiological and psychical factors which 

 lessen reproductivity as individuation increases. It may be that 

 hyper-nutrition, sexual vice, the frequent absence of love 

 marriages, operate in the same direction ; it seems difficult to 

 doubt that selfish celibacy and selfish non-maternity are in 

 part to blame ; and there are all sorts of possible factors down 



