538 SOCIAL ASPECTS OF BIOLOGICAL RESULTS 



to work out. What more pressing problem has he than that of 

 discovering what factors are now threatening to bring about for 

 us results analogous to those which led to the Decline and Fall 

 of the Roman Empire ? Preoccupation with the biological 

 outlook — the breeder's point of view — will undoubtedly lead 

 to fallacy upon fallacy, to the " materialisms " to which we have 

 already referred ; on the other hand, an ignoring of the biological 

 point of view means a deliberate rejection of the order of facts 

 which we can most precisely measure and test. Moreover, the 

 commonplace is apt to be forgotten, that when changed ideas 

 and ideals find physical embodiment in flesh and blood, 

 they acquire, ipso facto, an inertia which no belated conversion 

 on the psychical plane can ever do away with. Even Pasteur 

 could not add " the cubit of stature " which Napoleon lopped 

 off Frenchmen. 



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 again 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 





