ATTITUDES TOWARD HUMAN NATURE 5 



imposed from below a morality of weakness upon their masters, 

 he missed the really obvious process by which slaves beget more 

 slaves, slavery begets more slavery, and the slave-soul becomes 

 universal. That process is the simple action of physical and 

 spiritual reproduction of the slaves. The subnormal begets the 

 subnormal, the inferior begets the inferior. 



Slavery appeared as an invention of the would-be-free. It was 

 a brilliant flash of genius of a seeker after freedom. However, 

 it became a boomerang. By multiplication and hereditary trans- 

 mission, the inferiority and the number of the slaves created a 

 new overwhelming problem for the superior few, the upper crust 

 of the free. At last the problem grew into the problem of prob- 

 lems, the problem of government, that threatened all freedom, 

 as an epidemic disease threatens even the most healthy. Govern- 

 ment, at first organized for conquest and subjugation, had to 

 change its character until it became more and more to consist of 

 experiments in a new social machinery that would free somebody 

 of the incubus. So through the centuries, one technique of liberty 

 after another was tested in the laboratory of experience. 



But always the attempts are so muddled, because the problem 

 is not grasped. Muddledom is the essence of the slave-soul. And 

 the essence infiltrates and poisons the whole atmosphere in 

 which the would-be-free think and act. Kings' heads are chopped 

 off, a whole class is guillotined, reform movements come and go, 

 the masters fight every inch of their retreat, and pile stratagem 

 upon stratagem, device upon device, to retain their spoils. 



The democratic formula of freedom for all comes to the fore. 

 So at last universal suffrage is introduced as the panacea. Free- 

 dom seems within grasp. Now it looks as if a method and an 

 objective have been hit upon, that will lead both the free and the 

 enslaved out of their mutual bondage, and release the handcuffs 

 which have bound them together. All the trial and error tests 

 to which history had subjected institutions appeared to culminate 

 in the formula that would automatically yield Liberty. The 

 French wanted a little more and added Equality and Fraternity. 

 The Americans put it quite definitely as the formula that would 

 assist the Pursuit of Life, Liberty, and Happiness. That formula 

 is: the democracy of the normals. 



To be sure, a civilization might be organized for the breeding 

 and the glorification of the supernormals. Such a civilization 

 may yet have to be tried. But as the supernormals, as we know 

 them today, are merely biologic sports, in a sense, simple acci- 



