CONCLUSION 289 



and that most would clearly not be enough even if 

 those who are already raised out of the lowest abysses 

 would allow the others a chance. The bubble of 

 heredity has been pricked, the certainty that acquire- 

 ments are negligible as elements in practical heredity 

 has demolished the hopes of the educationists as well 

 as the terrors of the degeneracy-mongers, and we now 

 know that there is no hereditary " governing class " any 

 more than a hereditary hooliganism. We must either 

 breed political capacity or be ruined by democracy, 

 which was forced on us by the failure of the older 

 alternatives. Yet if despotism failed only for want of 

 a capable benevolent despot, what chance has demo- 

 cracy, which requires a whole population of capable 

 voters that is, of political critics who, if they cannot 

 govern in person for lack of spare energy or specific 

 talent for administration, can at least recognise and 

 appreciate capacity and benevolence in others, and 

 so govern through capably benevolent representatives ? 

 Where are such voters to be found to-day ? Nowhere. 

 Promiscuous breeding has produced a weakness of 

 character that is too timid to face the full stringency 

 of a thoroughly competitive struggle for existence, and 

 too lazy and petty to organize the commonwealth 

 co-operatively. Beingc owards, we defeat natural 

 selection under cover of philanthropy ; being sluggards, 

 we neglect artificial selection under cover of delicacy 

 and morality.'* 



Mr. Shaw recognises, however, that our knowledge 

 is at present insufficient to prescribe for the breeding 

 * ' Man and Superman,' p. xxiii. 



19 



