148 THE FAMILY AND THE NATION 



prelude to the ruin of States and the decline and fall 

 of Empires. 



Many causes, political and economic, have been 

 assigned to explain the decadence of nations — slavery, 

 lust of gold, foreign conquests, bloated armaments, 

 loss of martial spirit, decay of religion, the power of 

 a priesthood, a moral fatigue correlated in some 

 unknown way with every civilization of long stand- 

 ing, — all in turn have been summoned to account 

 for their fall. But the more insidious and far 

 more deadly cause of a wrongly - directed selective 

 birth-rate, which in a few generations must eliminate 

 the best innate qualities of a people, is enough alone 

 to explain the downfall. 



How far other causes have contributed to the suc- 

 cessive decadence of nations it is impossible to say ; but 

 a study of history in the light of our present knowledge 

 certainly suggests more and more that, in the survival 

 and reproduction of the unfittest, we have discovered the 

 most important clue to the true theory of the subject. 



Indeed, as one looks back through the volume of 

 ancient history most familiar to the average English- 

 man, one cannot help wondering whether Pharaoh's 

 celebrated decree ordering the extermination of the 

 male children of the Hebrews was not an effort to right 

 the effects of what he deemed a misdirected selective 

 birth-rate. He may have found it easier to destroy 

 the children of the prolific alien population than to 

 persuade the better classes of his native-born Egyptians 

 to keep the balance even. Again, the feast of Bel- 

 shazzar and his princes is undoubtedly suggestive. 

 It needed some power outside the ordinary scope of 



