54 HEREDITY AND SOCIETY 



clergy than among the laity by whom they are sur- 

 rounded gives further evidence of the racial value of 

 a strong religious instinct. It is greatly to be desired 

 that the Protestant churches could find some effective 

 way of preaching the dignity and sanctity of national 

 ideals and of that family life and those domestic duties 

 which their ministers have done so much to uphold. 



If we are right in believing that the religious instinct 

 is the only force strong enough to influence mankind, 

 consciously or unconsciously, to consider the race as 

 distinct from the individual, it is clear that the character 

 of the national religion, the correctness of the biological 

 principles its teaching embodies, the devotion, fidelity 

 and number of its adherents, will be the real criterion 

 of success or failure. The wave of materialism and 

 unbelief which is said to spread over a nation at the 

 time of its greatest prosperity, usually first affecting 

 the families of the abler and more intelligent classes, 

 and finding one form of expression in a diminished 

 birth-rate, is at once a symptom and a cause of its sub- 

 sequent decay. The intellectual qualities, the powers 

 of initiative and organization, which enable a people 

 to succeed, are segregated out under forms of religious 

 belief and social organization which, disguise it as we 

 may, encourage and acquiesce in the survival of the 

 most efficient and energetic, allotting them the oppor- 

 tunities belonging to their superior racial value. 



But a period seems to come in the religious develop- 

 ment of nearly every civilized community when the 

 moral conscience is awakened to its responsibility for 

 the weaker and less competent stocks, who, inheritors 

 of the racial faults and failings, are true scapegoats by 



