126 HEREDITY AND SOCIETY 



Although no broad principle underlies the distinction, 

 it may be convenient to classify the possible effects of 

 legislation on race into the direct and indirect. We 

 should get direct effects if we determined to segregate 

 the feeble-minded, or, on the other hand, paid govern- 

 mental subsidies based on a principle the reverse of 

 that of the graduated income tax to the competent 

 parents of healthy and numerous children. We get 

 indirect effects when, by the results of humanitarian 

 laws, we make things too comfortable for the wastrel, 

 incidentally encourage his reproduction, or, by the 

 pressure of the concomitant taxation, lead efficient 

 families on the border-line of their natural social 

 standard of comfort to restrict the number of their 

 children from motives of economy. 



Till the present day, no direct racial legislation has 

 been attempted, though the time is over ripe for 

 dealing with the problem of the feeble-minded. We 

 may leave, therefore, direct effects till we consider the 

 possibilities of the future. 



But the indirect effects of legislation on race are 

 an old story. If we are correct in believing that 

 the variations of type among us, as indicated by the 

 different social strata, show the existence of variations of 

 innate physical and mental characteristics as real though 

 infinitely more elusive than the differences between, for 

 example, the Highland cattle and the Guernsey cow, 

 then we must recollect that conditions suitable to one 

 type are not necessarily applicable to another. Uni- 

 formity of environment is only possible for an 

 undifferentiated race, not yet emerged from the most 

 primitive conditions of social organization. Almost 



