HEREDITY AND POLITICS 127 



any change of law in states of complicated social 

 structure favours economically some class at the expense 

 of another, and thus makes it easier for members of 

 the one to marry early, and rear successfully a large 

 number of offspring. Hence all legislative action is 

 necessarily exercising a selective effect from the bio- 

 logical point of view, and the danger lies in the fact 

 that this selective pressure is applied not only ignorantly 

 but actually inadvertently. Hence arises the import- 

 ance of politics from the racial point of view. If we 

 establish a preponderating rate of reproduction in any 

 one section of the community, in a few generations it 

 increases relatively so rapidly in geometrical progression 

 that it tends to swamp the rest. Its peculiarities 

 become the characteristics of the race, its distinctive 

 features the general qualities of the nation. On the 

 other hand, if we make the environment harder for 

 any one class, we tend to depress its rate of reproduction, 

 and it may be reduced rapidly in number relatively 

 to the stocks which have received more favourable 

 treatment. Its qualities and characters disappear from 

 the race. 



It is essential to fix in one's mind this great truth 

 of the fluctuating racial character of a nation. The 

 race is not of constant quality, immutable through the 

 ages. It is an organism, sensitive to every influence, 

 and moulded to one form or another as a careless touch 

 is laid on it here or there. 



This result holds good in all ages. Even when 

 the race was reproducing itself at a natural rate, the 

 number of marriages depended on the pressure of 

 external causes, economic or political, and rose and fell 



