7 6 



ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 



Book I 

 Chapter 3 



The same 

 argument 

 applies to 

 morals ; and if 

 accepted, we 

 should have to 

 admit that 

 nobody really 

 did, or was 

 really re- 

 sponsible for, 

 anything. 



when stated in the language of Mr. Bellamy. 

 "Nine hundred and ninety-nine parts out of the 

 thousand of every mans produce are the result of 

 his inheritance and his environment" Now if this 

 proposition has any practical application, it must 

 mean that the whole living population great men 

 and ordinary men, labourers and directors of labour 

 who are commonly held to be the producers of 

 the income of Great Britain to-day, really produce 

 of it only one farthing in the pound ; and hence, if 

 we still persist in considering the proposition a 

 practical one, we shall be forced to conclude that the 

 whole of the living population might at any given 

 moment stop work altogether, or fall into a trance 

 like the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, and the pro- 

 duction would continue with hardly an appreciable 

 diminution. 



Again, if the proposition has any practical bearing 

 on economics, it must necessarily have a bearing 

 precisely similar on morals. If a man of to-day 

 produces only a thousandth part of what he seems 

 to produce, it is equally evident that he does only a 

 thousandth part of what he seems to do. Let us 

 see, if we accept this theory, to what sort of con- 

 clusions it will lead us. One conclusion to which it 

 will lead us at once is the following that each of 

 us is responsible only for a thousandth part of his 

 actions ; and from this will follow others more 

 remarkable still. Since the holiest man has elements 

 of evil in him, and the worst man elements of good, 

 the good deeds for which we honour the saint may 



