INTRODUCTORY. 17 



robust out of a feeble race, nor will the action of the 

 best educational system ever devised develop a race 

 of wise men out of a race of fools. With this non- 

 inheritance of personally-acquired characteristics, the 

 work of individual improvement has to begin again in 

 each generation, for the gained ground is always lost 

 and racial improvement on these lines must be at 

 best immeasurably slow. 



Racial change, improvement, or deterioration, is 

 brought about, so the biologists say, by what is 

 termed selection, that is, by the death or non-pro- 

 ductiveness of certain individuals of a race, whereby 

 the others alone remain. If this remnant is organi- 

 cally superior, the next generation inheriting only 

 from them will be themselves organically superior, 

 and racial improvement will be brought about. If 

 this teaching be true, it follows that all our efforts for 

 the good of mankind will be of no avail unless selec- 

 tive agencies are maintained, unless we are prepared 

 to see that each generation of children is the product 

 of the best amongst us in our day. It is quite possible 

 therefore that, even under the present conditions of 

 better hygienic education and moral teaching, the race 

 may be deteriorating, and, indeed, from the biological 

 standpoint, there is every reason to suppose that it is. 

 Our present efforts may therefore be, after all, mis- 

 placed, so that it behoves us very carefully to study 

 the whole position. We have first critically to exam- 



