INHERITANCE 327 



the children of the poor from their studies and their play, 

 and set them prematurely at grinding toil, thus hindering 

 their normal development. 



4) The excess of offspring is mainly coming from the 

 lower ranks of human society. Those classes that are most 

 advanced in arts and education are hardly reproducing 

 themselves, while the earth is being over -populated by the 

 descendants of the less progressive. That the educated 

 classes are not taking a larger share in the building of the 

 future race is not in itself a necessary evil, for education is 

 not always an accompaniment of either physical or moral 

 fitness. Indolence and self gratification and the cultivation 

 of low desires breed degeneracy in rich and poor alike. 

 That the population of the earth in the immediate future 

 will be composed mainly of the sons and daughters of poor 

 and ignorant parents is not so serious a matter as it might at 

 first appear; for, with normal aspirations, property and edu- 

 cation may be acquired, and the lack of these things may 

 be due to accidents of birth and station. But the danger of 

 qualitative degeneration lies in the rapid and as yet almost 

 unrestricted breeding of the physically mentally and morally 

 degenerate. 



The increase in population, which, if continued at 

 the present rate would certainly bring disaster, is mainly 

 due, strangely enough, to the progress of knowledge 

 and to the extension of humanitarian effort. These have 

 reduced the death rate for all classes of society, while 

 diminishing the birth rate for only the better educated 

 classes. It is thus the natural balance has been disturbed. 



In the cities the pressure for room is first manifest ; and 

 it is here that the annihilation of the green earth and all the 

 host of living things belonging with it is completest. Even 

 here in times of peace and plenty all men may live in com- 

 fort ; but when the pinch of famine or disaster comes, then 



