Heredity, Variation and Genius 81 



social as in the bodily organism to restore the 

 natural stability. Although it may be justly ques- 

 tioned whether a successful socialistic economy 

 be possible in a world in which human nature 

 is what it is, men not having yet given over 

 feeding on one another and joined with one con- 

 sent to feed one another, it must be owned that 

 nature is distinctly socialistic* Indeed, in the 

 order of things it commonly deals hardly with 

 the genius in his lifetime, ruthlessly martyrizing 

 him who preaches doctrine too far in advance of 

 its social state to agree with its comfort and 

 stability ; itself moving forward either gradually 

 by quiet process of evolution until it overtakes 

 the martyr's mind and absorbs it, or by cataclysmal 

 explosion in violent revolution when the strangling 

 bonds of rigid convention yield not to the expan- 

 sive forces of growth, heedless then what sacrifices 

 it makes of individual lives. 



Without doubt the Mendelian theory of here- 



* Are the societies of industrious ants, as Milton imagined, 

 perchance prophetic of that which some day is to be in the 

 human sphere? 



The parsimonious emmet, provident 



Of future, in small room large heart enclosed ; 



Pattern of just equality perhaps 



Hereafter, joined in her popular tribes 



Of commonalty. 



—Paradise Lost, B. VII. 

 Possibly, but in that case possibly also an abolition of in- 

 dividuality and a reduction of human society to the unprogressive 

 uniformity of bee-life and ant-life. 



6 



