X PROLEGOMENA. 23 



work in this direction than any single tyrant, 

 puffed up with the same illusion, has ever 

 achieved. But intelligence is another affair. The 

 fact that " saviours of society " take to that trade 

 is evidence enough that they have none to spare. 

 And such as they possess is generally sold to the 

 capitalists of physical force on whose resources 

 they depend. However, I doubt whether even 

 the keenest judge of character, if he had before 

 him a hundred boys and girls under fourteen, 

 could pick out, with the least chance of success, 

 those who should be kept, as certain to be service- 

 able members of the polity, and those who should 

 be chloroformed, as equally sure to be stupid, idle, 

 or vicious. The " points " of a good or of a bad 

 citizen are really far harder to discern than those 

 of a puppy or a short-horn calf; many do not show 

 themselves before the practical difficulties of life 

 stimulate manhood to full exertion. And by that 

 time the mischief is done. The evil stock, if it be 

 one, has had time to multiply, and selection is 

 nullified. 



IX. 



I have other reasons for fearing that this 

 logical ideal of evolutionary regimentation — this 

 pigeon-fanciers' polity — is unattainable. In the 

 absence of any such a severely scientific adminis- 

 trator as we have been dreaming of, human society 



