332 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XL. No. 1027 



ideal is "bullacehood," can become the 

 rare exception, developing to a stage corre- 

 sponding with that of the plum. But the 

 naturalist knows exactly where the paral- 

 lel is at fault. For the wheat and the 

 bullace are both breeding approximately 

 true, whereas the human crop, like jute 

 and various cottons, is in a state of poly- 

 morphic mixture. The population of many 

 English villages may be compared with the 

 crop which would result from sowing a 

 bushel of kernels gathered mostly from the 

 hedges, with an occasional few from an 

 orchard. If any one asks how it happens 

 that there are any plum-kernels in the 

 sample at all, he may find the answer per- 

 haps in spontaneous variation, but more 

 probably in the appearance of a long-hidden 

 recessive. For the want of that genetic 

 variation, consisting probably, as I have 

 argued, in loss of inhibiting factors, by 

 which the plum arose from the wild form, 

 neither food, nor education, nor hygiene 

 can in any way atone. Many wild plants 

 are half-starved through competition, and, 

 transferred to garden soil, they grow much 

 bigger; so good conditions might certainly 

 enable the bullace population to develop 

 beyond the stunted physical and mental 

 stature they commonly attain, but plums 

 they can never be. Modem statesmanship 

 aims rightly at helping those who have got 

 sown as wildings to come into their proper 

 class; but let not any one suppose such a 

 policy democratic in its ultimate effects, for 

 no course of action can be more effective in 

 strengthening the upper classes whilst 

 weakening the lower. 



In ail practical schemes for social reform 

 the congenital diversity, the essential poly- 

 morphism of all civilized communities must 

 be recognized as a fundamental fact, and 

 reformers should rather direct their efforts 

 to facilitating and rectifsdng class-distinc- 

 tions than to any futile attempt to abolish 



them. The teaching of biology is perfectly 

 clear. "We are what we are by virtue of 

 our differentiation. The value of civiliza- 

 tion has in all ages been doubted. Since, 

 however, the first variations were not 

 strangled in their birth, we are launched on 

 that course of variability of which civiliza- 

 tion is the consequence. We can not go 

 back to homogeneity again, and differenti- 

 ated we are likely to continue. For a 

 period measures designed to create a spuri- 

 ous homogeneity may be applied. Such 

 attempts will, I anticipate, be made when 

 the present unstable social state reaches a 

 climax of instability, which may not be 

 long hence. Their effects can be but 

 evanescent. The instability is due not to 

 inequality, which is inherent and con- 

 genital, but rather to the fact that in 

 periods of rapid change like the present, 

 convection-currents are set up such that 

 the elements of the strata get intermixed 

 and the apparent stratification corresponds 

 only roughly with the genetic. In a few 

 generations under uniform conditions these 

 elements settle in their true levels once 

 more. 



In such equilibrium is content most 

 surely to be expected. To the naturalist 

 the broad lines of solution of the problems 

 of social discontent are evident. They lie 

 neither in vain dreams of a mystical and 

 disintegrating equality, nor in the promo- 

 tion of that malignant individualism which 

 in older civilization has threatened morti- 

 fication of the humbler organs, but rather 

 in a physiological coordination of the con- 

 stituent parts of the social organism. The 

 rewards of commerce are grossly out of 

 proportion to those attainable by intellect 

 or industry. Even regarded as compensa- 

 tion for a dull life, they far exceed the 

 value of the services rendered to the com- 

 munity. Such disparity as an incident of 

 the abnormally rapid growth of popula- 



