8 Major Leonard Darwin on • 



now must live who in more barbarous days would have died 

 young. At this we should certainly rejoice, because it was an 

 instance of the evolution of man's highest nature. Although we 

 ought to continue to rejoice, yet if we came to recognize with Dr. 

 Tredgold that the degenerate offspring of the drunkard and the 

 wastrel seemed to get a better start in life than the children of 

 respectable, hard-working parents — if that was even near the 

 truth, it made us consider whether all was right in our present 

 social arrangements, Every investigation proved that all the 

 characteristics of man's mental and physical powers were inherited, 

 and under the law of heredity it followed there must exist vast 

 numbers of degenerates. Was it thus we were to progress. 

 Many might doubt or disbelieve the law of heredity, but every 

 statistical inquiry yet made clearly proved that all mental and 

 physical qualities were hereditary, As an argument against this, 

 instances of individual differences between father and son were 

 often quoted, but that did not in the least degree prove that the 

 generation of the father and the generation of the son were not 

 exactly alike on the average. But individual differences between 

 father and son did not prove that a large crop of degenerates 

 were not coming into the world. The birth-rate of slum-dwellers 

 was higher than that of others more fortunately circumstanced. 

 To call the citizen of the future an " encumbrance " was an evil 

 thing to do. The check on the marriage-rate always affected the 

 better classes. The\- ought to struggle for the independent 

 existence of women, so that they might have an economic 

 existence. Still, the supreme function of women was motherhood. 

 Anyone who would take the trouble to answer some simple 

 hypothetical questions must realize that there was an acute 

 situation to be faced. The battle of the Eugenists would be won 

 when public opinion thought out the subject. If they were proved 

 to be wrong no one would rejoice more than they would. In the 

 future, however, whatever might have been the case in the past, 

 if any nation was to win in the great competitive struggle of to-day 



