SOCIAL ASPECTS OF LAMARCKISM 173 



lie is peculiarly adapted. On the Lamarckian hypothesis, which a Socialist 

 writer like M. Hamon or Professor Perri utilises so airUy, we are justified 

 in regarding as a crime any attempt on the part of manual workers 

 to raise themselves to an intellectual profession ; for the former are 

 possessed of a cerebration which is peculiarly adapted to the manual labour 

 they have to perform ; and which is not at aU adapted to the intellectual 

 strain of the liberal professions. No hypothesis could possibly be more 

 reactionary than the Lamarckian theory applied to sociology. It is not 

 our purpose here to go into the question of the respective merits of demo- 

 cracy or the caste regime ; but it is well to point out the inconsistency of 

 democratic theorists who endeavour to justify their theories by means of a 

 doctrine which, if it were applied to political science, must result in 

 estabhshing the most anti-democratic system of society conceivable. 



