308 HEREDITY AND SELECTION IN SOCIOLOGY 



which syphilis is spread over all civilised countries may be set 

 down — at least, in part — to the excessive individualism of our 

 time, to the lack of solidarity between the individual and the 

 race ; had the individual been more considerate of his duties 

 towards the race, he would have been less imprudent. Here, 

 once more, we come to the importance of social integration and 

 social coherence ; only in the measure that we appreciate the 

 solidarity of the whole social organism, past, present, and future, 

 can we limit our individualism by the consciousness of the 

 necessity of race progress. When we arrive at a clearer concep- 

 tion of the soUdarity which links successive generations together ; 

 when, consequently, our duties towards our progeny and towards 

 the race in general are more fuJly reahsed ; when, in a word, 

 greater social integration shall have been attained, then shall 

 we have the best of all possible prophylaxies against the pro- 

 pagation of syphilis. The majority of those who then succumb 

 will be those who ignore these social duties, who are, consequently, 

 socially inferior, and whose elimination through syphilis is, there- 

 fore, not to be regretted ; whereas to-day, social feeling being 

 still too undeveloped, syphiUs attacks and renders useless many 

 who are biologically superior, and who, had their social feeling 

 been more developed, would have been a credit to the race. 

 The consideration of syphilis as a social factor brings us to the 

 same conclusion as the consideration of suicide and insanity — 

 the conclusion, namely, that greater social solidarity is a neces- 

 sity.^ 



^ It is to be remarked that, whereas tuberculosis and other diseases are 

 beneficial in so far as they eliminate only the biologically unfit, and that 

 the anti -tuberculosis prophylaxis may thus be considered in a sense as an 

 instrument for preventing this elimination of the unfit, the same cannot 

 be said of the anti-syphUitio prophylaxis. Tor syphilis, in its origin, may 

 attack, and frequently does attack, the most robust and healthy organisms, 

 which it reduces to biological bankruptcy, thereby impoverishing the social 

 organism. 



