EUGENIC AND TRADITIONAL PROGRESS 311 



tion may not be accompanied by corresponding progress as 

 regards the physique of the race. WhUe the applied sciences / 

 have been conquering the world, the biological value of the 

 social unit may have made no progress, or it may even have 

 receded. 



Our consideration of certain social phenomena, such as suicide 

 and insanity, has indeed shown us that there is another side to 

 Macaulay's glowing picture. A society which has attained to 

 the development of scientific progress reached by Western 

 civilisation to-day is certainly separated from the savage tribes 

 of the Dark Continent and elsewhere by an immeasurable dis- 

 tance ; but it is an error to consider solely the strides made by 

 society in the domain of tradition, or to judge of the value of a 

 society solely by its mechanical activity, by its industrial and 

 commercial prosperity, or by the external sohdarity of its institu- 

 tions. It is, to say the least, equally important to consider the 

 vital or biological progress of that society, and to observe the 

 inner working of its apparently admirable institutions. A society 

 in which the number of suicides is constantly increasing, as 

 compared with the increase of the whole population ; a society 

 in which insanity, alcohoUsm, and general paralysis show an 

 equally constant and alarming increase, cannot be said to be 

 evolving along a road of unqualified progress. The question 

 must obviously arise whether the institutions of that society 

 are in reality as admirable' in their working as they appear to a 

 superficial observer ; in a word, even its progress in the domain 

 of traditional values must be questioned. And another question 

 which must uievitably follow is whether the increase of insanity, 

 alcohoUsm, and general paralysis does not imply a positive 

 biological regression, a positive contamination of the germ-plasm 

 of the race. 



That traditional and racial progress do not necessarily go 

 hand-in-hand is proved by history. The Athenians, at the time 

 of their overthrow by Philip of Macedonia, possessed a social 



