294 EUGENICS 
all those engaged in education, all members of the 
Legislature, all doctors and all lawyers, would no doubt 
derive their incomes from the State, a recent sugges- 
tion of Mr. McDougall’s might be put into practice. 
This is to graduate incomes according to the number 
of children. Thus the position of married people 
would be made much fairer on some such scheme as 
the following: Supposing the salary of a particular 
post under existing conditions to be £700 a year, a 
bachelor occupying the post would be paid only £400 
a year (say). On his marriage an addition of £100 per 
annum would be made to his income, and a similar 
increment would again take place at the birth of 
every child. Under the conditions here postulated 
this system would apply to the bulk of the more 
intellectual members of the community, and, incident- 
ally, it would have a special advantage, to which we 
may now make allusion.* 
Although a nation’s welfare depends to a very great 
extent upon the mental and bodily health of the rank 
and file of its citizens, yet the birth of an occasional 
genius makes an enormous difference to the progress 
of the world. Now, Galton has shown quite con- 
clusively that there is a much greater chance of a 
genius appearing among the children of eminently 
intelligent parents than in an average family. There- 
fore, if the fertility of the more intellectual classes is 
encouraged, the chance of obtaining a genius now and 
again is much increased. 
* It is not to be inferred from this paragraph that the 
writer is an advocate of socialism. 
