322 CONCLUDING CHAPTER 
Let us see how the principles of which an outline has 
now been given affect the human race itself. The 
question of improving the human stock in this country 
has lately excited a good deal of attention. But 
without a scientific knowledge of the factors upon 
which improvement and degeneration depend the dis- 
cussion is not likely to be of much profit, and in such 
a case misdirected energy may be even worse than 
apathy. Without venturing to make any very positive 
suggestions, it may at least be pointed out that our 
present practice in these matters is in almost every 
case the very worst possible. 
Professor Karl Pearson has lately shown how the 
low birth-rate of the professional and middle classes— 
the classes amongst which the intelligence of the 
nation is to a large extent segregated—leads to the 
recruiting of these classes from amongst the lower and 
less intelligent strata of society. In other words, a 
steady breeding out of intelligence is taking place. 
Recognising that intelligence is an important factor in 
national greatness, we proceed to remedy this defect by 
endeavouring to reduce the infant mortality among the 
less desirable classes, and by offering every inducement 
to the production of large families by the lower strata 
of society ; indeed, we propose to remove from them 
all responsibility for the production of children, and to 
feed and house the latter as we already educate them 
at the expense of the State. 
The principles of heredity teach us that education 
and training, however beneficial they may be to indi- 
viduals, have no material effect upon the stock itself. 
If they have any effect at all, this is undoubtedly 
