BRITISH ASSOCIATION. 397 



to create a spurious homogeneity may be applied. Such attempts 

 will, I anticipate, be made when the present unstable social state 

 reaches a climax of instability, which may not be long hence. Their 

 effects can be but evanescent. The instability is due not to inequality, 

 which is inherent and congenital, but rather to the fact that in 

 periods of rapid change like the present, convection-currents are set 

 up such that tbe elements of the strata get intermixed and the 

 apparent stratification corresponds only roughly with the genetic. 

 In a few generations under uniform conditions these elements settle 

 in their true levels once more. 



In such equilibrium is content most surely to be expected. To 

 the naturalist the broad hnes of solution of the problems of social 

 discontent are evident. They lie neither in vain dreams of a mystical 

 and disintegrating equality, nor in the promotion of that malignant 

 individualism which in older civilizations has threatened mortification 

 of the humbler organs, but rather in a psysiological co-ordination of 

 the constituent parts of the social organism. The rewards of com- 

 merce are grossly out of proportion to those attainable by intellect 

 or industry. Even regarded as compensation for a dull life, they 

 far exceed the value of the services rendered to the community. 

 Such disparity is an incident of the abnormally rapid growth of 

 population and. is quite indefensible as a permanent social condition. 

 Nevertheless capital, distinguished as a provision for offspring, is a 

 eugenic institution ; and unless human instinct undergoes some 

 profound and improbable variation, abolition of capital means the 

 abolition of effort ; but as in the body the power of independent 

 growth of the parts is limited and subordinated to the whole, 

 similarly in the community we may limit the powers of capital, 

 preserving so much inequality of privilege as corresponds with 

 physiological fact. 



At every turn the student of political science is confronted with 

 problems that demand biological knowledge for their solution. Most 

 obviously is this true in regard to education, the criminal law, and 

 all those numerous branches of policy and administration which are 

 directly concerned with the physiological capacities of mankind. 

 Assumptions as to what can be done and what cannot be done to 

 modify individuals and races have continually to be made, and the 

 basis of fact on which such decisions are founded can be drawn only 

 from biological study. 



A knowledge of the facts of nature is not yet deemed an essential 

 part of the mental equipment of politicians ; but as the priest, who 

 began in other ages as medicine-man, has been obliged to abandon 

 the medical parts of his practice, so will the future behold the school- 

 master, the magistrate, the lawyer, and ultimately the statesman, 

 compelled to share with the naturalist those functions which are 

 concerned with the physiology of race. 



