THH FUTURE OF THE HUMAN RACE 27 
light on the subject in the near future. The realization of such an 
ideal involves selective mating ; but this again is nothing new, all mating 
among civilized people is selective, with a wide range of reasons for the 
selection. To these will now be added a new one, or rather an old one 
in a somewhat new light. 
Professor J. Arthur Thomson well says: 
As to the diffusion of disease by the intermarriage of badly tainted with 
relatively healthy families, we have this in our own hands, and we need not 
whine over it. The basis of preferential mating is not unalterable, in fact we 
know that it sways hither and thither from age to age. Possible marriages are 
every day prohibited or refrained from for the absurdest of reasons: there is 
no reason why they should not be prohibited or refrained from for the best of 
reasons—the welfare of our race. 
On the other hand, we have to consider the means of increasing and 
continuing good qualities. The economic burden of raising a family 
is at present such as to discourage many whose qualities should be 
continued to other generations, and there can be no doubt that it would 
pay society to furnish ample means for the industry of child raising to 
those who are especially fitted to engage in it. Mr. Francis Galton has 
tried to calculate the value of different classes of individuals: 
The worth of a +X-class baby would be reckoned in thousands of pounds. 
Some such “talented” folk fail, but most succeed, and may succeed greatly. 
They found industries, establish vast undertakings, increase the wealth of mul- 
titudes, and amass large fortunes for themselves. Others, whether they be rich 
or poor, are the guides and lights of the nation, raising its tone, enlighting its 
difficulties, and improving its ideals. The great gain that England received 
through the immigration of the Huguenots would be insignificant to what she 
would derive from an annual addition of a few hundred children of the classes 
+w and +a. 
