insane, as well as of the imbecile, are recruited from the children of the feebleminded. The fearful increase of late years of insanity in this country has necessarily created alarm, and I cannot but believe that one of the sources of this fact is to be found in the imbecility of the parents.

Sir James Crichton Browne entirely agrees in this view. He has written to me to the effect that a terrible increase of insanity is going on, and that it is undoubtedly not merely due to increased diligence or improved diagnosis, but in some measure to the cause named, viz., propagation by the weak-minded, and I am confident,' he adds, that permanent provision for imbeciles of both sexes, but especially girls, however costly it might be in the first instance, would ultimately result in saving of the rates.'

In a word, imbecility, insanity, bastardy, and crime are now paid for by the ratepayer, and any method of diminishing these tendencies at a reasonable cost must be to his benefit.

In the ruder state of society which has passed away, little heed was taken of these unfortunate children, and many of them, no doubt, died comparatively early in the struggle for existence. But we have learned to think more tenderly of the inferior members of our race, and we seek to protect them from the calamities and sufferings to which they are naturally exposed, and to preserve their lives to the utmost. But in so doing, and so doing rightly, we incur, it seems to me, another responsibility, namely, that of preventing, so far as we reasonably can, the perpetuation of a low type of humanity, for otherwise the beneficence of one generation becomes the burden and injury of all succeeding ones. The vast increase in the number of lunatics in the country, to which I have already alluded, demands our most serious consideration of every means which can legitimately be used to protect the race from physical and mental degeneration, and I regard the segregation of imbeciles, first in childhood and youth, and subsequently through life, as the one of such means which is most clearly open

to us.

The investigations of the Commissioners, then, confirm from observation the theoretical considerations suggested by recent biological research. The conclusion is irresistible that lunacy, feeblemindedness, and certain criminal tendencies are hereditary characters. They may arise spontaneously from time to time in a healthy population, but immeasurably the greater number of cases are inherited from ancestors possessing the same qualities. No training, care, or education can do more than palliate the harm to the individual: the same tendencies will be transmitted to his offspring, who, like himself, will be a drag on and an expense to the rest of the community. Moreover, the high birth-rate among the feeble-minded tends constantly to increase the proportion of mentally afflicted persons to those who are normal. It is probable that a lower infant mortality among the normal does something to check the evil, but that it is not enough is shown by the evidence quoted by the Commissioners to prove that mental disease is increasing. The prospect is appalling. The remedy is clear if the country has the strength and courage to apply it. Those certified as mentally defective when they require to be supported by the community must enjoy all the comfort that improved knowledge of mental pathology gives; but, in the interests of society, they must be detained permanently in institutions or homes, and thus

prevented from propagating their condition in future generations. In such a supremely important question cost should, perhaps, not be considered, but even the cost would be covered in the next generation by the less provision required for workhouses, hospitals, asylums, and prisons, while the number of cases would decrease very fast indeed as the hereditary effect was eliminated. In a mentally healthy population, such as we should get by eliminating the present cases of mental affliction, the number of feeble-minded who were produced by accident, or developed as biological sports, would be very small, and, on the average, nearly constant over a number of years, with a tendency to fall as the bad strains got bred out of the race. The first reform, then, is the segregation of the habitual criminal, and of the insane and the feeble-minded pauper. The initial cost might be high, but it would fall rapidly as its effect told. From this point of view, it is futile to establish expensive machinery for educating the feeble-minded, as has been done in some places, unless the power of retention and segregation goes with it. A feeble-minded girl, well trained in housework, laundry-work, and cooking, and then let loose on the world, is more dangerous in some ways to the community than in her previous unkempt, untrained condition. Her artificial good qualities often lead to marriage, and her children have an improved chance of survival. But, in considering practical measures, we must recognise that, at present, the cases of mental weakness we wish to eliminate can be dealt with only when they become a charge on the community. It is not feasible to take a feeble-minded child out of a self-supporting home and segregate it for life. over, there is no machinery existing for reporting such cases. many feeble-minded children and young women come under observation and partial control in the workhouse, and the immediate means of dealing with them must be obtained through the Poor Law.. Eventually, perhaps, we may reach the problem from the schools. Meanwhile, all efforts should be made to improve our organisation for inspection, and for the classification and publication of information about the mental, moral, and physical state of the people.

More

But

We have seen how feeble-mindedness tends to be inherited. Let us now turn to the other side, and see what evidence there is for the transmission of desirable qualities. Mr. Francis Galton, in his books, Hereditary Genius and Noteworthy Families, has shown that there are in the country a certain number of able families in which from generation to generation a large proportion of able children are born. Thus ability tends to be inherited like other mental and physical qualities. In special cases clever children may be born of dull parents, and able parents may have stupid children, but, on the average, more clever children in a hundred will appear in leading families than in those where ability is non-existent or latent.

Similar results are indicated by a study made by M. Alphonse de Candolle in 1873 of the parentage of foreign members of the learned societies of Europe. The Royal Society of London and the similar societies of other countries elect as foreign members a certain small number of distinguished men of nations other than their own. Thus the evidence of ability is that of what is called 'European reputation.' The fathers of such men were classified as to profession. The calling which stood first on the list was that of the clergy, in spite of the fact that the Roman Catholic clergy could contribute nothing to the total. Now the level of ability of the clergy, in past times at any rate, was above that of the mass of the population, and the result comes out in the greater average eminence of their sons. Doubtless the environment, too, is favourable; the culture and frugality of the clerical household give a satisfactory soil in which young minds may develop. But those considerations alone seem insufficient to explain the preponderating results. The high level of ability in clerical families shows the irreparable loss to Roman Catholic countries produced by the celibacy of the clergy, a restriction which exerts a selective action in favour of less desirable elements in the population, and also must tend directly to breed out of the race the higher forms of religious instinct.

Hitherto studies of inherited ability have been concerned mainly with academic eminence. It would be well to extend the inquiry to other fields. The writer has a belief that the younger sons of the smaller country landowners would be found to produce more than their numerical share of eminent soldiers, explorers, and leaders of men. But whatever special results may be brought out by further investigation, the evidence is enough already to warrant a general conclusion. Biological research, medical experience, and the study of the origin and relatives of able men, unite in upholding the old aristocratic theory of the leading family as an important element in national life. An able individual may appear as a sport; that sport may be reproduced in his offspring; but, on the other hand, like the blueness of the hybrid Andalusian fowl, it may have no permanent value. Moreover, the able sport of low social status has a much greater difficulty in mating himself with an equal. He usually marries young, before he has risen, and the wife-often less adaptable-holds him back in many ways. The sport of a higher class has far more chance of marrying well and suitably, partly on account of the higher marriage age customary in the class to which he belongs. And an able family will almost certainly throw up a large proportion of ability from generation to generation. Furthermore, there is no reason to doubt that beauty, physical vigour, moral character, and other desirable qualities follow similar laws. It is the family that is the most significant factor. Many successful and persistent races have preached the continuity and extension of the family as an essential part of their

religion. Ancestor worship has an importance in race-history which we begin to recognise, and the conception of the reincarnation of ancestors in their descendants is an allegory of which the meaning has been overlooked.

Thus the evidence available on the human side bears out the results obtained by biologists, and shows that, at any rate to a large extent, the essential qualities of the race are innate, and can be affected only by inheritance. It becomes, then, of supreme importance to study the reproductive power of different types of the people. The average qualities of the race as a whole will change as the composition of the nation is altered by inheritance. The qualities may be modified, brought into play, or rendered latent by environment, but can be destroyed or transmitted by inheritance alone.

2

A valuable study of birth-rate statistics has been published by Mr. Sidney Webb, and the substance communicated to the Times in a series of articles. The result of his inquiries brings out the disquieting fact that the recent decline in the aggregate birth-rate of the country is accounted for chiefly or entirely by a very large decrease in the more far-seeing and provident classes of the community. It is not confined to professional men, but extends to the higher ranks of the thrifty and careful artisans, while the families of casual labourers show little sign of diminution.

These facts indicate clearly that the cause at work is economic. Where children are most felt as an economic burden their number is small. Where wealth makes the burden light, the number is larger, unless other causes are at work; and where thriftless habits lead to no thought for the morrow, no sign of diminution occurs. The only effective disturbing factor is indicated by the observation that no decrease of birth-rate is found as yet among the Roman Catholics or Jews of the United Kingdom, whose religious teaching is opposed to any voluntary limit to the size of the family.

We are thus face to face with the conclusion that the fall in the aggregate birth-rate is exerting a selective action on the qualities of the race. The thrifty, steady elements of the upper, middle, and artisan classes are losing ground, except among the Roman Catholics and the Jews, while the thriftless ranks of casual labour relatively are growing, at a rate which is increased by the falling infant mortality caused by medical knowledge and care. The selective action of the large families of feeble-minded parents, which touches the lower fringe of the social fabric, is thus carried upward and made to affect the whole. We have stopped to a great extent the action of natural selection in destroying the unfit, and have brought into being an artificial selection which tends to reproduce the unfit in greater numbers than those higher in the scale of physical, intellectual, and moral development.

2 Fabian Society Tracts.

If the aggregate fall in the birth-rate of the country were uniformly distributed over all classes of the community, the questions it would raise would be different, though a selective action would still be exerted as between nation and nation. But, as regards the internal condition of one country, a uniform fall in the rate of reproduction would not involve the particular problem we are now considering. The economic and moral aspect of voluntary restriction in the number of children is not now dealt with; we are examining only the effects of a selective decrease of birth-rate in certain special classes.

Such an effect, wrongly directed, must have disastrous results when continued over several generations. And the results are probably irreparable. Useful qualities, once allowed to drop out of the race by selective inheritance, can only be replaced, if at all, by the prolonged action over countless generations of reversed selection acting on the spontaneous reappearance from a degenerated race of isolated individuals possessing those qualities. The depressing effect of a century of slum life may be undone by another century of healthy conditions; but, in a century of selective favouring of the unfit, the race may receive a much more lasting injury. Hence the problem of finding means to check the present tendency of selective reproduction is, from one point of view at least, of far more importance than the question of improved sanitation, hygiene and general conditions of life, the favourite object of the humanitarian reformer.

Next, the birth-rate reduction is most marked in classes such as that composed of members of benefit societies, who, as a rule, enjoy regularity of employment and fixed wages, and find it worth while to be thrifty and saving. There is little or no reduction in the class of casual labourers who take no thought for the morrow. It is possible that in most cases both their professions and the size of their families are effects of their innate dispositions, but it is also possible that a greater certainty of employment and wages exerts a direct influence over habit, and causes more forethought. Such an effect would, according to the evidence available, lead to a restriction of birth-rate. Anything, then, which tends to give fixity of wage and continuity of employment to the lower ranks of manual labour would tend probably to diminish the disproportion between the size of the family in that class, and in the class of the artisan and regular railway servant. Regularity of employment and steady wages, which all desire on other grounds, while it might intensify the effects of a diminishing total national birth-rate, would probably do something to check the artificial selection which now favours the relative growth of the lowest class of labour.

But it is not enough to try to check the selection on one side; we must, if possible, deal with it on the other also, by encouraging large families among the most desirable elements of our population,