In fulfilling the honourable charge that has been entrusted to me of
delivering the Huxley lecture, I shall endeavour to carry out what I
understand to have been the wish of its founders, namely, to treat
broadly some new topic belonging to a class in which Huxley himself
would have felt a keen interest, rather than to expatiate on his
character and the work of his noble life.
That which I have selected for to-night is one which has occupied my
thoughts for many years, and to which a large part of my published
inquiries have borne a direct though silent reference. Indeed, the
remarks I am about to make would serve as an additional chapter to my
books on “Hereditary Genius” and on “Natural Inheritance.” My subject
will be the possible improvement of the human race under the existing
conditions of law and sentiment. It has not hitherto been approached
along the ways that recent knowledge has laid open, and it occupies in
consequence a less dignified position in scientific estimation than it
might. It is smiled at as most desirable in itself and possibly worthy
of academic discussion, but absolutely out of the question as a
practical problem. My aim in this lecture is to show cause for a
different opinion. Indeed I hope to induce anthropologists to regard
human improvement as a subject that should be kept openly and squarely
in view, not only on account of its transcendent importance, but also
because it affords excellent but neglected fields for investigation. I
shall show that our knowledge is already sufficient to justify the
pursuit of this perhaps the grandest of all objects, but that we know
less of the conditions upon which success depends than we might and
ought to ascertain. The limits of our knowledge and of our ignorance
will become clearer as we proceed.
_Human Variety._—The natural character and faculties of human beings
differ at least as widely as those of the domesticated animals, such as
dogs and horses, with whom we are familiar. In disposition some are
gentle and good-tempered, others surly and vicious; some are courageous,
others timid; some are eager, others sluggish; some have large powers of
endurance, others are quickly fatigued; some are muscular and powerful,
others are weak; some are intelligent, others stupid; some have
tenacious memories of places and persons, others frequently stray and
are slow at recognising. The number and variety of aptitudes, especially
in dogs, is truly remarkable; among the most notable being the tendency
to herd sheep, to point and to retrieve. So it is with the various
natural qualities that go towards the making of civic worth in man.
Whether it be in character, disposition, energy, intellect, or physical
power, we each receive at our birth a definite endowment, allegorised by
the parable related in St. Matthew, some receiving many talents, others
few; but each person being responsible for the profitable use of that
which has been entrusted to him.
_Distribution of Qualities in a Nation._—Experience shows that while
talents are distributed in endless different degrees, the frequency of
those different degrees follows certain statistical laws, of which the
best known is the Normal Law of Frequency. This is the result whenever
variations are due to the combined action of many small and different
causes, whatever may be the causes and whatever the object in which the
variations occur, just as twice 2 always makes 4, whatever the objects
may be. It therefore holds true with approximate precision for variables
of totally different sorts, as, for instance, stature of man, errors
made by astronomers in judging minute intervals of time, bullet marks
around the bull’s-eye in target practice, and differences of marks
gained by candidates at competitive examinations. There is no mystery
about the fundamental principles of this abstract law; it rests on such
simple fundamental conceptions as, that if we toss two pence in the air
they will, in the long run, come down one head and one tail twice as
often as both heads or both tails. I will assume then, that the talents,
so to speak, that go to the formation of civic worth are distributed
with rough approximation according to this familiar law. In doing so, I
in no way disregard the admirable work of Prof. Karl Pearson on the
distribution of qualities, for which he was adjudged the Darwin Medal of
the Royal Society a few years ago. He has amply proved that we must not
blindly trust the Normal Law of Frequency; in fact, that when variations
are minutely studied they rarely fall into that perfect symmetry about
the mean value which is one of its consequences. Nevertheless, my
conscience is clear in using this law in the way I am about to. I say
that _if_ certain qualities vary normally, such and such will be the
results; that these qualities are of a class that are found, whenever
they have been tested, to vary normally to a fair degree of
approximation, and consequently we may infer that our results are
trustworthy indications of real facts.
A talent is a sum whose exact value few of us care to know, although we
all appreciate the inner sense of the beautiful parable. I will,
therefore, venture to adapt the phraseology of the allegory to my
present purpose by substituting for “talent” the words “normal-talent.”
The value of this normal talent in respect to each and any specified
quality or faculty is such that one-quarter of the people receive for
their respective shares more than one normal-talent _over and above_ the
average of all the shares. Our normal-talent is therefore identical with
what is technically known as the “probable error.” Therefrom the whole
of the following table starts into life, evolved from that of the
“_probability integral_.”
TABLE I.—_Normal distribution (to the nearest_ per _ten-thousand
and to the nearest_ per _hundred.)_
─────┬───┬───┬────┬────┬─┬────┬────┬───┬───┬──────┬──────
│–4°│–3°│ –2°│ –1°│M│ +1°│ +2°│+3°│+4°│ │
─────┼───┼───┼────┼────┼─┼────┼────┼───┼───┼──────┼──────
_v_ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │V and │
and │_u_│_t_│_s_ │_r_ │ │ R │ S │ T │ U │above.│Total
below│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
─────┼───┼───┼────┼────┼─┼────┼────┼───┼───┼──────┼──────
35│180│672│1613│2500│ │2500│1613│672│180│ 35 │10,000
─────┴───┼───┼────┼────┼─┼────┼────┼───┼───┴──────┼──────
2 │ 7│ 16│ 25│ │ 25│ 16│ 7│ 2 │ 100
─────────┴───┴────┴────┴─┴────┴────┴───┴──────────┴──────
It expresses the distribution of any normal quality, or any group of
normal qualities, among 10,000 persons in terms of the normal-talent.
The M in the upper line occupies the position of Mediocrity, or that of
the average of what all have received: the +1°, +2°, etc., and the –1°,
–2°, etc., refer to normal talents. These numerals stand as graduations
at the heads of the vertical lines by which the table is divided. The
entries between the divisions are the numbers per 10,000 of those who
receive sums between the amounts specified by those divisions. Thus, by
the hypothesis, 2500 receive more than M but less than M +1°, 1613
receive more than M +1° but less than M +2°, and so on. The terminals
have only an inner limit, thus 35 receive more than 4°, some to perhaps
a very large and indefinite amount. The divisions might have been
carried much farther, but the numbers in the classes between them would
become less and less trustworthy. The left half of the series exactly
reflects the right half. As it will be useful henceforth to distinguish
these classes, I have used the _capital_ or large letters R, S, T, U, V,
for those above mediocrity and corresponding _italic_ or small letters,
_r_, _s_, _t_, _u_, _v_, for those below mediocrity, _r_ being the
counterpart of R, _s_ of S, and so on.
In the lowest line the same values are given, but more roughly, to the
nearest whole percentage.
It will assist in comprehending the values of different grades of civic
worth to compare them with the corresponding grades of adult male
stature in our nation. I will take the figures from my “Natural
Inheritance,” premising that the distribution of stature in various
peoples has been well investigated and shown to be closely normal. The
average height of the adult males, to whom my figures refer, was nearly
5 feet 8 inches, and the value of their “normal-talent” (which is a
measure of the spread of distribution) was very nearly 1–3/4 inches.
From these data it is easily reckoned that Class U would contain men
whose heights exceed 6 feet 1–1/4 inches. Even they are tall enough to
overlook a hatless mob, while the higher classes, such as V, W and X,
tower above it in an increasingly marked degree. So the civic worth
(however that term may be defined) of U-class men, and still more of
V-class, are notably superior to the crowd, though they are far below
the heroic order. The rarity of a V-class man in each specified quality
or group of qualities is as 35 in 10,000, or say, for the convenience of
using round numbers, as 1 to 300. A man of the W class is ten times
rarer, and of the X class rarer still; but I shall avoid giving any more
exact definition of X than as a value considerably rarer than V. This
gives a general but just idea of the distribution throughout a
population of each and every quality taken separately so far as it is
normally distributed. As already mentioned, it does the same for _any_
group of normal qualities; thus, if marks for classics and for
mathematics were severally normal in their distribution, the combined
marks gained by each candidate in both those subjects would be
distributed normally also, this being one of the many interesting
properties of the law of frequency.
_Comparison of the Normal Classes with those of Mr. Booth._—Let us now
compare the normal classes with those into which Mr. Charles Booth has
divided the population of all London in a way that corresponds not
unfairly with the ordinary conception of grades of civic worth. He
reckons them from the lowest upwards, and gives the numbers in each
class for East London. Afterwards he treats all London in a similar
manner, except that sometimes he combines two classes into one and gives
the joint result. For my present purpose, I had to couple them somewhat
differently, first disentangling them as I best could. There seemed no
better way of doing this than by assigning to the members of each
couplet the same proportions that they had in East London. Though this
was certainly not accurate, it is probably not far wrong. Mr. Booth has
taken unheard of pains in this great work of his to arrive at accurate
results, but he emphatically says that his classes cannot be separated
sharply from one another. On the contrary, their frontiers blend, and
this justifies me in taking slight liberties with his figures. His class
A consists of criminals, semi-criminals, loafers and some others, who
are in number at the rate of 1 per cent. in all London—that is 100 per
10,000, or nearly three times as many as the _v_ class: they therefore
include the whole of _v_ and spread upwards into the _u_. His class B
consists of very poor persons who subsist on casual earnings, many of
whom are inevitably poor from shiftlessness, idleness or drink. The
numbers in this and the A class combined closely correspond with those
in _t_ and all below _t_.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TABLE II.—_Comparison of Mr. Booth’s Classification of All
London with the Normal Classes._
────┬─────────────────────────────────────────────┬───────┬─────────┬───────┬────┬────────
│ │ │ │ │ │Normal
Nos.│ Mr. Booth’s classes. │Approx.│Resorted.│Approx.│Nos.│classes.
────┼─────────────────────────────────────────────┼───────┼─────────┼───────┼────┼────────
97│ H. All above G │ 100 │ 100 │ 100 │ 89│ T and
│ │ │ │ │ │ above
────┼─────────────────────────────────────────────┼───────┼─────────┼───────┼────┼────────
│⎧G. Lower Middle ⎫│ │ ⎧ 150 │ 150 │ 161│ S
200│⎩F. High-class labour above 30s. per week ⎭│ 200 │ ⎨ ├───────┼────┼────────
│ │ │ ⎩ 50 ⎫ │ │ │
────┼─────────────────────────────────────────────┼───────┤ ⎬ │ 250 │ 250│ R
│ E. Regular standard earnings from 22s. to ⎫│ │ ⎧ 200 ⎭ │ │ │
382│ 30s. per week ⎭│ 400 │ ⎨ ├───────┼────┼────────
│ │ │ ⎩ 200 ⎫ │ │ │
────┼─────────────────────────────────────────────┼───────┤ ⎬ │ 250 │ 250│ _r_
│⎧D. Regular earnings under 22s. per week ⎫│ │ ⎧ 50 ⎭ │ │ │
227│⎩C. Intermittent earnings, improvident, poor⎭│ 200 │ ⎨ ├───────┼────┼────────
│ │ │ ⎩ 150 │ 150 │ 161│ _s_
────┼─────────────────────────────────────────────┼───────┤ ├───────┼────┼────────
94│⎧B. Casual; very poor ⎫│ 100 │ 100 │ 100 │ 89│ _t_ and
│⎩A. Criminals, loafers, &c. ⎭│ │ │ │ │ below
────┴─────────────────────────────────────────────┴───────┴─────────┴───────┴────┴────────
1000 1000 1000 1000
The two columns headed “Nos.” give respectively the numbers per
thousand in Mr. Booth’s and in the Normal Classes.
Class C are supported by intermittent earnings; they are a hard-working
people, but have a very bad character for improvidence and
shiftlessness. In Class D the earnings are regular, but at the low rate
of twenty-one shillings or less a week, so none of them rise above
poverty, though none are very poor. D and C together correspond to the
whole of _s_ combined with the lower fifth of _r_. The next class, E, is
the largest of any, and comprises all those with regular standard
earnings of twenty-two to thirty shillings a week. This class is the
recognised field for all forms of co-operation and combination; in short
for trades unions. It corresponds to the upper four-fifths of _r_,
combined with the lower four-fifths of R. It is therefore essentially
the mediocre class, standing as far below the highest in civic worth as
it stands above the lowest class with its criminals and semi-criminals.
Next above this large mass of mediocrity comes the honourable class _F_,
which consists of better paid artisans and foremen. These are able to
provide adequately for old age, and their sons become clerks and so
forth. _G_ is the lower middle class of shopkeepers, small employers,
clerks and subordinate professional men, who as a rule are hard-working,
energetic and sober. F and G combined correspond to the upper fifth of R
and the whole of S, and are, therefore, a counterpart to D and C. All
above G are put together by Mr. Booth into one class H, which
corresponds to our T, U, V and above, and is the counterpart of his two
lowermost classes, A and B. So far, then, as these figures go, civic
worth is distributed in fair approximation to the normal law of
frequency. We also see that the classes _t_, _u_, _v_ and below are
undesirables.
_Worth of Children._—The brains of the nation lie in the higher of our
classes. If such people as would be classed W or X could be
distinguishable as children and procurable by money in order to be
reared as Englishmen, it would be a cheap bargain for the nation to buy
them at the rate of many hundred or some thousands of pounds per head.
Dr. Farr, the eminent statistician, endeavoured to estimate the money
worth of an average baby born to the wife of an Essex labourer and
thenceforward living during the usual time and in the ordinary way of
his class. Dr. Farr, with accomplished actuarial skill, capitalised the
value at the child’s birth of two classes of events, the one the cost of
maintenance while a child and when helpless through old age, the other
its earnings as boy and man. On balancing the two sides of the account
the value of the baby was found to be five pounds. On a similar
principle, the worth of an X-class baby would be reckoned in thousands
of pounds. Some such “talented” folk fail, but most succeed, and many
succeed greatly. They found great industries, establish vast
undertakings, increase the wealth of multitudes and amass large fortunes
for themselves. Others, whether they be rich or poor, are the guides and
light of the nation, raising its tone, enlightening its difficulties and
imposing 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 X. I have tried, but not yet succeeded to my satisfaction, to make
an approximate estimate of the worth of a child at birth according to
the class he is destined to occupy when adult. It is an eminently
important subject for future investigators, for the amount of care and
cost that might profitably be expended in improving the race clearly
depends on its result.
_Descent of Qualities in a Population._—Let us now endeavour to obtain a
correct understanding of the way in which the varying qualities of each
generation are derived from those of its predecessor. How many, for
example, of the V class in the offspring come respectively from the V,
U, T, S and other classes of parentage? The means of calculating this
question for a normal population are given fully in my “Natural
Inheritance.” There are three main senses in which the word parentage
might be used. They differ widely, so the calculations must be modified
accordingly, (1) The amount of the quality or faculty in question may be
known in each parent. (2) It may be known in only one parent. (3) The
two parents may belong to the same class, a V-class father in the scale
of male classification always marrying a V-class mother, occupying
identically the same position in the scale of female classification.
I select this last case to work out as being the one with which we shall
here be chiefly concerned. It has the further merit of escaping some
tedious preliminary details about converting female faculties into their
corresponding male equivalents, before men and women can be treated
statistically on equal terms. I shall assume in what follows that we are
dealing with an ideal population, in which all marriages are equally
fertile, and which is statistically the same in successive generations
both in numbers and in qualities, so many per cent. being always this,
so many always that, and so on. Further, I shall take no notice of
offspring who die before they reach the age of marriage, nor shall I
regard the slight numerical inequality of the sexes, but will simply
suppose that each parentage produces one couplet of grown-up filials, an
adult man and an adult woman.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TABLE III.—_Descent of Qualities in a Population. (The
difference between the sexes only affects the value of the Unit
of the Scale of Distribution.)_
_Conditions._—(1) Parents to be always alike in class, (2)
Statistics of population to continue unchanged, (3) Normal Law
of Frequency to be applicable throughout.
────────────────────────────────────────────┬───────┬───┬────┬────┬────┬────┬───┬──────┬────────────
_Per_ 100 Father (or _Mothers_). │ 2 │ 7 │ 16 │ 25 │ 25 │ 16 │ 7 │ 2 │ 100
│ ╭─┴─╮ │ │ │ │ │ │ │╭─┴─╮ │
_Per_ 10,000 ” │ 35 180│671│1614│2500│2500│1614│672│180 35│ 10,000
────────────────────────────────────────────┼───────┼───┼────┼────┼────┼────┼───┼──────┼────────────
Names of classes │_v_ _u_│_t_│_s_ │_r_ │ R │ S │ T │ U V │ Totals
────────────────────────────────────────────┼───────┼───┼────┼────┼────┼────┼───┼──────┼────────────
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ Sons (or
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │_daughters_)
Sons ⎫ of 35 ⎧ Fathers ⎫ of V │ │ │ │ │ 1│ 6│ 12│ 10 6│ 35
_Daughters_ ⎭ ⎩ _Mothers_ ⎭ class │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
” 180 ” ” U │ │ │ │ 4│ 20│ 52│ 61│ 33 10│ 180
” 671 ” ” T │ │ │ 7│ 44│ 150│ 234│170│ 57 10│ 672
” 1614 ” ” S │ │ 6│ 57│ 253│ 512│ 509│224│ 47 5│ 1613
” 2500 ” ” R │ 3│ 42│ 248│ 678│ 860│ 510│140│ 18 3│ 2502
” 2500 ” ” _r_│ 3 18│140│ 510│ 860│ 678│ 248│ 42│ 3 │ 2502
” 1614 ” ” _s_│ 5 47│224│ 509│ 512│ 253│ 57│ 6│ │ 1613
” 671 ” ” _t_│ 10 57│170│ 234│ 150│ 44│ 7│ │ │ 672
” 180 ” ” _u_│ 10 33│ 61│ 52│ 20│ 4│ │ │ │ 180
” 35 ” ” _v_│ 6 10│ 12│ 6│ 1│ │ │ │ │ 35
────────────────────────────────────────────┼───────┼───┼────┼────┼────┼────┼───┼──────┼────────────
Total 10,000 Fathers (or _Mothers_) │ 34 168│655│1623│2522│2522│1623│655│168 34│ 10,004
│ ╰─┬─╯ │ │ │ │ │ │ │╰─┬─╯ │
” 100 ” │ 2 │ 7│ 16│ 25│ 25│ 16│ 7│ 2 │
────────────────────────────────────────────┴───────┴───┴────┴────┴────┴────┴───┴──────┴────────────
_Note._—The agreement in distribution between fathers (or _mothers_) and
sons (or _daughters_) is exact to the nearest whole per centage. The
slight discrepancy in the ten-thousandths is mainly due to the classes
being too few and too wide; theoretically they should be extremely
numerous and narrow.
The result is shown to the nearest whole per thousand in the table up to
“V and above,” to the nearest ten thousands. They may be read either as
applying to fathers and their sons when adult, or to mothers and their
daughters when adult, or, again, to parentages and filial couplets. I
will not now attempt to explain the details of the calculation to those
to whom these methods are new. Those who are familiar with them will
easily understand the exact process from what follows. There are three
points of reference in a scheme of descent which may be respectively
named “mid-parental,” “genetic” and “filial” centres. In the present
case of both parents being alike, the position of the mid-parental
centre is identical with that of either parent separately. The position
of the filial centre is that from which the children disperse. The
genetic centre occupies the same position in the parental series that
the filial centre does in the filial series. “Natural Inheritance”
contains abundant proof, both observational and theoretical, that the
genetic centre is not and cannot be identical with the parental centre,
but is always more mediocre, owing to the combination of ancestral
influences—which are generally mediocre—with the purely parental ones.
It also shows that the regression from the parental to the genetic
centre, in the case of stature at least, would amount to two-thirds
under the conditions we are now supposing. The regression is indicated
in the diagram used to illustrate this paper, by converging lines which
are directed towards the same point below, but are stopped at one-third
of the distance on the way to it. The contents of each parental class
are supposed to be concentrated at the foot of the median axis of that
class, this being the vertical line that divides its contents into equal
parts. Its position is approximately, but not exactly, half-way between
the divisions that bound it, and is as easily calculated for the extreme
classes, which have no outer terminals, as for any of the others. These
median points are respectively taken to be the positions of the parental
centres of the whole of each of the classes; therefore the positions
attained by the converging lines that proceed from them at the points
where they are stopped, represent the genetic centres. From these the
filials disperse to the right and left with a “spread” that can be shown
to be three-quarters that of the parentages. Calculation easily
determines the number of the filials that fall into the class in which
the filial centre is situated, and of those that spread into the classes
on each side. When the parental contributions from all the classes to
each filial class are added together they will express the distribution
of the quality among the whole of the offspring. Now it will be observed
in the table that the numbers in the classes of the offspring are
identical with those of the parents, when they are reckoned to the
nearest whole percentage, as should be the case according to the
hypothesis. Had the classes been narrower and more numerous, and if the
calculations had been carried on to two more places of decimals, the
correspondence would have been identical to the nearest ten-thousandth.
It was unnecessary to take the trouble of doing this, as the table
affords a sufficient basis for what I am about to say. Though it does
not profess to be more than approximately true in detail, it is
certainly trustworthy in its general form, including as it does the
effects of regression, filial dispersion, and the equation that connects
a parental generation with a filial one when they are statistically
alike. Minor corrections will be hereafter required, and can be applied
when we have a better knowledge of the material. In the meantime it will
serve as a standard table of descent from each generation of a people to
its successor.
* * * * *
_Economy of Effort._—I shall now use the table to show the economy of
concentrating our attention upon the highest classes. We will therefore
trace the origin of the V class—which is the highest in the table. Of
its 34 or 35 sons, 6 come from V parentages, 10 from U, 10 from T, 5
from S, 3 from R, and none from any class below R. But the numbers of
the contributing parentages have also to be taken into account. When
this is done, we see that the lower classes make their scores owing to
their quantity and not to their quality; for while 35 V-class parents
suffice to produce 6 sons of the V class, it takes 2500 R-class fathers
to produce 3 of them. Consequently the richness in produce of V-class
parentages is to that of the R-class in an inverse ratio, or as 143 to
1. Similarly, the richness in produce of V-class children from
parentages of the classes U, T, S, respectively, is as 3, 11–1/2, and
55, to 1. Moreover, nearly one-half of the produce of V-class parentages
are V or U taken together, and nearly three-quarters of them are either
V, U or T. If then we desire to increase the output of V-class
offspring, by far the most profitable parents to work upon would be
those of the V-class, and in a threefold less degree those of the U
class.
When both parents are of the V class the quality of parentages is
greatly superior to those in which only one parent is a V. In that case
the regression of the genetic centre goes twice as far back towards
mediocrity, and the spread of the distribution among filials becomes
nine-tenths of that among the parents, instead of being only
three-quarters. The effect is shown in table IV.
There is a difference of fully two divisions in the position of the
genetic centre, that of the single V parentage being only a trifle
nearer mediocrity than that of the double T. Hence it would be bad
economy to spend much effort in furthering marriages with a higher class
on only one side.
TABLE IV.—_Distribution of sons. (1) One parent of class V., the
other unknown. (2) Both parents of class V (from Table II., with
decimal point and an 0)._
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Distribution of Sons
──────────────┬─────┬─────┬─────┬─────┬─────┬─────┬─────┬─────┬──────
│ _t_ │ _s_ │ _r_ │ R │ S │ T │ U │ V │ Total
──────────────┼─────┼─────┼─────┼─────┼─────┼─────┼─────┼─────┼──────
One V-parent │ 0·3│ 1·2│ 3·5│ 7·9│ 9·6│ 7·5│ 3·6│ 1·3│ 34·3
Two V-parents │ │ │ │ 3·0│ 5·0│ 10·0│ 10·0│ 6·0│ 34·0
──────────────┴─────┴─────┴─────┴─────┴─────┴─────┴─────┴─────┴──────
Position of the filial centre of (1) = 1·44, of (2) = 2·89. When both
parents are T it = 1·58.
_Marriage of like to like._—In each class of society there is a strong
tendency to intermarriage, which produces a marked effect in the
richness of brain power of the more cultured families. It produces a
still more marked effect of another kind at the lowest step of the
social scale, as will be painfully evident from the following extracts
from the work of Mr. C. Booth (i. 38), which refer to his Class A, who
form, as has been said, the lowermost third of our “_v_ and below.”
“Their life is the life of savages, with vicissitudes of extreme
hardship and occasional excess. From them come the battered figures who
slouch through the streets and play the beggar or the bully. They render
no useful service, they create no wealth; more often they destroy it.
They degrade whatever they touch, and as individuals are perhaps
incapable of improvement ... but I do not mean to say that there are not
individuals of every sort to be found in the mass. Those who are able to
wash the mud may find some gems in it. There are at any rate many very
piteous cases. Whatever doubt there may be as to the exact numbers of
this class, it is certain that they bear a very small proportion to the
rest of the population, or even to class B, with which they are mixed up
and from which it is at times difficult to separate them.... They are
barbarians, but they are a handful....” He says further, “It is much to
be desired and to be hoped that this class may become less hereditary in
its character; there appears to be no doubt that it is now hereditary to
a very considerable extent.”
Many who are familiar with the habits of these people do not hesitate to
say that it would be an economy and a great benefit to the country if
all habitual criminals were resolutely segregated under merciful
surveillance and peremptorily denied opportunities for producing
offspring. It would abolish a source of suffering and misery to a future
generation, and would cause no unwarrantable hardship in this.
_Diplomas._—It will be remembered that Mr. Booth’s classification did
not help us beyond classes higher than S in civic worth. If a strong and
widely felt desire should arise to discover young men whose position was
of the V, W or X order, there would not be much difficulty in doing so.
Let us imagine, for a moment, what might be done in any great
University, where the students are in continual competition in studies,
in athletics, or in public meetings, and where their characters are
publicly known to associates and to tutors. Before attempting to make a
selection, acceptable definitions of civic worth would have to be made
in alternative terms, for there are many forms of civic worth. The
number of men of the V, W or X classes whom the University was qualified
to contribute annually must also be ascertained. As was said, the
proportion in the general population of the V class to the remainder is
as 1 to 300, and that of the W class as 1 in 3000. But students are a
somewhat selected body because the cleverest youths, in a scholastic
sense, usually find their way to Universities. A considerably high
level, both intellectually and physically, would be required as a
qualification for candidature. The limited number who had not been
automatically weeded away by this condition might be submitted in some
appropriate way to the independent votes of fellow-students on the one
hand, and of tutors on the other, whose ideals of character and merit
necessarily differ. This ordeal would reduce the possible winners to a
very small number, out of which an independent committee might be
trusted to make the ultimate selection. They would be guided by personal
interviews. They would take into consideration all favourable points in
the family histories of the candidates, giving appropriate hereditary
weight to each. Probably they would agree to pass over unfavourable
points, unless they were notorious and flagrant, owing to the great
difficulty of ascertaining the real truth about them. Ample experience
in making selections has been acquired even by scientific societies,
most of which work well, including perhaps the award of their medals,
which the fortunate recipients at least are tempted to consider
judicious. The opportunities for selecting women in this way are
unfortunately fewer, owing to the smaller number of female students
between whom comparisons might be made on equal terms. In the selection
of women, when nothing is known of their athletic proficiency, it would
be especially necessary to pass a high and careful medical examination;
and as their personal qualities do not usually admit of being tested so
thoroughly as those of men, it would be necessary to lay all the more
stress on hereditary family qualities, including those of fertility and
prepotency.
_Correlation between Promise in Youth and subsequent Performance._—No
serious difficulty seems to stand in the way of classifying and giving
satisfactory diplomas to youths of either sex, supposing there were a
strong demand for it. But some real difficulty does lie in the
question—Would such a classification be a trustworthy forecast of
qualities in later life? The scheme of descent of qualities may hold
good between the parents and the offspring at similar ages, but that is
not the information we really want. It is the descent of qualities from
men to men, not from youths to youths. The accidents that make or mar a
career do not enter into the scope of this difficulty. It resides
entirely in the fact that the development does not cease at the time of
youth, especially in the higher natures, but that faculties and
capabilities which were then latent subsequently unfold and become
prominent. Putting aside the effects of serious illness, I do not
suppose there is any risk of retrogression in capacity before old age
comes on. The mental powers that a youth possesses continue with him as
a man; but other faculties and new dispositions may arise and alter the
balance of his character. He may cease to be efficient in the way of
which he gave promise, and he may perhaps become efficient in unexpected
directions.
The correlation between youthful promise and performance in mature life
has never been properly investigated. Its measurement presents no
greater difficulty, so far as I can foresee, than in other problems
which have been successfully attacked. It is one of those alluded to in
the beginning of this lecture as bearing on race-improvement, and being
on its own merits suitable for anthropological inquiry. Let me add that
I think its neglect by the vast army of highly educated persons who are
connected with the present huge system of competitive examinations to be
gross and unpardonable. Neither schoolmasters, tutors, officials of the
Universities, nor of the State department of education, have ever to my
knowledge taken any serious step to solve this important problem, though
the value of the present elaborate system of examinations cannot be
rightly estimated until it is solved. When the value of the correlation
between youthful promise and adult performance shall have been
determined, the figures given in the table of descent will have to be
reconsidered.
_Augmentation of Favoured Stock._—The possibility of improving the race
of a nation depends on the power of increasing the productivity of the
best stock. This is far more important than that of repressing the
productivity of the worst. They both raise the average, the latter by
reducing the undesirables, the former by increasing those who will
become the lights of the nation. It is therefore all important to prove
that favour to selected individuals might so increase their productivity
as to warrant the expenditure in money and care that would be
necessitated. An enthusiasm to improve the race would probably express
itself by granting diplomas to a select class of young men and women, by
encouraging their intermarriages, by hastening the time of marriage of
women of that high class, and by provision for rearing children
healthily. The means that might be employed to compass these ends are
dowries, especially for those to whom moderate sums are important,
assured help in emergencies during the early years of married life,
healthy homes, the pressure of public opinion, honours, and above all
the introduction of motives of religious or quasi-religious character.
Indeed, an enthusiasm to improve the race is so noble in its aim that it
might well give rise to the sense of a religious obligation. In other
lands there are abundant instances in which religious motives make early
marriages a matter of custom, and continued celibacy to be regarded as a
disgrace, if not a crime. The customs of the Hindoos, also of the Jews,
especially in ancient times, bear this out. In all costly civilisations
there is a tendency to shrink from marriage on prudential grounds. It
would, however, be possible so to alter the conditions of life that the
most prudent course for an X class person should lie exactly opposite to
its present direction, for he or she might find that there were
advantages and not disadvantages in early marriage, and that the most
prudent course was to follow the natural instincts.
We have now to consider the probable gain in the number and worth of
adult offspring to these favoured couples. First as regards the effect
of reducing the age at marriage. There is unquestionably a tendency
among cultured women to delay or even to abstain from marriage; they
dislike the sacrifice of freedom and leisure, of opportunities for study
and of cultured companionship. This has to be reckoned with. I heard of
the reply of a lady official of a College for Women to a visitor who
inquired as to the after life of the students. She answered that
one-third profited by it, another third gained little good, and a third
were failures. “But what become of the failures?” “Oh, they marry.”
There appears to be a considerable difference between the earliest age
at which it is physiologically desirable that a woman should marry and
that at which the ablest, or at least the most cultured, women usually
do. Acceleration in the time of marriage, often amounting to 7 years, as
from 28 or 29 to 21 or 22, under influences such as those mentioned
above, is by no means improbable. What would be its effect on
productivity? It might be expected to act in two ways:—
(1) By shortening each generation by an amount roughly proportionate to
the diminution in age at which marriage occurs. Suppose the span of each
generation to be shortened by one-sixth, so that six take the place of
five, and that the productivity of each marriage is unaltered, it
follows that one-sixth more children will be brought into the world
during the same time, which is, roughly equivalent to increasing the
productivity of an unshortened generation by that amount.
(2) By saving from certain barrenness the earlier part of the
child-bearing period of the woman. Authorities differ so much as to the
direct gain of fertility due to early marriage that it is dangerous to
express an opinion. The large and thriving families that I have known
were the offspring of mothers who married very young.
The next influence to be considered is that of healthy homes. These and
a simple life certainly conduce to fertility. They also act indirectly
by preserving lives that would otherwise fail to reach adult age. It is
not necessarily the weakest who perish in this way, for instance,
zymotic disease falls indiscriminately on the weak and the strong.
Again, the children would be healthier and therefore more likely in
their turn to become parents of a healthy stock. The great danger to
high civilisations, and remarkably so to our own, is the exhaustive
drain upon the rural districts to supply large towns. Those who come up
to the towns may produce large families, but there is much reason to
believe that these dwindle away in subsequent generations. In short, the
towns sterilise rural vigour.
As one of the reasons for choosing the selected class would be that of
hereditary fertility, it follows that the selected class would respond
more than other classes to the above influences.
I do not attempt to appraise the strength of the combined six influences
just described. If each added one-sixth to the produce the number of
offspring would be doubled. This does not seem impossible considering
the large families of colonists, and of those in many rural districts;
but it is a high estimate. Perhaps the fairest approximation may be that
these influences would cause the X women to bring into the world an
average of one adult son and one adult daughter _in addition_ to what
they would otherwise have produced. The table of descent applies to one
son or to one daughter per couple; it may now be read as specifying the
net gain and showing its distribution. Should this estimate be thought
too high, the results may be diminished accordingly.
It is no absurd idea that outside influences should hasten the age of
marrying and make it customary for the best to marry the best. A
superficial objection is sure to be urged that the fancies of young
people are so incalculable and so irresistible that they cannot be
guided. No doubt they are so in some exceptional cases. I lately heard
from a lady who belonged to a county family of position that a great
aunt of hers had scandalised her own domestic circle two generations ago
by falling in love with the undertaker at her father’s funeral and
insisting on marrying him. Strange vagaries occur, but considerations of
social position and of fortune, with frequent opportunities of
intercourse, tell much more in the long run than sudden fancies that
want roots. In a community deeply impressed with the desire of
encouraging marriages between persons of equally high ability, the
social pressure directed to produce the desired end would be so great as
to ensure a notable amount of success.
* * * * *
_Profit and Loss._—The problem to be solved now assumes a clear shape. A
child of the X class (whatever X signifies) would have been worth so and
so at its birth, and one of each of the other grades respectively would
have been worth so and so; 100 X parentages can be made to produce a net
gain of 100 adult sons and 100 adult daughters who will be distributed
among the classes according to the standard table of descent. The total
value of the prospective produce of the 100 parentages can then be
estimated by an actuary, and consequently the sum that it is legitimate
to spend in favouring an X parentage. The clear and distinct statement
of a problem is often more than half way towards its solution. There
seems no reason why this one should not be solved between limiting
values that are not too wide apart to be useful.
* * * * *
_Existing Activities._—Leaving aside profitable expenditure from a
purely money point of view, the existence should be borne in mind of
immense voluntary activities that have nobler aims. The annual voluntary
contributions in the British Isles to public charities alone amount, on
the lowest computation, to fourteen million pounds, a sum which Sir H.
Burdett asserts on good grounds is by no means the maximum
obtainable.[2]
(“Hospitals and Charities,” 1898, p. 85.)
There are other activities long since existing which might well be
extended. I will not dwell, as I am tempted to do, on the endowments of
scholarships and the like, which aim at finding and educating the
fittest youths for the work of the nation; but I will refer to that
wholesome practice during all ages of wealthy persons interesting
themselves in and befriending poor but promising lads. The number of men
who have owed their start in a successful life to help of this kind must
have struck every reader of biographies. This relationship of befriender
and befriended is hardly to be expressed in English by a simple word
that does not connote more than is intended. The word “patron” is
odious. Recollecting Dr. Johnson’s abhorrence of the patrons of his day,
I turned to an early edition of his dictionary in hope of deriving some
amusement as well as instruction from his definition of the word, and I
was not disappointed. He defines “patron” as “a wretch who supports with
insolence and is repaid with flattery.” That is totally opposed to what
I would advocate, namely, a kindly and honourable relation between a
wealthy man who has made his position in the world and a youth who is
avowedly his equal in natural gifts, but who has yet to make it. It is
one in which each party may well take pride and I feel sure that if its
value were more widely understood it would become commoner than it is.
Many degrees may be imagined that lie between mere befriendment and
actual adoption, and which would be more or less effective in freeing
capable youths from the hindrances of narrow circumstances; in enabling
girls to marry early and suitably, and in securing favour for their
subsequent offspring. Something in this direction is commonly but half
unconsciously done by many great landowners whose employments for man
and wife, together with good cottages, are given to exceptionally
deserving couples. The advantage of being connected with a great and
liberally managed estate being widely appreciated, there are usually
more applicants than vacancies, so selection can be exercised. The
consequence is that the class of men found upon these properties is
markedly superior to those in similar positions elsewhere. It might well
become a point of honour, and as much an avowed object, for noble
families to gather fine specimens of humanity around them, as it is to
procure and maintain fine breeds of cattle and so forth, which are
costly, but repay in satisfaction.
There is yet another existing form of princely benevolence which might
be so extended as to exercise a large effect on race improvement. I mean
the provision to exceptionally promising young couples of healthy and
convenient houses at low rentals. A continually renewed settlement of
this kind can be easily imagined, free from the taint of patronage, and
analogous to colleges with their self-elected fellowships and rooms for
residence, that should become an exceedingly desirable residence for a
specified time. It would be so in the same way that a good club by its
own social advantages attracts desirable candidates. The tone of the
place would be higher than elsewhere, on account of the high quality of
the inmates, and it would be distinguished by an air of energy,
intelligence, health and self-respect and by mutual helpfulness.
_Prospects._—It is pleasant to contrive Utopias, and I have indulged in
many, of which a great society is one, publishing intelligence and
memoirs, holding yearly elections, administering large funds,
establishing personal relations like a missionary society with its
missionaries, keeping elaborate registers and discussing them
statistically with honest precision. But the first and pressing point is
to thoroughly justify any crusade at all in favour of race improvement.
More is wanted in the way of unbiased scientific inquiry along the many
roads I have hurried over, to make every stepping-stone safe and secure,
and to make it certain that the game is really worth the candle. All I
dare hope to effect by this lecture is to prove that in seeking for the
improvement of the race we aim at what is apparently possible to
accomplish, and that we are justified in following every path in a
resolute and hopeful spirit that seems to lead towards that end. The
magnitude of the inquiry is enormous, but its object is one of the
highest man can accomplish. The faculties of future generations will
necessarily be distributed according to laws of heredity, whose
statistical effects are no longer vague, for they are measured and
expressed in formulæ. We cannot doubt the existence of a great power
ready to hand and capable of being directed with vast benefit as soon as
we shall have learnt to understand and to apply it. To no nation is a
high human breed more necessary than to our own, for we plant our stock
all over the world and lay the foundation of the dispositions and
capacities of future millions of the human race.