A time will come when the human population of the earth will become more or less stationary. If, in the meantime, human nature has succeeded in appreciably improving its quality, and in gradually suppressing the physical and mental proletariat with its poverty, hunger and brutality, which now infests the world—then only will the dogmas of our modern neo-malthusianists acquire a certain object for the whole world.
If humanity does not soon begin to degenerate by brutish accumulation, but finds in time the means to gradually elevate its quality, our future descendants will take care not to abandon rational selection. A capable and active man gives to society much more than he receives, and thus forms an economic asset. A person who is unfit in body or mind, receives more than he gives, and thus constitutes an economic deficit.
Contrary Selection.—We have seen in Chapter VI how certain customs of essentially human origin ended by becoming part of religion. Unfortunately for humanity, religion and politics have at all times generally combined to do wrong. The celibacy of priests (to say nothing of the Inquisition, religious wars, and the fatalism of Islam) which is based on a kind of religious politics, has largely resulted in sterilizing the more intelligent among Catholic races.
The prohibition of inquiry into paternity is another abominable custom of the same kind introduced by Napoleon. Laws of this nature lead to artificial abortion and encourage promiscuous intercourse. The safety of families and sexual intercourse lies in the duties of parents toward their children.
The principal task of a political economy which has the true happiness of men at heart, should be to encourage the procreation of happy, useful, healthy and hard-working individuals. To build an ever-increasing number of hospitals, asylums for lunatics, idiots and incurables, reformatories, etc.; to provide them with every comfort, and manage them scientifically, is no doubt a very fine thing, and speaks well of the progress and development of human sympathy. But, what is forgotten, is that by concerning ourselves almost exclusively with human ruins, the results of our social abuses, we gradually weaken the forces of the healthy portion of the population.
By attacking the roots of the evil and limiting the procreation of the unfit, we shall be performing a work which is much more humanitarian, if less striking in its effect.
Formerly, our economists and politicians hardly ever considered this question, and even now very few are interested in it, because it brings neither honors nor money, as we do not ourselves see the fruits of such efforts. Any one who aims at serious reforms and puts his hand to the work is looked upon as eccentric, or even mad. This is why we are contented with the kind of humanitarianism which makes a show and panders to the sentimentality of the masses, by holding out a charitable hand to the visible and audible evils which make women weep. In short, we amuse ourselves with repairing the ruins, but are afraid of attacking what makes these ruins!
The Laws of Lycurgus.—There was once in Sparta a great legislator named Lycurgus, who attempted to introduce a kind of human selection into the laws. He wished to make the Spartans a strong nation, because at that time bodily strength was almost the only ideal of the people. He understood the value of hardness but not that of work. The importance of selective elimination of the diseased and weak was apparent to his pre-Darwinian intuition, but in his time natural laws were not understood. However, in spite of their failings, the laws of Lycurgus succeeded up to a certain point in making the Spartans a strong nation.
According to the laws of Lycurgus, the Spartan inherited no property, and was forbidden all luxury. He had to eat his simple black broth with his fellows, and to exercise himself continually in trials of strength and skill. Every Spartan had to marry, and the bonds of matrimony were strictly observed. Every weak child was eliminated. But there were two fundamental errors in the Spartan organization.
First of all, the Spartan was a warrior, but not a worker, and although hardened, was an aristocrat. He left all labor to his slaves, and in this way strengthened his slaves and enfeebled himself in many respects. The value of work in strengthening and developing the brain and the whole body was not then understood.