The Blessing of Death
pedigrees—only a few of hundreds traced- 1 quoted in my last article show beyond reasonable doubt the hereditary character of pauperism, and its connexion with the still more grievous afflictions of mental defect and instability. They do not, however; show the full picture ; for there is scarcely an instance of crime among them. In other pedigrees of a like nature crime is constantly reappearing. There are plenty of English examples of this, but the. American " Kallikak " and " Jukes " families are probably the most notorious even among the English lay public. Crime itself is not a stock character in the sense, at least, in which Lombroso imagined it. His picturesque " science " was exploded twenty years ago by Goring's exact and famous study of the English convict. The criminal, Goring found, was mentally and physically below the average. (The average physique taken as his standard was probably a little too high. Nevertheless, there is little doubt that his findings were substantially correct.) He concluded, therefore, that the general inferiority of the convict and his constitutional inability to adapt himself to his environment were the causes of his taking to crime. He only found it possible, in short, to earn a living by dishonesty. This conclusion has been confirmed by various psychological studies—notably those of Professor Cyril Burt—of delinquents, and also by pedigree and statistical studies.
Crime, pauperism, mental deficiency, insanity, epilepsy, are all different manifestations in various degrees and circumstances of one and the same disease—a general deficiency, both mental and physical. The high death- rate from tuberculosis* of the definitely defective and the generally poor physique and strong susceptibility to disease of the socially inadequate are a good illustration of this general deficiency. It is, after all, no very revo- lutionary idea—to a biologist, at least—that an egg which lacks vitality should produce a body and brain ,of equally poor quality. The converse is familiar to us all. With very few exceptions, most of the great men of the world have been of unusually fine physique, and, twith no exceptions, have sprung from very vigorous if 'not also talented families.
To take either side in the " heredity versus environ- ment " controversy would be unscientific. In similar ' circumstances the sound individual will develop more fully than the unsound. Both will develop better in good surroundings, in decent houses, say, than in slums. The point is that men and women do differ inherently from one another, and that native inadequacy is more often the cause of disease, pauperism, and slums than they are of it. This general law of heredity is fairly ,widely acknowledged. The natural law which is not usually recognized and which is the very heart of this subject is that of natural selection.
That all animals in a wild state are healthy and efficient because only the fittest survive is almost a commonplace, yet one which is seldom applied to human affairs. Men, of course, are naturally selected for death or survival in precisely the same way as are animals, but in a much lesser degree. The cause, for instance, of our comparative immunity from smallpox, one of the great scourges of past generations, is debated with Much vigour by the pro- and anti-vaccinationists. Yet the real cause is much more probably a natural immunity, our birthright as the descendants of those who passed unscathed when the plague ran riot.
• Yide Tredgold, Amentia, and reports of the Board of Control. Why, again, did the Black Death, which once ravaged all Europe, die out without the aid of either sanitation or vaccination ? The Plague which we associate with the Fire of London was in reality no isolated event. It came several times in a lifetime for centuries on end. (Queen Elizabeth, acting on thoroughly sound natural selectionist principles, made it a capital offence for anyone suffering from the Plague to come near her Court at Windsor !) Yet this, too, died out long before modern medicine and sanitation were introduced. Scarlet fever, once the terror of parents, has now become a very minor affliction in most cases. But measles, a comparatively new disease, has grown more and more dangerous as the child death-rate from other causes has declined. Venereal disease twice nearly wiped out the Maoris. To-day they arc immune. In Algeria the same disease is endemic, but in a mild form.
From these particular instances one can see how beneficial to the race, if ruthless to the individual, natural selection is. It is over a hundred years since it ceased to be really ruthless in this country. Prosperity was already rising before the industrial revolution, but it then proceeded by leaps and bounds. The population consequently increased, not, as used to be said, because the birth-rate rose, but because the death-rate fell. Larger numbers than before of the least well adapted to live were enabled to do so. Modern medicine and sanitation brought powerful aid. That thoughtless, indiscriminate philanthropy of State and individual which is a feature of modern life assisted further to lower the death-rate at the wrong end of the population.
The alteration of the death-rate would by itself have been enough to slow down or even to stop the evolution of the race. The alteration in the birth-rate which started some time after 1880 (until then for certain the most capable individuals had the largest families) has completed the actual reversal of the evolutionary process. As I tried to show in my first article, not only the absolute numbers, but also the proportionate numbers, of the defective and dependent have risen and are rising. Better wages and cheaper food, better housing and more effective sanitation, more out-relief and medical assistance—these, it is true, have aided them a little, but have also enormously increased their survival and, consequently, reproductive capacity. Their families average eight-nine, the normal labourer's four, and the professional man's one-two. Probably the mysterious " influenza " epidemic of 1918, which was markedly selective, has been our greatest benefactor of recent years. Without it the burden of pauperism might be far heavier than it is. Even excluding all those on the Guardians self-described as " unemployed," that burden is already the growing one of 2-8 per cent.
The financial aspect is less disturbing than the human. All such changes in the quality of the population as are now going on are cumulative, increasing at compound interest. The human stuff of a great nation is deteriorating. Nature may suddenly right things in her own way, and leave a purged, depopulated England gasping with humility at the feebleness of man.
We cannot, for obvious reasons, willingly return to the ruthless, if effective, methods of natural selection. There are, therefore, two methods for preventing the increase of the definitely defective—segregation and sterilization, With these I will deal in my last article.
ELDON MOORE.
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