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xx
Hereditary Genius
exists, however much the circumstances of social life may hamper its-
employment.¹ The great problem of the future betterment of the human
race is confessedly, at the present time, hardly advanced beyond the stage
of academic interest, but thought and action move swiftly nowadays, and it
is by no means impossible that a generation which has witnessed the
exclusion of the Chinese race from the customary privileges of settlers in
two continents, and the deportation of a Hebrew population from a large
portion of a third, may live to see other analogous acts performed under
sudden socialistic pressure. The striking results of an evil inheritance have
already forced themselves so far on the popular mind, that indignation is
freely expressed, without any marks of disapproval from others, at the
yearly output by unfit parents of weakly children who are constitutionally
incapable of growing up into serviceable citizens, and who are a serious
encumbrance to the nation. The questions about to be considered may
unexpectedly acquire importance as falling within the sphere of practical
politics, and if so, many demographic data that require forethought and time
to collect, and a dispassionate and leisurely judgment to discuss, will be
hurriedly and sorely needed.
The topics to which I refer are the relative fertility of different classes and
races, and their tendency to supplant one another under various
circumstances.
The whole question of fertility under the various conditions of civilized life
requires more detailed research than it has yet received. We require further
investigations into the truth of the hypothesis of Malthus, that there is really
no limit to over-population beside that which is
1
These remarks Were submitted in my Presidential Address to the International Congress of
Demography, held in London in 1892.
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