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Hereditary Genius
357
draw in this way from the struggle for existence. It may seem
monstrous that the weak should be crowded out by the strong, but it
is still more monstrous that the races best fitted to play their part on
the stage of life, should be crowded out by the incompetent, the ailing,
and the desponding.
The time may hereafter arrive, in far distant years, when the
population of the earth shall be kept as strictly within the bounds of
number and suitability of race, as the sheep on a well-ordered moor
or the plants in an orchard-house; in the meantime, let us do what we
can to encourage the multiplication of the races best fitted to invent
and conform to a high and generous civilization, and not, out of a
mistaken instinct of giving support to the weak, prevent the incoming
of strong and hearty individuals.
The long period of the dark ages under which Europe has lain is
due, I believe in a very considerable degree, to the celibacy enjoined
by religious orders on their votaries. Whenever a man or woman was
possessed of a gentle nature that fitted him or her to deeds of charity,
to meditation, to literature, or to art, the social condition of the time
was such that they had no refuge elsewhere than in the bosom of the
Church. But the Church chose to preach and exact celibacy. The
consequence was that these gentle natures had no continuance, and
thus, by a policy so singularly unwise and suicidal that I am hardly
able to speak of it without impatience, the Church brutalized the
breed of our forefathers. She acted precisely as if she had aimed at
selecting the rudest portion of the community to be, alone, the parents
of future generations. She practised the arts which breeders would
use, who aimed at creating ferocious, currish and stupid natures. No
wonder that club-law prevailed for centuries over Europe; the
wonder rather is that enough good remained in the veins of
Europeans
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