SIX MAJOR PROPHETS
lower social strata, and burst forth in times of need, as in the French Revolution: but the more successfully a carriére ouverte aux talents is instituted, the more surely are these strata kept drained, and incapacitated from retrieving the waste of ability in the upper layers of society. Now it is doubtless true that the primary need of society is to find persons capable of conducting its affairs ably, and that a social order which does not allow ability to rise is therefore bad: but nations cannot with impunity so order themselves as to eliminate the very qualities they most admire and desire, and must husband their resources in men as in the other sources of their wealth and welfare.[1]
That is to say, it did not matter much if in former times the nobility did tend to die out in a few generations, for in hereditable ability they were not much above the average. But in the more just régime that we are trying to introduce, especially in America, when the opportunities for higher education and advancement are extended to the gifted of all classes, it will be disastrous if the professional and well-to-do classes fail to contribute their share to the future population, for it means a continuous reversal of the method of the survival of the fittest by which evolution has been accomplished. This is not a law that man can repeal however he may disregard it. So it happens that civilized societies tend
- ↑ "Practical Eugenics in Education."
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