THE PROBLEM OF THE BIRTH SUPPLY
such advances will soon be made—that is as much as can be done hopefully for many years in the selective breeding of individuals by the community as a whole. If at any time certainties should replace speculations in the field of inheritance, then I fancy the common sense of humanity will be found to be in favour of the immediate application of that knowledge to life. At present almost every citizen in the civilised State respects the rules of the laws of consanguinity, so far as they affect brothers and sisters, with an absolute respect—an enormous triumph of training over instinct, as Dr. Beattie Crozier has pointed out—and if in the future it should be found possible to divide up humanity into groups, some of which could pair with one another only to the disadvantage of the offspring, and some of which had better have no offspring, I believe there would be remarkably little difficulty in enforcing a system of taboos in accordance with such knowledge. Only it would have to be absolutely certain knowledge, proved and proved again up to the hilt. If a truth is worth application it is worth hammering home, and we have no right to expect common men to obey conclusions upon which specialists are as yet not lucidly agreed.
That however is only one aspect of this question. There are others from which the New Republican may also approach this problem of the quality of the birth supply.
In relation to personal conduct all these things assume another colour altogether. Let us be clear upon that point. The State, the community, may
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