Page:Little Essays of Love and Virtue (1922).djvu/155

 individuals, and that Individualism itself calls for a limitation of the freedom of the individual.

That is why even the most uncompromising Individualist must recognise an element of altruism, call it whatever name you will, Collectivism, Socialism, Communism, or merely the vague and long-suffering term, Democracy. One cannot assume Individualism for oneself unless one assumes it for the many. That is a great truth which goes to the heart of the whole complex problem of eugenics and birth-control. As Perrycoste has well argued, biology is altogether against the narrow Individualism which seeks to oppose Collective Individualism. For if, in accordance with the most careful modern investigations, we recognise that heredity is supreme, that the qualities we have inherited from our ancestors count for more in our lives than anything we have acquired by our own personal efforts, then we have to admit that the capable man’s wealth is more the community’s property than his own, and, similarly, the incapable man’s poverty is more the community’s concern than his own. So that neither the capable nor the incapable are entitled to an unqualified power of freedom, and neither, likewise, are justly liable to be burdened by an unqualified responsibility. It is the duty of the community to