Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 63.djvu/528

524 among royalty where large families are always desired, maximum fertility does on the whole run hand in hand with general superiority. Nearly all the figures which have been heretofore compiled upon the question deal only with the number born and not with the number reaching adult years and are consequently of absolutely no significance. It is a well-known biological principle that the lower the species the greater the number of offspring, but among the different members of any social scale, our foreign immigrants for instance, very likely it would be found on close inquiry that, inter se, the relatively superior are the ones who are parents of the greater number of children whom they are successful in bringing to mature years. There are many reasons, both medical and economic, why the children of the more vicious and depraved should die in the greater numbers. This, in the long run, must raise the moral average, and as mental qualities are correlated with the moral, the intellectual level must at the same time be raised.

Besides these problems touching upon natural selection there is another question upon which I wish to say a few words. I refer to the opinion so generally entertained regarding the psychological effect of the inheritance of great financial wealth. Wallace in his 'Studies Scientific and Social,' Vol. II., p. 519, in a paragraph headed 'Hereditary Wealth Bad for its Recipients,' writes:

There is yet another consideration which leads to the same conclusion as to the evil of hereditary or unearned wealth—its injurious effects to those who receive it, and through them to the whole community. It is only the strongest and most evenly balanced natures that can pass unscathed through the ordeal of knowing that enormous wealth is to be theirs on the death of a parent or relative. The worst vices of our rotten civilization are fostered by this class of prodigals, surrounded by a crowd of gamblers and other parasites who assist in their debaucheries and seek every opportunity of obtaining a share of the plunder. This class of evils is too well known and comes too frequently and too prominently before the public to need dwelling upon here; but it serves to complete the proof of the evil effects of private inheritance, and to demonstrate in a practical way the need for the adoption of the just principle of equality of opportunity.

That instances of this sort do come too frequently before the public I do not deny. The vices of the aristocracy are always made the most of by the polychrome daily press, but if Mr. Wallace or any one else has any data to show that vices among the rich are proportionally more frequent than among people in general, I have never seen such a proof. It is an assertion entirely unwarranted by any facts. It is merely a popular fallacy which will probably be entirely abandoned as soon as sociology has properly collected data bearing on modern life. In the first place, it is unlikely on à priori grounds. Wealth, like most things in life, is essentially relative. To the young man who is to inherit a few thousand dollars, if he belongs in the middle classes, the