Page:The Criterion - Volume 4.djvu/24

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limit for all, he will be no nearer his goal; for it is not the possessions but the desires of men which need to be equalized, and this is impossible, unless an adequate education 1s provided by the State’ (II., 7). And again, ‘The remedy for these evils is not so much the equalization of property as the training of the nobler type of men not to desire more, and the prevention of the lower from getting more’ (ib.)—a moral achievement which Aristotle could have expected only in his ideal State.

That Aristotle was very much alive to the fundamental principles urged by the Eugenists can be inferred from his discussion of marriage (IV., 16). To the family, as the foundation of the State, and to biologically suitable marriages he attributed the highest importance. Not only should parents be healthy, but children should be healthy too, and, if necessary, the number of children produced for the State should be limited. Can anyone doubt that Aristotle would have approved of birth-control in the present conditions of this country? That the least valuable and most improvident elements of the population should be encouraged by various forms of State assistance to multiply at the expense of sounder elements is a thing that he would have regarded with abhorrence. He would have pointed out, with his usual logic, that the State should either let natural selection work unhindered, or, if any and every person can claim the right to be supported by the taxpayer, the State in self-defence should do its own work of selection, and abstain from 'fostering the feeble,’ or helping the unfit to reproduce their kind. He does not himself mention the sterilization of the unfit as a possible remedy, but there can be no doubt that he would have approved the proposed legislation to that end.

It is not only on communist schemes as a proposed