comprehend: granting that by rational marriage selection certain recombinations of human characteristics can be effected at will, what eugenic policy promises the maximum increase of human welfare? To aid in answering that question the economist is needed. For health and strength and intellect work out the good or ill fortunes of their possessors according to the ways of economic civilization, and not by process of brute struggle for existence. Eugenics is not mere biology. The problems of eugenics are problems of human society.

14. THE PSYCHO-PHYSICAL ÉLITE AND THE ECONOMIC

ÉLITE1

No one is more inclined than I am to praise and promote the efforts of the eugenists to develop a better and more perfect humanity, but I am of opinion that this work cannot be accomplished with the necessary success unless the particular sphere in which it is intended to operate is first exactly defined.

As I understand the matter, it is expedient to distribute men according to their physical and mental capacities, and to encourage marriage exclusively amongst those who are best endowed physically and morally, and that individuals who are physically and morally inferior should be excluded from marriage as far as possible. But this plan encounters the gravest practical difficulties, since it is not easy to grade men according to their capacities. Let us ignore that which relates to physical qualities, which can be subjected to a fairly satisfactory valuation. Very different is the case as regards mental and moral qualities, since a dynamometer of intellect has not yet been discovered. It is true some efforts have been made to classify scholars according to the results gained in their examinations, and Galton has worked on this plan, observing the distinctions of the graduates of the University of Cambridge. But this method is very fallible and uncertain, because often those first in the schools appear

1 By Achille Loria. From Problems in Eugenics; Papers Communicated to the First International Eugenics Congress, pp. 179-183. The Eugenics Education Society, London, 1912.

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perfect imbeciles in life. Some men can be judged from their works but these are always a small minority, and, besides, this method of judging is very difficult and uncertain, because it varies with the inclinations and tastes of the judge. And it must be noted that many men, and these often the best, do not leave behind them literary and scientific productions. Hence, there are many men who, though endowed with a most choice intellect, do not leave any visible trace behind them.

In view of these formidable difficulties, the idea naturally arises of inferring the physical and mental aptitudes of individuals from their social or economic position, or from their income, which is easily estimated by methods accessible to all. And so many propose to assume that the economic élite may be regarded as the index and product of the psycho-physical élite. If we take a very numerous mass of men and arrange them according to their income, we find ourselves, it is affirmed, in face of a very positive classification which will be able to serve as a safe and easy guide in our task of eugenics.

Assuming, in fact, that the position of individuals in this classification is an index of their position in the hierarchy of aptitudes, we should seek to promote marriages in the most elevated classes and to prevent, as far as possible, marriages of the inferior classes. It is important to note that this policy coincides in substance with that advised by Malthus, who wished that individuals of the superior classes should marry, and that those of the inferior classes should not marry. He, indeed, advised this course in order to prevent the excess of population over the means of subsistence, while the eugenists recommend it in order to prevent the propagation of degenerates. But the result is substantially the same.

But all these proposals arise from the idea that there is a very strict analogy between the economic élite and the psycho-physical élite, and that the former can be correctly inferred and substituted for the other. Now, that is precisely what I deny. The economic élite is not at all the product of the possession of superior qualities, but is simply the result of the blind struggle of the incomes, which brings to the top those who originally possess a larger

income through reasons which may be absolutely independent of the possession of superior capacity. This is a thesis which I have fully developed in my "Economic Synthesis" (Paris, Giard and Brière, 1911)1 by a series of proofs which it is not possible to sum up here. I shall confine myself to briefly summing up the point of my thought. Let us suppose, by a hypothesis far removed from the facts, that all individuals are endowed with equal psycho-physical aptitudes, but that, at the beginning of the period of observation, they are divided into groups furnished with a different average income, which naturally does not exclude some disparity amongst the individuals possessing that income. This divergence amongst the average incomes of the various groups, as of the individuals in each group, can easily exist, even assuming that their individual capacities were identical, since it can arise simply from the possession of more fertile land, or more generally from property situated in more favorable physical conditions. Now, amongst these individuals thus furnished with diverse incomes, there breaks forth a furious economic struggle, which is carried on with methods of violence, fraud, and monopoly, and has as its result the ascent of the conquerors to a sphere of superior income, and the descent of the conquered into a sphere of inferior income. So, as the intensity of the struggle is in direct relation to the amount of income, it will be greater in the spheres of superior incomes, hence in these spheres there will be the greater number of income-holders who will be cast down.

Therefore, supposing that at the beginning of the period of observation the various groups contained an equal number of income-holders, or that the entire number of the income-holders of various grades presented the figure of a square, the struggle amongst the income-holders would gradually bring about a progressive thinning of the spheres of the superior income-holders, and hence transform the original square into a pyramid. Now, those who come to find themselves at the summit of this pyramid do not find themselves there through the possession of superior capacity, but solely by the blind influence of the struggle amongst the income-holders. It may certainly be said it is possible that

1 English translation, London, 1914.

some of them are equipped with superior mental capacity, but it may also be possible that the large majority of them are composed of degenerates, and that no section of them excludes this class.

The history of great fortunes goes to show that most often great patrimonies are created, not so much by supreme genius, as by shameful and iniquitous practices.

The historical family of De Lazareff in Russia has for head of the race an Indian slave, a guardian in the temple of Siva, who one night steals one of the colossal diamonds forming the eyes of the god, and with this flies into Russia, where he sells the precious gem to Catherine for a million and a half roubles. And Myers, in his recent work upon great fortunes, has endeavored to show how the property of American millionaires has frequently been obtained by means of frauds and the most odious defalcations. Besides, if the founders of great fortunes should by chance be gifted with superior capacity, it is certain that their descendants should be wanting in these, because with regard to them that law of "return to the mean," which Galton has successfully established, would apply. Thus, at any given moment, economic superiority is by no means an index of superior psycho-physical aptitudes, whether because many of those who now possess that position do not acquire it by virtue of the possession of elevated mental capacity, or because all the others who have inherited these positions from preceding possessors are completely devoid of such aptitudes. Thus, economic superiority cannot in any case be assumed to be the measure or reflection of psycho-physical superiority.

But we can have an experimental proof of this conclusion, observing conjugal selection, as it is practiced to-day, and its results. And, in fact, conjugal selection at the present day is carried on precisely according to the principle which we contest, because, regularly, individuals belonging to the upper economic classes marry exclusively amongst themselves. Now, if individuals belonging to this class were truly the privileged depositories of superior aptitudes, clearly their offspring ought to show these aptitudes in marked degree, and, therefore, should present the

most wonderful results. Now, on the contrary, the very opposite takes place, and it is exactly marriages of class and caste which furnish the most deplorable results. Fahlbeck, in his authoritative work upon Swedish Nobility," has shown how caste marriages prevailing amongst them produce a progressive degeneration, which manifests itself by frequent celibacy, much delayed marriage of the male sex, the large and increasing proportion of sterile marriages, the small and decreasing fecundity (now 15.4 per cent) always less than the death rate, the increasing number of female births, the increasing mortality of youths under 20 years of age, the deaths of the children before that of the parents, which gradually tends to cause the extinction of the stock. As a consequence of that, 70 per cent of the original noble families are now extinct, and notwithstanding the continual ennobling of bourgeois families, the number of noble families does not increase or very often declines. And Fahlbeck takes care to add that all this applies precisely to the whole wealthy class, of which the nobility is only a fragment.

But the same law of "return to the mean" which operates so inexorably in the circle of the upper classes, seems to me to be an ultimate proof of the absolute separation of psycho-physical superiority and eminence in the social scale. Let us take some individuals who are all possessed of a superior income, and therefore according to the hypothesis which we dispute - of a mental quality above the average. If, now, these individuals marry, their children will inherit in marked degree their superior qualities, and hence will preserve, if not raise, the superior average of their stock, nor give cause for any phenomenon of regression, exception being made of the exceptional qualities of an extraordinarily gifted progenitor, which we can here completely ignore. Thus, if the caste selection were really a eugenic selection, it ought to preserve the superior average in the descendants and never give occasion for descent from it. But, on the contrary, these selected marriages give rise not only to a regression from the extraordinary qualities of some progenitor of the family, but precisely to a regression from the superior average to a fall into mediocrity.