One last resort the would-be patriotic alarmist seeks when all others
fail. He is good enough to admit that a general decline in the
birth-rate might be beneficial. But, he points out, it affects social
classes unequally. It is initiated, not by the degenerate and the unfit,
whom we could well dispense with, but by the very best classes in the
community, the well-to-do and the educated. One is inclined to remark,
at once, that a social change initiated by its best social classes is
scarcely likely to be pernicious. Where, it may be asked, if not among
the most educated classes, is any process of amelioration to be
initiated? We cannot make the world topsy-turvy to suit the convenience
of topsy-turvy minds. All social movements tend to begin at the top and
to permeate downwards. This has been the case with the decline in the
birth-rate, but it is already well marked among the working classes, and
has only failed to touch the lowest social stratum of all, too
weak-minded and too reckless to be amenable to ordinary social motives.
The rational method of meeting this situation is not a propaganda in
favour of procreation--a truly imbecile propaganda, since it is only
carried out and only likely to be carried out, by the very class which
we wish to sterilise--but by a wise policy of regulative eugenics. We
have to create the motives, and it is not an impossible task, which will
act even upon the weak-minded and reckless lowest social stratum.
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