There is one side to this stationary state theory which Mr. Pearson scarcely seems to touch. He points out with emphasis the fact, which most people are prone to deny, that the higher orders of every society tend to die out; that there is a tendency, on the whole, for both lower classes and lower civilizations to increase faster than the higher. Taken in the rough, his position on this point is undoubtedly correct. Progressive societies, and the most progressive portions of society, fail to increase as fast as the others, and often positively decrease. The great commanders, great statesmen, great poets, great men of science of any period taken together do not average as many children who reach years of maturity as a similar number of mechanics, workmen, and farmers, taken at random. Nevertheless, society progresses, the improvement being due mainly to the transmission of acquired characters, a process which in every civilized State operates so strongly as to counterbalance the operation of that baleful law of natural selection which tells against the survival of some of the most desirable classes. Mr. Balfour, by the way, whose forecast for the race is in some respects not unlike Mr. Pearson’s, seems inclined to adopt the view that acquired characteristics cannot be inherited; a position which, even though supported by a few eminent names, is hardly worthy serious refutation. The point I wish to dwell upon here, however, is that it is precisely in those castes which have reached the stationary state, or which are positively diminishing in numbers, that the highest culture and best training, the keenest enjoyment of life, and the greatest power of doing good to the community, are to be found at present. Unquestionably, no community that is actually diminishing in numbers is in a healthy condition: and as the world is now, with huge waste places still to fill up, and with much of the competition between the races reducing itself to the warfare of the cradle, no race has any chance to win a great place unless it consists of good breeders as well as of good fighters. But it may well be that these conditions will change in the future, when the other changes to which Mr. Pearson looks forward with such melancholy, are themselves brought about. A nation sufficiently populous to be able to hold its own against aggression from without, a nation which, while developing the virtues of refinement, culture, and learning, has yet not lost those of courage, bold initiative, and military hardihood, might well play a great part in the world, even though it had come to that stationary state already reached by the dominant castes of thinkers and doers in most of the dominant races.