If our values had not for scores of generations turned us away from strict standards concerning the body, it is inconceivable that we should have become what we are; it is inconceivable that this atmosphere of toleration and indifference towards bodily defects should have become so universal. A nation ultimately becomes the image of its values. The values are the die, the nation is the coin. From the face of the coin we judge the die. From the faces of modern English people we can judge their values. Moreover, these values must have been so deeply rooted that they now mould opinion without those whose opinion is moulded by them being conscious of the source of their mental attitude. The best illustration of this is that, although these values ultimately derive from a great religion, the most irreligious people of the modern world share with the religious the spiritual atmosphere we have been describing. People no longer believing in the soul from the religious standpoint, nevertheless show by their tolerance towards bodily defects, in themselves and others, that they are being unconsciously influenced by the same atmosphere. They may even have ceased to identify their opinions with any fundamental values whatsoever, and regard their attitude as quite original, as many, particularly women, do. No matter! Let them reveal just that significant difference of standards in their judgment of human “fitness” and their judgment of the “fitness” of animals, and we know the ancestry of their mental attitude. For this reason it is surely somewhat muddle-headed on the part of a writer like Dean Inge, situated as he is, to plead with such vehemence on behalf of Eugenics. For how can we hope for a reaction in favour of the body as long as the values which lay all stress on the soul and despise the body abide as an influence among us? Are they not the values by which he stands, and which he is officially expected to inculcate upon his generation?[1] Footnote 1: Mr. G. K. Chesterton is more consistent here, and shows a deeper understanding of his true position. He, like Dean Inge, accepts the fundamental values which by slow degrees have brought the modern world into existence, and he therefore very rationally rejects Eugenics. If ever these values are proved before the whole world to be false, and cease to exercise any influence, no eugenic effort will then be required. Because, the moment we begin to value people according to their physiological _as well as_ their spiritual worth—the moment, that is to say, we value them according to the promise which they give in their own bodies and minds of guaranteeing the survival of human life in a desirable form, eugenic mating will become quite as common and instinctive as dysgenic mating is to-day.