Can we not persuade our contemporaries to ask themselves if, for instance, the apostles of eugenics have shrunk from _any_ measure, however outrageous, which they thought promised the desired results? Provided the end is gained, the individual must pay the price. It seems to be thought unworthy of him to object. Thus he is placed at the mercy of every wind and tide of popular opinion, or, what is worse, at the mercy of the views of experts who naturally tend to think all things lawful which benefit their particular branch of knowledge. If vaccination is approved of, vaccinated the individual must be. If Science demands human vivisection, he must submit even to that outrage. On what principle, except that of personal rights, can the demand be refused? The outrage _might_ result in valuable knowledge. Again, if Society is obsessed by a crude and unproved theory of heredity, how are we to resist interference with our marriages, or being treated as hysterical, or feeble-minded, or degenerate, or insane? Genius and originality generally seem pathological to the majority; and what the end will be of this sort of old-Japanese system, considering its very vigorous beginning, is not cheering to prophesy. Unless its very absurdity causes a reaction before it is too late, we shall find ourselves in the current of an evolution backwards to the savage state, in which the individual is very like that foolish and much overrated insect, the bee, hopelessly submerged in the social hive. As originality is usually lodged in a peculiarly sensitive organism, delicately responsive to conditions, it would tend to atrophy, as plants do whose leaves and buds are persistently nipped off. No living thing can stand the process long. It is one of the shallowest of popular fallacies that genius always overcomes obstacles. It depends on the obstacles and the kind of genius; or, more accurately, on the ordinary qualities with which the genius happens to be accompanied. In itself, genius is a handicap, not an aid, to outward success. Now in the degenerating society which we are considering, its path of descent is easy to trace. Observe the increasing tragedy of the situation. As the strata of what I call Hive-heredity accumulate, there is always a deeper and deeper soil of Hive-instinct out of which each new generation has to spring. Is it not progressively unlikely, therefore, that “sports” would appear? And if they did appear, at lengthening intervals, would they not be handicapped by a strong Herd-instinct, impregnably seated in that reservoir of inborn impulse that we now call the “subconscious”?