We cannot in every case disentangle human characteristics with sufficient precision to warrant us in saying which combinations are desirable and which are undesirable. We can, however, get into our minds the idea that one good quality may be happily supplemented by another, or that certain characteristics might prove irreconcilable in combination. For instance strong sexuality allied to moral responsibility would prove an admirable combination, but the former quality in conjunction with weak mentality would work for certain ill. The marriage of near relations has been demonstrated to stereotype existent combinations, the evil is not as was once feared that the act was in itself categorically immoral and therefore followed by Nature's punishment. It amounted to the same thing in many cases because Nature's law is progress or retrogression; to stand still is to stultify the law of the universe. The highest and noblest physically, morally and mentally are the most complicated, and there is little danger that they will find their match amongst those with whom they are likely to marry. The risk of like marrying like is more inherently probable amongst the commonplace and mediocre. The danger becomes a terrible one when the lowest rung of the ladder is reached and it is here that intermarriage is most common if not invariable. The lowest degenerates, the most vulgar criminals the absolute failures, the "creatures who once were men" rarely have sexual unions of any sort or kind outside their own degraded circle. The unfit breed more of their kind and do not improve. The commonplace may by happy chance or on wise information mingle just those characteristics which raise the race to a higher level. The highest like those in the last category, may in the next generation lead to still higher heights or they may maintain their standard of efficiency, or their caste may sink to lower circles. In any of these cases of course there is the alternative that their race may be extinguished. All this is merely to state the case as it stands. There are few who dispute the facts, the Eugenic remedy is either not appreciated or it is ignored. It cannot be a subject of indifference whether the best types increase or the worst. It must matter to the race, it must seriously affect the present generation, it must be of increasing importance to each generation. Cruel, harsh, severe, repressive laws have been discarded as ineffective and inhuman. We cannot go back to an abortive policy which failed even a Torquemada. On the contrary we have repressed natural checks to population and must increasingly continue to do so wherever we discover new methods of foiling Nature's indiscriminate destructiveness. The stream of tendency cannot be dammed, we must adapt our social mill-wheels to the new channels which the river of time has cut in the fields of experience.