[Footnote 7: It would only be correct to say that the poor are the _undesirable_ as well as being the _biologically unfit_, if successful adaptation to modern conditions demanded the highest virtues and abilities of which the community is capable.] [Footnote 8: Paul’s Epistle to the Hebrews. Chapter xii. 6.] [Footnote 9: So long, that is to say, as free mating is not made a criminal offence, and even then the harshness of the natural law will only be partially mitigated.] [p61] CHAPTER III EQUALITY “We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men were created equal; that they were endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”--Thomas Jefferson ([10]Declaration by the Representatives of the United States). From whichever quarter the principle of human equality is approached, it appears to recede into ever deeper dimness and obscurity the more hotly it is pursued. What does this elusiveness signify? Has the principle any reality at all? That is to say, is it something that can be realised? Or is it the most unscrupulous lie that has ever been sewn as a device upon the banner of a faction? In any case it seems to provoke very real emotions. Thump your fist hard enough, and shout from a public platform: “Ladies and gentlemen, what we want more than anything else to-day, that which our birth, our common origin, our common shape and stature--aye, even our common spark of Divine Spirit--most surely guarantees us, is Equality, ladies and gentlemen, the blessed condition of Equality!” Pronounce the words emphatically enough, as your exordium, and your whole audience will cheer and applaud as with one voice. Not one of the assembled crowd will protest indignantly that you have been talking nonsense. Everybody will really believe that your words have some meaning, and a beautiful meaning. We have already seen, however, that a word does not require to have any precise meaning, or any definite association whatever, in order to excite pleasurable feelings in those who hear it pronounced, or in order to provoke these people to energetic action. Is Equality perhaps one of these empty, inflammatory words? It is originally a term borrowed from mathematics. The mathematician says:--“Two and two are equal; this triangle and that are equal; this length and that length are equal; this weight and that weight are equal.”