traordinary good year 1892; and those born
in the years of high mortality show a decreased physique....
It appears certain, therefore, that in years of high infantile
mortality the conditions, to which one in five or six of the
children born are sacrificed, have a maiming effect upon the
other four or five."

_The fine big children are born in periods of low infantile
mortality_, that is the essential point.

So that anyhow, since the fittest under present conditions is
manifestly the ratlike, the survival of the fittest that is going on
now is one that it is highly desirable to stop as soon as possible,
and so far Socialism _will_ arrest the survival of the fittest. But
that does not mean that it will stop the development of the species
altogether. It will merely shift the incident of selection and
rejection to a new set of qualities. I think I have already hinted
(Chapter VI., Sec. 2) that a State that undertakes to sustain all the
children born into it will do its best to secure good births. That
implies a distinct bar to the marriage and reproduction of the halt
and the blind, the bearers of transmissible diseases and the like. And
women being economically independent will have a far freer choice in
wedlock than they have now. Now they must in practice marry men who
can more or less keep them, they must subordinate every other
consideration to that. Under Socialism they will certainly look less
to a man's means and acquisitive gifts, and more to the finer
qualities of his personality. They will prefer prominent men, able
men, fine, vigorous and attractive persons. There will, indeed, be far
more freedom of choice on either side than under the sordid conditions
of the present time. I submit that such a free choice is far more
likely to produce a secular increase in the beauty, the intellectual
and physical activity and the capacity of the race, than our present
haphazard mercenariness.

The science student will be interested to read in this connection _The
Ethic of Free Thought_ (A. & C. Black, 1888), _Socialism in Theory and
Practice_ (1884), and _The Chances of Death, and other Studies in
Evolution_ (Arnold, 1897), by Karl Pearson. Professor Pearson is not
in all respects to be taken as an authoritative exponent of Modern
Socialism, and he is associated with no Socialist organization, but
his treatment of the biological aspect is that of a specialist and a
master.

Sec. 7.

_Socialism