s. He then walks
into whichever of the two passages shall be indicated to him by a
young man of the upper classes, holding a slip of paper. Having gone
into this passage he comes out of it again, is counted by the young
man and proceeds downstairs again; where he takes up the cigar once
more, being careful not to break the ash. This process, which is known
as Representative Government, has never called for any great variety
in the manner of his life. Nevertheless, while his Parliamentary
policy is unchanged, his change from one side of the House to the
other did correspond with a certain change in his general policy in
commerce and social life. The change of the party label is by this
time quite a trifling matter; but there was in his case a change of
philosophy or at least a change of project; though it was not so much
becoming a Tory, as becoming rather the wrong kind of Socialist. He is
a man with a history. It is a sad history, for he is certainly a less
good man than he was when he started. That is why he is the man who is
really behind Eugenics. It is because he has degenerated that he has
come to talking of Degeneration.

In his Radical days (to quote from one who corresponded in some ways
to this type) he was a much better man, because he was a much less
enlightened one. The hard impudence of his first Manchester
Individualism was softened by two relatively humane qualities; the
first was a much greater manliness in his pride; the second was a much
greater sincerity in his optimism. For the first point, the modern
capitalist is merely industrial; but this man was also industrious.
He was proud of hard work; nay, he was even proud of low work--if he
could speak of it in the past and not the present. In fact, he
invented a new kind of Victorian snobbishness, an inverted
snobbishness. While the snobs of Thackeray turned Muggins into De
Mogyns, while the snobs of Dickens wrote letters describing themselves
as officers' daughters "accustomed to every luxury--except spelling,"
the Individualist spent his life in hiding his prosperous parents. He
was more like an American plutocrat when he began; but he has since
lost the American simplicity. The Frenchman works until he can play.
The American works until he can't play; and then thanks the devil, his
master, that he is donkey enough to die in harness. But the
Englishman, as he has since become, works until he can pretend that he
never worked at all. He becomes as far