mental astuteness, but not necessarily of high morality, and until it ceases to be sought after in marriage it will seriously interfere with the improvement of the race on its higher planes.

The sexual selection which Mr. Wallace so ably advocates is to be exercised by woman, and hence its efficiency will depend on the fitness of woman, not only to choose proper partners in marriage, but to communicate the highest physical and mental characters to her offspring. She can transmit only what she herself possesses, and she will choose that which is in sympathy with her own feelings and desires, so that if she is to affect the race beneficially, she must seek first her own perfection. Hence the great importance of the woman's movement of the present day, the basis of which is the better development of her physical, mental and moral faculties, without which she cannot expect to have the increased social privileges to which she may aspire. The greatest social privilege women can have is to be the chief agent in the improvement of the race, and through it the regeneration of society itself. Lady May Jeune, in reply to those who think that the present relations between mothers and daughters threaten family disruption, observes, "That woman was created for the purpose of being the wife and mother of mankind no one can deny, and that none of the discoveries of science or any attempt to solve the mysteries of life have brought her one bit nearer the knowledge of how to unburden herself of these responsibilities, is also a fact." This must be true if the race is to be continued; for without wives there can be no mothers. Being possible mothers, therefore, it is necessary, if the race and society are to be improved, that women shall acquire the highest physical, intellectual and moral education they are capable of, and if they require the same qualities in their husbands, the problem we are considering will be solved.

Man's and Woman's Co-operation.—We have here the central idea of the New Hedonism advocated by Mr. Grant Allen, whose views necessitate the active agency of man as well as of woman. This is only reasonable, seeing that offspring depend on the co-operation of two factors, and that if either of them is defective the offspring must share in the defect. "Self-development is an aim of all," says Mr. Grant Allen, "an aim which will make all stronger and braver, and wiser, and better. It will make each in the end more helpful to humanity. To be sound in wind and limb; to be healthy of body and mind; to be educated, to be emancipated, to be free, to be beautiful—these things are ends towards which all should strive, and by attaining which all are happier in themselves, and more useful to others." Hence the New Hedonism teaches that "to prepare ourselves for the duties of paternity and maternity, by making ourselves as vigorous and healthful as we can be is a duty we owe to all our children unborn and to one another." This applies as well to "the body spiritual, intellectual and esthetic" as to the physical body. Mr. Grant Allen thinks the theory he advocates will introduce a new system, which "will not include the selling of self into loveless union for a night or for a lifetime; the bearing of children by a mother to a man she despises or loathes or shrinks from; the production by force, sanctified by law, of hereditary drunkards, hereditary epileptics, hereditary consumptives, hereditary criminals. We shall expect in the future a purer and truer relation between father and mother, parent and child. We shall expect some sanctity to attach to the idea of paternity, some thought and care to be given beforehand to the duties of motherhood. We will not admit that the chance union of two unfit persons, who ought never to have made themselves parents at all, or ought never to have made themselves parents with one another, can be rendered holy and harmless by the hands of a priest extended to bless a bought love, or a bargain of impure marriage. In one word, for the first time in the history of the race, we shall evolve the totally new idea of responsibility in parentage. And as part of this responsibility we shall include the two antithetical, but correlative, doctrines of a moral abstinence from fatherhood and motherhood on the part of the unfit, and a moral obligation to fatherhood and motherhood on the part of the noblest, the purest, the sanest, the healthiest, the most able among us. We will not doom to forced celibacy half our finest mothers."

The Individual's Rights.—From the racial standpoint these views are just and cannot be controverted, but something must be allowed to the individual. The relative position and rights of the race and the individual are in a dispute, which has become intensified since the development of the theory of evolution. But the individual is the beginning of the race and he should be its end. Therefore, in seeking to improve the race, violence must not be done to the highest sentiments of the individual. It is a fact that many highly cultured individuals have a repugnance to certain aspects of married life, and this repugnance appears to be justified by the further fact that a high state of refinement is often attended with loss of physical productiveness. One of the most curious results of Galton's enquiries into heredity was that wealthy families have a tendency to die out in heiresses, which is partly, but not wholly, dependent on the fact that childbearing is more often the accompaniment of poverty than of luxurious living.

The personal disinclination to marry attendant on intellectual refinement is still more likely to be possessed by those of high spirituality. This is quite natural, notwithstanding the statement of Mr. Grant Allen, which is undoubtedly true, that the origin and basis of all that is best and highest within us is to be found in the sex-instinct. Love may have begotten "all higher arts and all higher customs," and yet love may in the process itself become sexless, as it is when it assumes the noblest form, that of divine charity for our fellowmen. As well might we continue to perpetuate in our highest actions the nature of the ape-man because we are descendants of this creature, as let the idea of sex always rule our thoughts. With the individual the physical influence of sex is weakened and finally ceases, although it ever remains constant in the race, and hence the influence of the idea of sex over the mind of the individual should be similarly affected. "In Heaven," said the founder of Christianity, "there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage," and in that highest mental condition, which is heaven on earth, the sense of sex has ceased to be operative, having given place to the spiritual sense which is the noblest attribute of man because the last to be developed.

We have here, however, a question between the individual and the race, and it does not affect the main contention that the improvement of the race, which includes that of the individual, is to be found in the application of the principle of selection. This must necessarily be chiefly in the hands of women, although both men and women must co-operate to bring about the best results, by seeking first of all to improve their own natures by physical, intellectual and moral culture. The statement of the case according to that principle, and the aim to be attained, exhibit the dignity and importance of the subject of stirpiculture. Theoretically this is admitted on all hands, and as soon as the conditions of the subject are clearly understood there will be no practical difficulty in carrying the principle into effect, so that it may have its legitimate