n serious and responsible persons assume that
there is here a necessary antagonism between the interests of the race
and those of the individual,--that the girl would, presumably, choose
one man to be her love and companion and partner for life, but another
man as the father of her children. There are those whom it always
rejoices to discover what they regard as antinomies and contradictions
in Nature, and they verily prefer to suppose that there is in things
this inherent viciousness, which sets eternal war between one set of
obligations, one set of ideals, and another. But Nature is not made
according to the pattern of our misunderstandings.

We have seen that all individuals are constructed by Nature for the
future. We are certainly right to regard them as also ends in
themselves, but Nature conceived and fashioned them with reference to
the future. In so far as marriage has a natural sanction and
foundation--than which nothing is more certain--we may therefore expect
to discover that the interests of the individual and of the race are
indeed one. In a word, the man who is most worthy to be chosen as a
father of the future is always the most worthy and, in the overwhelming
majority of cases, is also the most individually suitable, to be chosen
as a partner and companion for life. Let the girl choose wisely and well
for her own sake and in her own interests. If, indeed, she does so, the
future will be almost invariably safeguarded.

Of course it is to be understood that we are here discussing general
principles. Everyone knows that cases exist, and must continue to exist,
where an opposition between the interests of the race and those of the
individual cannot be denied. Some utterly unsuspected hereditary strain
of insanity, for instance, may show itself or be discovered in the
ancestry of an individual to whom a member of the opposite sex has
already become devoted. I fully admit the existence of such exceptions,
but it must be insisted that they are exceptions, and that they do not
at all invalidate the general truth that if a girl really chooses the
best man, she is choosing the best father for her children.

It is when the girl chooses for something other than natural quality
that the future is liable to be betrayed. But the point to be insisted
upon is that it is far more worth her while to choose for natural
quality than for any other considerations. The argument of this chapter
is that it will not in the long