ere is much room for discussion
as to what constitutes a really equitable division of wealth. In sound
socialist theory, it is to be distributed according to a man's value to
society; but the determination of this value is usually made impossible,
in socialist practice, by the intrusion of the metaphysical and
untenable dogma of equalitarianism.

If one man is by nature as capable as another, and equality of
opportunity[176] can be secured for all, it must follow that one man
will be worth just as much as another; hence the equitable distribution
of wealth would be an equal distribution of wealth, a proposal which
some socialists have made. Most of the living leaders of the socialist
movement certainly recognize its fallacy, but it seems so far to have
been found necessary to lean very far in this direction for the
maintenance of socialism as a movement of class protest.

Now this idea of the equality of human beings is, in every respect that
can be tested, absolutely false, and any movement which depends on it
will either be wrecked or, if successful, will wreck the state which it
tries to operate. It will mean the penalization of real worth and the
endowment of inferiority and incompetence. Eugenists can feel no
sympathy for a doctrine which is so completely at variance with the
facts of human nature.

But if it is admitted that men differ widely, and always must differ, in
ability and worth, then eugenics can be in accord with the socialistic
desire for distribution of wealth according to merit, for this will
make it possible to favor and help perpetuate the valuable strains in
the community and to discourage the inferior strains. T. N. Carver sums
up the argument[177] concisely:

"Distribution according to worth, usefulness or service is the system
which would most facilitate the progress of human adaptation. It would,
in the first place, stimulate each individual by an appeal to his own
self-interest, to make himself as useful as possible to the community.
In the second place, it would leave him perfectly free to labor in the
service of the community for altruistic reasons, if there was any
altruism in his nature. In the third place it would exercise a
beneficial selective influence upon the stock or race, because the
useful members would survive and perpetuate their kind and the useless
and criminal members would be exterminated."

In so far as socialists rid themselves of their sentimental and Utopian
equal