itarianism, the eugenist will join them willingly in a demand that
the distribution of wealth be made to depend as far as feasible on the
value of the individual to society.[178] As to the means by which this
distribution can be made, there will of course be differences of
opinion, to discuss which would be outside the province of this volume.
Fundamentally, eugenics is anti-individualistic and in so far a
socialistic movement, since it seeks a social end involving some degree
of individual subordination, and this fact would be more frequently
recognized if the movement which claims the name of socialist did not so
often allow the wish to believe that a man's environmental change could
eliminate natural inequalities to warp its attitude.

CHILD LABOR

It is often alleged that the abolition of child labor would be a great
eugenic accomplishment; but as is the case with nearly all such
proposals, the actual results are both complex and far-reaching.

The selective effects of child labor obviously operate directly on two
generations: (1) the parental generation and (2) the filial generation,
the children who are at work. The results of these two forms of
selection must be considered separately.

1. On the parental generation. The children who labor mostly come from
poor families, where every child up to the age of economic productivity
is an economic burden. If the children go to work at an early age, the
parents can afford to have more children and probably will, since the
children soon become to some extent an asset rather than a liability.
Child labor thus leads to a higher birth-rate of this class, abolition
of child labor would lead to a lower birth-rate, since the parents could
no longer afford to have so many children.

Karl Pearson has found reason to believe that this result can be
statistically traced in the birth-rate of English working people,--that
a considerable decline in their fecundity, due to voluntary restriction,
began after the passage of each of the laws which restricted child labor
and made children an expense from which no return could be expected.

If the abolition of child labor leads to the production of fewer
children in a certain section of the population the value of the result
to society, in this phase, will depend on whether or not society wants
that strain proportionately increased. If it is an inferior stock, this
one effect of the abolition of child labor would be eugenic.

Compa