ws, and to exercise himself continually in trials of
strength and skill. Every Spartan had to marry, and the bonds of
matrimony were strictly observed. Every weak child was eliminated. But
there were two fundamental errors in the Spartan organization.

First of all, the Spartan was a warrior, but not a worker, and
although hardened, was an aristocrat. He left all labor to his slaves,
and in this way strengthened his slaves and enfeebled himself in many
respects. The value of work in strengthening and developing the brain
and the whole body was not then understood.

In the second place, all the efforts of the Spartans were directed
toward muscular strength, bodily skill, courage, and simple wants, but
not at all toward a life of higher intelligence or ideal sentiments.
The exclusiveness with which they only promoted man's bodily
development, while neglecting his intellect, their negligence of the
laws of organic evolution due to ignorance of natural science, would
sooner or later have led to the decay of the Spartans.

However, it was not the laws of Lycurgus in themselves, but their
abandonment, which was the direct cause of the decadence of Sparta.
The Spartans only sought for power, and this led to envy and jealousy,
a deplorable although indirect result of the exclusiveness of their
laws. These laws, however, will always constitute a unique historical
document, a remarkable attempt at human selection.

We are at the present day incomparably better armed intellectually
than Lycurgus to deal with the question of selection. What is chiefly
wanting is initiative on the part of the men who are charged with the
government of their fellows. They are so deeply absorbed in economic
interests and rival influences, that all desire of aspiring to a
higher social ideal is paralyzed and etiolated in them. We require a
powerful social shaking if we are to make steady progress.

=Politics and the Sexual Question.=--"_Cherchez la femme_" is the
common expression when anything unusual occurs in society. It would be
more correct to say "Look for the sexual motive!" The actions of men
are determined much more by their passions and sentiments than by
purely intellectual reflection, _i.e._, by reason and logic.

But no sentiment is stronger than the direct sexual sentiment, or its
derivatives--love, jealousy and hatred. From this results a fact which
social systems have too much neglected, namely: that in all the
domains of human so