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XIII
Heredity and Aristocracy

In order to free their generation from a despotic priesthood, we have seen how the Reformers dared to contend that ministers of religion possessed no special qualities giving them the exclusive right to intervene between Man and God. As Luther put it, "Every man could be his own priest." (A Treatise Touching the Liberties of a Christian, Trans. by J. Bull, 1579, p. 31). And from this claim the belief in human equality is supposed to have spread over Europe.
        But we need only recall John Ball and his teacher Wycliffe, to be satisfied that as early as the fourteenth century it was already in the air. For the revolt against aristocratic misgovernment, which had been gathering strength for some time, had even then begun to kindle doubts among the intellectuals in the populace concerning the differences assumed to distinguish men born in castles from those born in the hovels of the poor. The escutcheons of the nobility had so often been blotted that even rustics, daily confronted with the operation of heredity in their farm animals, were easily induced to question whether the possibility of superior family strains could have any parallel in human beings. Never pausing to consider whether their noble rulers had perhaps violated the principles of good breeding which they themselves observed in rearing their thoroughbred pedigree stock, they summarily discredited the idea of inborn superiority in humanity and, complying with the intelligentsia of their day, accepted Equality as the natural state of mankind.
        That this was tantamount to a denial of the phenomenon of Heredity did not trouble them. Could not the universal passion of envy always be relied upon to incline the majority of nobodies to accept a doctrine offering such wonderful relief from the ache of covetousness?
        Locke, probably more conscious than the less intelligent of

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his generation, of the extravagance of the claim of Equality among men, tried to impart a veneer of validity to it by arguing that the differences distinguishing human beings were due "more to education than to anything else" (Some Thoughts of Education); and Voltaire, echoing his Liberal master's idea, but with shocking exaggeration, said, "Il est bien certain que la naissance ne met pas plus de différence entre les hommes qu'entre un ânon dont le père portait du fumier et un ânon dont le père portait des reliques: l'éducation fait la grande différence." (Anecdotes sur Pierre le Grand, 1759: "We may be quite sure that birth causes no more differences between men than it does between a young donkey whose sire carted manure and a young donkey whose sire bore sacred relics on his back; it is education that makes the great difference").
        Well might F. L. Lucas deplore that "fantastic optimism with which many educators tend to be intoxicated — that curious faith that education can turn sow's ears into silk purses and young cart horses into Derby winners." (The Search for Good Sense, Chap. III). It is however only fair to Locke and Voltaire to remember that in their day the oppressed people of Europe were more eager to discredit aristocratic pretensions than to champion Truth. On the very eve of Louis XVI's execution, Thomas Paine was arguing that "an hereditary governor is as inconsistent as a hereditary author. I know not whether Homer or Euclid had sons; but I will venture an opinion that if they had, and left their work unfinished, those sons could not have completed them." (The Rights of Man, Chap. III).
        This sounded so seductively self-evident to his generation that people had to apologise for questioning it. For what did Paine and his contemporaries know or want to know about families and family line's that belied his glib generalisation? Yet even to-day, two centuries after Paine displayed his deplorable ignorance and the popularisation of Science has made the findings of expert geneticists accessible to the public, we still hear doubts expressed about hereditary influences. And the same gullible people who will spare no pains or money to obtain a dog with a faultless pedigree, wilt meekly bow to the mendacious ruling of UNESCO concerning the insignificance of Race and sound lineage in mankind.
        There may have been some excuse for Locke, Voltaire and Paine. For their own and their contemporaries' lack of any bio-

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logical erudition prevented them from imagining the means by which an élite could be regenerated. Indeed, it is only quite recently that prominent Liberals themselves have recognised the feasibility of such means and proposed their adoption in order to re-instate a class (a souche) of leaders capable of controlling a régime which would constitute an alternative to Liberalism.
        The inevitable sequel to Locke's doctrine of Equality was his advocacy of the Majority's Right to prevail (Two Treatises on Government, II, Chap. X) and Bentham, who thought this axiomatic, helped to commit us to our present wholly materialistic belief that Truth, Wisdom and Right belong where the greatest body-weight is to be found.
        In an Age where no pains are spared to advertise our devotion to what are called "Spiritual Values", we yet have no compunction in proclaiming to the world at large our faith in the Liberal principle that sound judgment and political sagacity are purely a matter of avoirdupois. We condemn what our Establishment has taught us to regard as the Fascist and Nazi slogan that Might is Right, whilst at every conference, every General Election and every Parliamentary Session, we unhesitatingly accept the barbarous notion that Right resides where the mightiest mass of human flesh and bones is collected.
        Irving Babbitt remarks that "the notion that wisdom resides in a popular majority at any particular moment should be the most completely exploded of all fallacies" (Democracy and Leadership, p. 263). But what most needs stressing to-day is that the notion is a flat denial of our claim to be among the leaders of the world in spiritual elevation, and of our right to point the finger of scorn at the Communists for their Dialectical Materialism which they at least have the decency and candour to acknowledge. And it is these two facts that should now be broadcast in the teeth — in the false teeth — of all Liberals, wherever they may be lurking.
        Professor Raymond Cattell remarks that "The supporters of the French Revolution, being opposed to an hereditary aristocracy did well to belittle the importance of human heredity." (An Introduction to Personality Study, 1950, Chap. II). But as it was only by the operation of the inexorable laws of heredity that the French Aristocracy, like that of the rest of Europe,

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had declined, its degraded condition confirmed rather than invalidated these laws.
        Only if the French aristocracy had remained wise and capable, only if they had preserved their quality, could the importance and reality of heredity have been questioned. For, seeing that they and their peers, almost everywhere in Europe, had consistently violated every rule by which thoroughbred qualities may be preserved and enhanced in family lines, it would have been their retention of exalted qualities, rather than their depravity, which should have warranted profound doubts concerning the operation of hereditary laws.
        Thus, the fact that all Liberals of the late eighteenth century inferred from the intellectual and biological bankruptcy of aristocracy that heredity had no importance in human beings, is but a further proof of their inveterate inability to ponder any question, whether of biology, psychology or politics, to any purpose. Not that modern Liberals are any better; for, on the basis of evidence similar to that which their predecessors possessed almost two centuries ago, they too are now denying the importance of Heredity in human breeding. And, in view of all that the world has meanwhile learnt on the subject of genetics, the extraordinary persistence of this error can only be ascribed to our Progress in Stupidity which is among the few real advances we have made in recent times. (For the scientific evidence of the decline in intelligence in our day, see my Religion for Infidels, Part I, Chap. I).

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