I do not know any force of the future on which we
can count more hopefully than on the refinement resulting from the
struggle for offspring and the survival of the fittest to be parents.
Undesirable families will become extinct. The unborn will subtly mould
the born to higher things. Childlessness will become again what it was in
the Orient--a shame and a reproach."
"Yes," asserted the publisher, smoothing out the P. Ts.; "the old
unreasoned instinct and repugnance will be put on a true basis when it is
seen that childlessness is a proof of unworthiness--a brand of failure."
"As old-maidenhood is, less justly, to-day," I put in.
"Quite so," said Marindin eagerly. "In their anxiety to be worthy of
selection by Posterity, parents will rise to heights of health and
holiness of which our sick generation does not dream. If they do not, woe
to them! They will be remorselessly left to die out without issue.
"The change has begun; our sect is spreading fast. In the course of a
century or two physical and mental deformities will vanish from the
earth." His eye flashed prophetic fire.
"So soon?" I said, with a sceptical smile.
"How could they survive?" Marindin inquired scathingly.
"Is it likely any of us would consent to be born hunchbacks?" broke in
the publisher; "or to enter families with hereditary gout? Would any sane
Antelander put himself under the yoke of animal instincts or tendencies
to drink? Ah, here is a bibulous grandfather!" and he tossed one of the
P.
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