PHYSICAL AND MENTAL WELFARE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXII, 19 April 1939, Page 8

PHYSICAL AND MENTAL WELFARE

j DECLINE OF INTELLIGENCE fTo The Editor! Sir,—ln view of the fact that it has been determined as a result of largescale tests in various parts of the world that the I.Q. (intelligence quotient) of the human race is declining at the rate of ten points in every century, it becomes a simple matter of mathematic* for the experts engaged in this work to calculate the change of intelligence from one generation to another. It i* seriously stated by several independent authorities that should the present rates of decline in mass-intelligence remain fairly constant during the next eight hundred years or so. the average intelligence of the population would then be about the level of the highest grade of feeble-minded persons at the present time. At that time, there would, of course, be approximately the same amount of “scatter" about the new level of intelligence as there is to-day about the present average: some intelligences would be above, and some below, the average Were mankind ever to reach such a level, even that amount of intelligence needed for a skilled occupation would have become almdst extinct. Before any such point could be reached. however, much of the structure of our civilisation would have undergone gradual but inevitable disintegration, because organising ability—dependent on superior intelligence—would have disappeared from the face of the earth. In the absence, therefore, of constructive measures for the fostering of the intelligent types of mankind, the whole structure of our civilisation will pas* away within the next two or three hundred years at the latest Ancient civilisations declined less rapidly. The slower rates of becoming extinct were due do the fact that the more youthful races were able to withstand and to recover from the degenerative diseases which brought about their downfall; but with our own declining civilisation, matters are very different We have allowed ourselves to become feebler and less virile, and as foretold by Petrarch in 1350. Tn some dread moment By the Fates assigned. We’ll pass away nor Leave a rack behind! Declining intelligence shows itself in many ways. It shows itself in a constitutional inability to grasp the Urgent importance of maintaining Nature's symbiotic equilibrium between the sot! and its products (including man). Jt shows itself in a slowness to understand that the synthetic application of science would do much to retard —perhaps even to prevent altogether—the extinction of the race. It shows itself in a want, of encouragement to the more intellectual strata to marry early with a view to reproducing their kind in larger numbers It show’s itself in a neglect to legislate for the protection of those who are actually born with a normal or superior I Q. but whose mental attainments are stultified from birth onwards by poor psychological handling, by noise unrestricted to such an extent as to deafen the brain, and by permitting a flourishing trade in poisonous foodstuffs —all of which evils play an important part in the lowering of the mass-intelligence of the human race by some ten points in each century.We are. etc.. THE PHYSICAL AND MENTAL WELFARE SOCIETY. Onchunga, 14th April