From the moment that a child is conceived, it is subjected to what it is now the fashion to call a "geographic control." Take the case of the child of English parents born in India.

Clearly several factors will conspire to determine whether it lives or dies.

For simplicity's sake let us treat them as three.

First of all, there is the fact that the child belongs to a particular cultural group; in other words, that it has been born with a piece of paper in its mouth representing one share in the British Empire.

Secondly, there is its race, involving, let us say, blue eyes and light hair, and a corresponding constitution.