786 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tages to their offspring, which, still multiplying excessively, are again 

 and again similarly sifted and improved or developed in a boundless 

 course of forward evolution. 



In the earlier stages of human existence, the fittest for survival 

 were those whose brutal or physical energies best enabled them to 

 struggle with the physical difficulties of their surroundings, to sub- 

 jugate the crudities of the primeval plains and forests to human 

 requirements. The perpetual struggles of the different tribes gave 

 the dominion of the earth to those best able to rule it ; the strongest 

 and most violent human animal was then the fittest, and he survived 

 accordingly. 



Then came another era of human effort gradually culminating in 

 the present period. In this, mere muscular strength, brute physical 

 power, and mere animal energy have become less and less demanded 

 as we have, by the aid of physical science, imprisoned the physical 

 forces of nature in our steam-boilers, batteries, etc., and have made 

 them our slaves in lieu of human prisoners of war. The coarse mus- 

 cular, raving, yelling, fighting human animal that formerly led the 

 war-dance, the hunt, and the battle, is no longer the fittest for sur- 

 vival, but is, on the contrary, daily becoming more and more out of 

 place. His prize-fights, his dog-fights, his cockpits, and bull-baiting 

 are practically abolished, his fox-hunting and bird-shooting are only 

 carried on at great expense by a wealthy residuum, and by damaging 

 interference with civilized agriculture. The unfitness of the remain- 

 ing representatives of the primeval savage is manifest, and their sur- 

 vival is purely prejudicial to the present interests and future progress 

 of the race. 



Such being the case, we now require some means of eliminating 

 these coarser, more brutal, or purely animal specimens of humanity, 

 in order that there may be more room for the survival and multipli- 

 cation of the more intellectual, more refined, and altogether distinct- 

 ively human specimens. It is desirable that this should be effected by 

 some natural or spontaneous proceeding of self -extinction, performed 

 by the animal specimens themselves. If this self-immolation can be 

 a process that is enjoyable in their own estimation, all the objections 

 to it that might otherwise be suggested by our feelings of humanity 

 are removed. 



Now, these conditions are exactly fulfilled by the alcoholic drinks 

 of the present day when used for the purpose of obtaining intoxication. 

 The old customs that rendered heavy drinking a social duty have 

 passed away, their only remaining traces being the few exceptional 

 cases of hereditary dipsomania still to be found here and there among 

 men and women of delicate fiber and sensitive organization. 



With these exceptions, the drunkards of our time are those whose 

 constitutions are so coarse, so gross and brutal, that the excitement of 

 alcoholic stimulation is to them a delicious sensual delirium, a wild 



