470 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



In recent times the improvement of the great body of human tra- 

 dition has been greatly accelerated by remarkable advances in the means 

 of communication. Under the incidence of those broadening influences 

 represented by the press, the railroad, the steamship, the telegraph and 

 the telephone, local prejudices and customs are gradually breaking down. 

 The enormous expansion of commercial enterprises and the ease of travel 

 have developed a tolerance of thought undreamed of a few generations 

 ago. We do not hear so much in these days of the " Heathen Chinee," 

 and much of the virulence of other national and racial prejudices has 

 been softened. Communities which have developed picturesque usages 

 on account of their isolation from the great current of human thought 

 and ideas at the swarming centers of civilization, are gradually losing 

 their old-time seclusion with the introduction of the railroad, the tele- 

 graph, the telephone and the camera. By overcoming the restraining 

 conditions of time and space, the great modern inventions have com- 

 bined to loosen up the former rigidity of tradition, thus making for 

 more flexible standards. 



But as we have stated above, the enduring character of a civilization 

 whose standards are fluid and plastic, depends upon the quality of the 

 people. There appears to be no scientific reason for believing that the 

 mind of modern man is in any marked way superior to the mind of 

 primitive man. The reason for this is found in the fact that improve- 

 ment in the innate mental constitution of a species comes only through 

 the agency of selection, the extermination of the dull and unadaptable, 

 the preservation of the alert and adaptable to be the progenitors of 

 future generations. Now natural selection is not as great a factor in 

 the lives of human beings as in the lives of other animals. Because of 

 his greater cleverness, memory and foresight, man has been able to 

 protect himself from many hostile forces and has materially modified 

 ihe ruthless struggle for existence. Thus it has been that many indi- 

 viduals unfitted for a more rigorous existence have had their lives pro- 

 longed to leave more than their natural quota of sickly offspring. For 

 this reason, leading authorities agree that there has been little im- 

 provement in the innate mental constitution of man during the histor- 

 ical period. In proportion as he has simplified his tradition and made 

 of his customs more efficient instruments, man has learned to control 

 the forces of nature which worked him harm and has been able gradually 

 to limit the sphere within which pitiless natural selection operates. 



At the present time our traditions are openly or indirectly, as the 

 case may be, hostile to natural selection as a means of human improve- 

 ment. Humanitarian ideals, democratic principles. Christian beliefs 

 and medical practises, are unalterably opposed to the ruthless extinction 

 of the unfit. Yet our mores need to have injected into them the idea 

 that abiding human progress can come only through the improvement 



