io6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tlier increased by those who, from the various causes already re- 

 ferred to, abstain from marriage, will cause considerable num- 

 bers of men to remain permanently unmarried, and as these will 

 consist very largely, if not almost wholly, of those who are the 

 least perfectly developed either mentally or physically, the con- 

 stant advance of the race in every good quality will be insured. 



This method of improvement by elimination of the worst has 

 many advantages over that of securing the early marriages of the 

 best. In the first place, it is the direct instead of the indirect way, 

 for it is more important and more beneficial to society to improve 

 the average of its members by getting rid of the lowest types 

 than by raising the highest a little higher. Exceptionally great 

 and good men are always produced in sufficient numbers, and 

 have always been so produced in every phase of civilization. "We 

 do not need more of these so much as we need less of the weak 

 and the bad. This weeding-out system has been the method of 

 natural selection by which the animal and vegetable worlds have 

 been improved and developed. The survival of the fittest is really 

 the extinction of the unfit. In nature this occurs perpetually on 

 an enormous scale, because, owing to the rapid increase of most 

 organisms, the unfit which are yearly destroyed form a large pro- 

 portion of those that are born. Under our hitherto imperfect 

 civilization this wholesome process has been checked as regards 

 mankind ; but the check has been the result of the development 

 of the higher attributes of our nature. Humanity the essentially 

 human emotion has caused us to save the lives of the weak and 

 suffering, of the maimed or imperfect in mind or body. This has 

 to some extent been antagonistic to physical and even intellectual 

 race-improvement ; but it has improved us morally by the con- 

 tinuous development of the characteristic and crowning grace of 

 our human, as distinguished from our animal, nature. 



In the society of the future this defect will be remedied, not 

 by any diminution of our humanity, but by encouraging the ac- 

 tivity of a still higher human characteristic admiration of all 

 that is beautiful and kindly and self-sacrificing, repugnance to all 

 that is selfish, base, or cruel. When we allow ourselves to be 

 guided by reason, justice, and public spirit in our dealings with 

 our fellow-men, and determine to abolish poverty by recognizing 

 the equal rights of all the citizens of our common land to an equal 

 share of the wealth which all combine to produce when we have 

 thus solved the lesser problem of a rational social organization 

 adapted to secure the equal well-being of all, then we may safely 

 leave the far greater and deeper problem of the improvement of 

 the race to the cultivated minds and pure instincts of the Women 

 of the Future. Fortnightly Review. 



