174 THE HISTORY OF CREATION. 



by a careful rooting out of weeds, light, air, and ground is 

 gained for good and useful plants, in like manner, by the 

 indiscriminate destruction of all incon^gible criminals, not 

 only would the struggle for life among the better portion of 

 mankind be made easier, but also an advantageous artificial 

 process of selection would be set in practice, since the possi- 

 bility of transmitting their injurious qualities by inheritance 

 would be taken from those degenerate outcasts. 



Against the injurious influence of artificial military and 

 medical selection, we fortunately have a salutary counter- 

 poise, in the invincible and much more powerful influence 

 of natural selection, which prevails everywhere. For in 

 the life of man, as well as in that of animals and plants, this 

 influence is the most important transforming principle, and 

 the strongest lever for progTcss and amelioration. The 

 result of the struggle for life is that, in the long run, that 

 which is better, because more perfect, conquers that which 

 is weaker and imperfect. In human life, however, this 

 struo-ofle for life will ever become more and more of an 

 intellectual struggle, not a struggle with weapons of murder. 

 The organ which, above all others, in man becomes more 

 perfect by the ennobling influence of natural selection, is 

 the brain. The man with the most perfect understanding, 

 not the man with the best revolver, will in the long run be 

 victorious ; he will transmit to his descendants the qualities 

 of the brain which assisted him in the victory. Thus then 

 we may justly hope, in spite of all the efforts of retrograde 

 forces, that the progi^ess of mankind towards freedom, and 

 thus to the utmost perfection, will, by the happy influence 

 of natural selection, become more and more certain. 



