THE DOGMA OF EVOLUTION 



torians, and to these has been added a set of vague 

 doctrines inapplicable to the actual problems of life. 

 What is worse, the subject has attracted but very 

 few men of real ability. It would have caused deep 

 chagrin to the biological Evolutionists if they had 

 foreseen that the chief solicitude and work of the so- 

 ciologists were to be for the unfit. The earlier think- 

 ers were convinced that progress rested on the greater 

 opportunities which could be given to the fittest, or 

 best endowed individuals, by a science which would 

 eliminate the unfit and not attempt the impossible 

 task, in their opinion, of purifying an undesirable 

 strain until it was no longer a demoralizing element. 

 On the contrary, the efforts of the sociologists have 

 been confined to ameliorating the physical condition 

 of the slums. They have united themselves with the 

 professional uplifters and humanitarians and have 

 created organized charities and social agencies. In 

 their councils of social agency they have brought 

 about an alliance of the Church and industrial man- 

 agement. In this alliance it is only too evident that 

 the clergy have forgotten their Master's warning 

 about the aims of the rich man. In the mind of the 

 skeptical, the suspicion will remain that the motives 

 of the managers of great industrial plants, who lend 

 their efficient aid to organized charity, are a strange 

 mixture of sentimentality which the trials of poverty 

 must exert on any one accustomed to luxury, and of 

 the business sense which feels that the weight of a 



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