62 DEGENERA TION. 



to try to gain a knowledge of man's place in the 

 order of nature. When we have gained this fully 

 and minutely, we shall be able by the light of the 

 past to guide ourselves in the future. In propor- 

 tion as the whole of the past evolution of civilised 

 man, of which we at present perceive the outlines, is 

 assigned to its causes, we and our successors on the 

 globe may expect to be able duly to estimate that 

 which makes for, and that which makes against, 

 the progress of the race. The full and earnest culti- 

 vation of Science — the Knowledge of Causes — is 

 that to which we have to look for the protection of 

 our race — even of this English branch of it — from 

 relapse and degeneration. 



