CIVILIZATION AS A SELECTIVE AGENCY 477 



that the higher intellectual and moral nature of man has been approximately 

 stationary during the whole period of human history, and that the cause of the 

 phenomenon has been the absence of any selective agency adequate to increase it. 



Somewhat earlier than this Wallace asked : 5 



Looking back at the course of our history from the Saxon invasion to the 

 end of the nineteenth century, what single cause can we allege for an advance in 

 intellect and moral nature? What selective agency of "survival value" has ever 

 been at work to preserve the wise and good and to eliminate the bad? And it 

 must have been a very powerful agency, acting in a very systematic manner, 

 even to neutralize the effect of the powerful deteriorating agencies above re- 

 ferred to. 



And again : 



there is no good evidence of any considerable improvement in man's average 

 intellectual and moral status during the whole period of human history. 



At one point in this essay, as a matter of fact, Wallace goes so far 

 as to say, after discussing the ways in which the human breed was 

 brutalized by the withdrawal of the more refined natures to monasteries 

 and nunneries, and the destruction of radicals and students during the 

 witchcraft mania and by the inquisition, that : 



we are to-day, in all probability, mentally and morally inferior to our semi- 

 barbaric ancestors. 



Must we accept this view as final? Are we sure that a denial of 

 selection during historic times, strongly supported as it is, expresses the 

 whole truth? In the first place, it certainly runs counter to the wide- 

 spread belief that men are to-day inherently more humane, kindlier in 

 character and action, than they were in antiquity. Attention is often 

 called to the growth of altruism, especially during the past century. It 

 is maintained that suffering will not be endured, either among men or 

 animals, as in former times; that cruel punishments have been abol- 

 ished; that brutal sports, once popular, now only disgust and repel. 

 Further evidence of increasing altruism is offered in the development 

 of social legislation, and in the multiplication of charitable and educa- 

 tional enterprises. And it must be admitted that the twentieth century, 

 with its vast philanthropies, its soft-heartedness, verging so often even 

 to sentimentality, and its insistence on the ideal of service, belongs to a 

 different world from the hard life of the Greek and Latin city states, 

 which seem, sometimes, in their unthinkable indifference to human pain 

 and the rights of the weaker, to be prototypes of nothing modern except 

 the Camorra and the Mafia. 



This notion that the human breed is now, in civilized societies, 

 kinder, gentler, more tractable, is not merely a popular idea. One 

 phase of it has been remarked upon by that keen observer, Walter 

 Bagehot. 6 



s "Evolution and Character," Fortnightly Review, Vol. 89, 1908, pp. 1-24. 

 e "Physics and Politics," p. 25. 



