CIVILIZATION AS A SELECTIVE AGENCY 481 



the will to live is one who, speaking in the large, has found the condi- 

 tions of civilized existence unbearahle. Suicide as a selective agency is 

 not negligible. The present annual rate for European countries runs 

 above one hundred per million of living; and every day in the year 

 there is a self-murder in the Prussian schools. 



Occupational and geographical withdrawal, furthermore, is more 

 significant than withdrawal from life. The hardy, callous, near-savage 

 type of man has ever been employed to do the rough and dangerous work 

 of civilization. From this obdurate material has, in all stages of in- 

 dustrial development, been drawn the sailors, the miners, the range- 

 riders, the pioneers. The bonds of civilized life moreover, are an irrita- 

 tion to many strong and reckless spirits. Such cut loose; for so long 

 as people live together in a net of social interrelations, some overactive 

 elements will break through to the freer life of adventure. Hazardous 

 occupations and adventurous callings have offered opportunity for segre- 

 gation and voluntary exile. Who, from the first, have been our ex- 

 plorers, our soldiers of fortune, our gold-seekers ? Of what stuff are the 

 lads who, in all times, have "run away to sea" or "gone West"? 

 Surely not those who were succeeding best in their trades, not the young 

 men of peaceful ambitions, not those enamored of family life. In 

 somewhat the same class are those restless or slothful souls who take to 

 "the open road." The number of professional tramps in this country 

 is about two hundred thousand. Their occupation is to avoid work: 

 they are anti-social. 



It is plain that those who withdraw socially or geographically from 

 their kind contribute less than their normal share to the blood of pros- 

 perity. Combat and danger bring death to a considerable proportion. 

 The rest are outside the pale of regular family life. In trading posts, 

 in mining towns, along the frontiers, males are largely in excess; and 

 they are relatively barren. The influence of this selective factor, 

 coupled with the results of military selection, can hardly be over-em- 

 phasized. From the loins of the "stay-at-homes" come succeeding 

 generations. The prophecy has been fulfilled; the meek have inherited 

 the earth. 



It may be worth while to notice more particularly the effects of 

 military selection, especially because the peace advocates have recently, 

 in their attempt to make out a strong case against war at this point, 

 quite effectively muddled the subject. Possibly the persistence of the 

 military organization, involving the continuous recruiting of a profes- 

 sional military class, alongside of the waxing industrial organization, 

 is the most conspicuous fact in history. Selectively, the question to be 

 asked is : what sorts of men have perished in war ? Who marched away ? 

 The one patent answer is: not those who were the most peaceably in- 

 clined. The factors are, of course, complex; but military selection has 



vol lxxxv. — 33. 



