750 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



of the people poor and in some countries on tlie edge of starvation, 

 yet they have only retarded material progress without in any instance 

 stopping it. Among the English-speaking people of Great Britain 

 and her colonies, and the United States, and in the industrious and 

 less warlike countries of Europe — Holland, Belgium, and Switzer- 

 land — there has been a steady gain in virility, in stature, in physical 

 condition, and in mental skill and aptitude. In some of the eastern 

 countries of Europe but lately redeemed from the devastating rule of 

 Turkey, the present improved conditions are in more striking con- 

 trast with those which prevailed at the beginning of the century. 



What, then, is wanting in the logic of the Malthusian concep- 

 tion of the survival of the fittest adopted by Darwin and Wallace? 

 May it not be held that it is only incomplete, being limited to deal- 

 ing with man as an animal, without giving regard to that prime 

 quality of man by which he is separated distinctly from every other 

 animal in being endowed with progressive desires and with the capa- 

 city to provide for his increasing wants? 



In an address which I had the honor of making to the graduating 

 class of the State University of South Carolina, June 26, 1889, under 

 the title of Consumption Limited, Production Unlimited, I presented 

 this case in the following terms: 



" I have ventured, therefore, to say that on the basis of the statis- 

 tics compiled in recent years it may soon be proved to be a rule or 

 law of life that the power of man to consume the means of sub- 

 sistence is limited, while, on the other hand, the power of mankind 

 to produce and distribute the means of subsistence is practically un- 

 limited. 



" I have frequently ventured in conversation to try this hypoth- 

 esis upon different people, and the very surprise mth which it has 

 been usually received goes to prove that the theory of Malthus has 

 unconsciously governed the thought of a very large proportion of 

 the thinking people even of this country. 



" In support of this rather startling proposition, it may be suitable 

 to point out again that material life is itself only a conversion of 

 material forces into a new form. Man is the only animal that 

 accumulates experience and thereby attains the power to give a new 

 direction of a permanent kind to these forces of l^ature; he there- 

 fore frees himself from subjection to the law^of the survival, either 

 of the strongest, the most subtle, or the most cunning; he attains 

 the power to exist and multiply by dominating the forces of jSTature, 

 thereby increasing production and he makes progress by exchanging 

 services with his kindred. Under these conditions the survival of the 

 intelligent and the capable in increasing numbers becomes assured, 

 because they are the fittest to survive." 



