THE INFLUENCE OF THE DARWINIAN THEORY. 393 



of ethical ideas affects social customs and institutions, so will the 

 modification of social customs and institutions affect evolution 

 and selection, and therefore the types of character which evolution 

 produces. 



(2) To what extent will the principles underlying natural selec- 

 tion be modified by this superior environment? It is difficult and 

 perhaps idle to attempt to forecast the types of character which 

 this so-called artificial selection will tend to produce. Much will 

 depend upon the ideals which mankind may have formed and which 

 the State may strive to realise. In a society dominated by the 

 ideals of science the scientific character and the scientific type will 

 be fostered. Already our educational institutions and our educa- 

 tional policy are being influenced, though perhaps not yet con- 

 sciously influenced, by such ideals. There is not the least doubt 

 that, in the long run, the forces which make for a superior kind of 

 so-called artificial selection will begin to tell — indirectly, I mean. 

 Every extra pound taken from unearned increment which is at 

 present spent on " freak " dinners, and devoted instead to public 

 education, is so much wealth and energy devoted to foster one type 

 of character as against a lower and baser type. What form, in 

 every given case, public education should take, what amount of 

 money should be devoted to it, what particular aptitudes should be 

 stimulated, what traits developed, what opportunities given to the 

 superior types, and what measures should be taken for the surveil- 

 lance, or even the suppression of such methods of industry and life 

 as tend to injure or undermine the health of the individual, and 

 through the individual, the race ; — all these are questions which are 

 full of interest to the student of ethics, questions the solution of 

 which will have a very direct influence on the working of the 

 principle of natural selection. The chief point, however, 

 which I wish to emphasise is this — that evolution, so far from 

 promoting the survival of that individualistic type of morality 

 which the phrase "the survival of the fittest," seems to some 

 people to imply, promotes and strengthens rather ihe survival of 

 those forms of life which embody the social ideal of morality. The 

 personally upright man cannot survive, or finds it difficult to sur- 

 vive, in a society in which personal rectitude is of no account. 

 Galton, I think it was, pointed out long ago how severely the best 

 types of life suffered during the persecuting spirit of the later mid- 

 dle ages. The very phrase " personal holiness " cannot be ade- 

 quately defined apart from a complementary conception of civic vir- 

 tue, and civic virtue, as we shall see, is necessitated by evolution 

 if the best types of life are to survive. 



(3) Closely connected with the above considerations is the ques- 

 tion as to whether the methods of artificial selection will be carried 

 so far as to take the place of natural selection. It is sometimes 

 urged that the tendency of modern civilisation, especially where it 

 is animated by Christian ideals, is to preserve rather than to elimi- 

 nate the unfit, and that the multiplication of charities, hospitals and 

 philanthropic institutions tends to produce and prolong the exist- 

 ence of a weak, nerveless, and decadent population. The only way 

 to avoid this, it is said, is to carry artificial selection to such an 

 extent as to segregate or otherwise deal with the morally depraved 



