THE INFLUENCE OF THE DARWINIAN THEORY. 395 



is a morbid, unhealthy spirit abroad which seems to take the view 

 that self-sacrifice, as self-sacrifice, is a good thing in itself, and 

 that it is necessary that we should have a certain number of unfor- 

 tunate members of society — the halt, the maimed, the blind, the 

 imbecile — for the purpose of stimulating the sympathetic virtues of 

 charity and self-sacrifice in our fellows. Such a view of life seems 

 to me to be morbid and unhealthy. It is " more life and fuller that 

 we want," the mission of the greatest of teachers was well said to 

 have been to give life and "to give it abundantly." By all means 

 let us have the superman, if we can get him without the loss of 

 those qualities which have brought human nature to its present 

 level from savage and barbarous beginnings. A healthy public 

 opinion will do much towards creating, fostering, and deepening 

 that sense of responsibility which should be felt by all who take 

 upon themselves the duties of parenthood. How far we should 

 go in enforcing the prior conditions of parenthood which that sense 

 of responsibility should teach us to secure, is a question much too 

 large for discussion in this paper, but there is no doubt that the 

 evolutionary ethics of the future will give the question serious con- 

 sideration. Already, indeed, we may all describe ourselves as 

 modern eugenists when the health and welfare of our own 

 descendants are concerned. 



(4) The fourth question suggested by a consideration of the 

 problems surrounding the survival of the fittest and the best, i.e., 

 the extent to which racial developments and antipathies will be 

 affected by the struggle for existence and by methods of artificial 

 or intelligent selection is one which may well appal the stoutest 

 heart and mind when we th'nk of the many and p-rave issues 

 which are involved. A great conflict of races, the East with the 

 West, for example, is not by any means an improbable event, when 

 we consider the result of the late war between Russia and Japan, 

 and the racial developments which are so rapidly making their 

 influence felt in the economic and industrial world, especially in the 

 United States, Canada and Australia, not to mention South Africa. 

 There are some who speak of these racial antagonisms in a light 

 and airy way, and say, "Let the conflict between East and West 

 come, the law of the survival of the fittest must prevail there as in 

 other spheres of life." Such people do not know the strength of 

 the forces and passions of which they speak so lightly, neither do 

 they sufficiently consider whether a racial war would really decide 

 all the issues or even the chief issues involved. It is too often for- 

 gotten that, as far as the survival of races is concerned, a war 

 decides little or nothing. Even a conquered race may be so pro- 

 lific, or may so use its natural capacities, advantages, and power 

 of adaptability to varying conditions as to modify the character- 

 istics of a temporarily conquering race, or even to absorb such a 

 conquering race altogether, as the Anglo-Saxons absorbed the Nor- 

 mans. It is said, for example, that when Chinese or Japanese 

 intermarry with Europeans the Eastern type tends to persist as 

 against the European. It cannot be too strongly insisted upon that 

 on this point war settles nothing ; while the notion of holding some 

 five hundred millions of Eastern people permanently in subjection-^ 

 even if they could be conquered — is surely too wild even for the 



