54 Dr. G. W. SaUeby [Feb. 14, 



position gained ? The answer is, that the civihsation which merely 

 maintains its position is one in which selection has ceased ; if 

 selection had not ceased, the position would be more than maintained, 

 there would be advance. But without selection the breed will 

 certainly degenerate, the lower individuals multiplying more rapidly 

 than higher ones, in accordance with Spencer's law that the higher 

 the type of the individual the less rapidly does he multiply ; and 

 thus the race which is not advancing is retrograding, as Gibbon 

 declared. 



The selection of the best for parentage is the sole factor of in- 

 herent or racial progress ; but the traditional or acquired progress, 

 which we call civilisation, tends to thwart or abrograte or even 

 invert this process. Thus the conditions necessary for the secure 

 ascent of any race, an ascent secured in its very blood, made stable 

 in its very bone, have not yet been achieved in history ; and this is 

 the reason ivhy history records no enduring etnpire. 



It is not for a moment asserted that there are no other causes of 

 imperial failure than the arrest or inversion of selection. But if this 

 is not the cause, then, in the absence of the transmission of acquired 

 characters, the race has not degenerated, and is capable of reassert- 

 ing itself. Only l)y the arrest or inversion of selection can a race 

 degenerate — apart from alcohol and certain diseases. If, then, a 

 civilisation or empire has fallen through causes altogether non- 

 biological — through carelessness, or neglect of motherhood or altera- 

 tion of ideals — the changes in character so produced are not trans- 

 mitted to the children, and the race is not degenerate, but merely 

 deteriorated in each generation. 



For instance, we have been brought up to believe that there is no 

 possible future for Spain — it is a dying nation, a senile individual, a 

 people of degenerates ; it has had its day, which can never return. 

 The historian explains this by a fallacious use of the analogy between a 

 race and an individual, and by the false Lamarckian theory of heredity. 

 But the biologist believes that since Spain has not been subjected — or, 

 at any rate, not subjected long enough — to the only process which can 

 rapidly ensure real degeneration, viz. the consistent and stringent 

 selection of the worst, she is yet capable of regeneration. Regenera- 

 tion is not really the word, because there has been no real de- 

 generation, but only the successive deterioration of successive and 

 undegenerate generations. 



If we took an animal species that has degenerated, such as the 

 intestinal parasites, and endeavoured to regenerate them, we should 

 begin to realise the magnitude of our task. That is not the task for 

 Spain, the biologist asserts. Merely the environment must be altered 

 — not the mountain ranges and the rivers. Buckle notwithstanding, but 

 the really potent factors in the environment, the spiritual and psychical 

 and social factors — and the deterioration of each new generation, 

 inherently undegenerate, will cease. 



