A AVOJJDERFUL ANIMAL. 99 



or invariably, prejudicial to the race, and vice versa. The passive 

 survival of the fittest can only be compassed by the destruction 

 of the less fit by independent forces ; though I do not suppose 

 that any new Herod is likely to arise, to prescribe euthanasia or 

 compulsory infanticide in lieu of our perniciously-preservative 

 vaccination. 



Then, again, man has scarcely any enemies amongst other 

 animals — the tiger, the shark, and the venomous sei-pent are all 

 inconsiderable ; and although it may seem like another paradox 

 to speak of this as an element of disfavour in his racial prospects, 

 yet it is a fact that the presence of enemies, beasts of prey and 

 such like, within certain limits, does conduce to the well-being of 

 a race, by weeding out the weaklings and superfluous young, 

 keeping up the food-supply, and stimulating speed, alertness, and 

 other qualities serviceable in the battle of life among the rest. 

 Man, moreover, is unquestionably the terminal twig of his branch. 

 He will leave no descendants, and there is no ancestral ape-like 

 form from which more will be evolved. In a very short time man 

 will be gone — Xew Guinea and Central Africa are the last homes 

 of the savage in his furious state, uninfluenced by contact with 

 white civilization ; and we, the posterity of such, already hope- 

 lessly on the road to extermination, will be all that are left. And 

 what shall we leave behind us ? Practically nothing. It is very 

 humiliating to think of, but if a future race of intelligent beings 

 should inhabit the earth, they will find the only evidence of 

 that development of brain and its results, which we consider so 

 wonderful as to ascribe it peculiarly God-gifted to ourselves, in the 

 vestiges of a mere constructive power, exactly comparable in kind 

 or degree to that of the bee, the nest-building bird, or the beaver. 

 In another hundred thousand years there will probably be more 

 csadence of the past existence of the ichthyosaurus than of that 

 of man. 



AVhat will the last man be like ? It is possible to predict, with 

 a tolerable approach to certainty. A creature Avith a big head, big 

 hands, and shrunken legs; with a thin weak jaw and thickened 

 upper lip ; bald, purblind, and with few or no teeth ; a creature 

 with swollen projecting ribs, flat hips, and small ill-developed feet ; 

 deficient in the power of locomotion, yet still procuring food and 

 preserving vitality by his marvellous mastery over the forces of 

 nature through the resourcefulness of science. But the stage will 

 be reached at length when the enfeebled stomach can no longer 

 minister to the unbounded exigency of the horrible, parasitic, ail- 

 devourin"- demon of a bi'ain ; the secretion of intellect will fail 



