of little girls, which so often provide our 

 newspapers with ghastly details. 



Do you not admit, at any rate, that there 

 is strong reason on the side of those who 

 desire to breed a better race, and to guard 

 the germ from the very beginning, forti- 

 •fying the individual at every point to suc- 

 cessfully meet the strain of 20th century 

 life? Personally, I am not among the 

 pessimists who declare that the race is de- 

 ■g-enerating. I believe there never was a 

 day when finer specimens of manhood and 

 womanhood were met with than at the 

 present, but probably there never was a 

 time either when moral perverts of the 

 worst type were more numerous, and as the 

 chain is no stronger than its weakest link, 

 we cannot regard such conditions with 

 equanimity. No doubt the fine men and 

 women are due to what the Eugenist would 

 ' call nurtural Eugenics — good environment, 

 etc., combined with natural Eugenics — the 

 accident of birth of healthy parents. 



I suppose the Socialist would consider 

 that the Eugenist is a crank, and that if 

 he could only secure the ideal state which 

 would undertake the care of the children 

 where required, and guarantee a living 

 wage to the worker, all other ills would 

 gradually eradicate themselves under the 

 influence of State hygiene, better housing, 

 etc., etc. I am rather on the side of the 

 Eugenist, I must admit, as regards his 

 theory, it is the working out of it which 

 ifi the difficulty. 



We have only to look in our shop win- 

 dows at the present time and observe the 

 splendid fruit, notably apples, there dis- 

 played. Visit our flower shows as the sea- 

 son goes round; also the stalls of the ani- 

 mals at agricultural shows, to impress our- 

 selves with the wonders that science had 

 wrought during the past few years. We 

 cannot claim that the marvellous improve- 



ments in size and quality of fruit, vege- 

 tables, flowers, and animals is only due to 

 improved environments. No ! It is the 

 right interpretation of the laws of nature 

 which has worked the change. Notably the 

 study of stock selection, crossing, fertilisa- 

 tion, or, as the Eugenist would put it, en- 

 couragement of worthy parenthood and 

 discouragement of unworthy parenthood, 

 which is rigorously enforced by the gar- 

 dener and stock breeder, proper environ- 

 ment following as a matter of course but 

 secondary. 



Shall our animals, fruits, flowers, and 

 vegetables advance while our race degen- 

 erates? 



Mr. Cozens, in proposing a vote of 

 thanks to the President for his address, 

 said that everyone must be interested in 

 the question of Eugenics. He supposed 

 there could not possibly be a more interest- 

 ing question, but, as Dr. Wills said, 

 it was fraught with many difficulties, and 

 he could not see what they, as a little 

 society, could do in the matter. 



Mr. Lander seconded, remarking that the 

 subject bristled with difficulties. One diffi- 

 culty was that a child might be weak and 

 unhealthy, and yet it lived, and was not 

 the hopeless wreck that was sometimes an- 

 ticipated. He thought it was a question 

 that wanted to be thoroughly discussed. 



At the conclusion of the meeting those 

 present were enabled to listen to the re- 

 ceiving of wireless messages through the 

 courtesy of Mr. Lander, who brought in his 

 portable wireless set. The first station 

 picked up was an Admiralty station in 

 Yorkshire, while messages were also re- 

 ceived from Paris, and several ships at sea. 

 Everyone was highly interested in this, the 

 latest form of communication. 



'THE HARMONY OF RELIGION AND SCIENCE. "- 

 A. H. T. CLARKE. 



-By The Rev. 



On Wednesday, Nov. 13, in the Beaney In- 

 stitute, was held the second meeting for 

 the season, when the President (Dr. 

 Graham Wills) introduced the lecturer, the 

 Eev. A. H. T. Clarke, who took for Jiis 

 subject: "The Harmony of Eeligion and 

 Science as illustrated in the making of tiie 

 World." The lecturer opened th^- 

 subject by remarking that there was 

 no more remarkable sign of the time.^ 

 than that men nowadays did not g.» 

 to church. He thought their excuse a poor 

 tme, namely, that the doubts that had 

 gathered over the Old Testament from sci- 

 entific discoveries were so rarely met by 

 Christiana that the "man in tlie street" 



was quite justified in thinking that they 

 could not be met. The issue was there- 

 fore a vital one. And we must frankly 

 meet it. Now, it was impossible to over- 

 look one fact about the theory of Evolu- 

 tion. It had, in the past, been the fa- 

 vourite weapon of infidelity. Darwin ad- 

 mitted that he had given up all religion, 

 that he was an agnostic, and that the argu- 

 ment for a Creator from the apparent 

 design of the universe must be given up 

 also. And this attitude of mind invariably 

 brought in its train fatalism and Socialism. 

 If wt were the automatic result of a long 

 chain of cause and effect over which we had 

 no control, if we had no more free-will than 

 a monkev, wo became the creatures of cir- 



