8 



environment, — the introduction of the doctrine of pity — may be 

 to counteract or even to suspend the operation of natural selection, 

 which previously tended to secure the propagation of a steadily 

 improving type of humanity. 



Physical degeneracy may be first considered. Has the 

 condition of collectivism which we have ^ow reached been 

 followed by physical degeneration of our race ? The evidence 

 bearing on this point relates to the personal physique, to the 

 duration of life, and to the diseases which are prevalent. As 

 regards physique, it has become a commonplace remark that 

 among the masses the average physique is degenerating. There 

 is no question that town-dwellers as a rule have a poorer physique 

 than country-dwellers ; and the rural population of England, 

 which was 37*7 per cent, of the total in 1861, having declined to 

 28.3 per cent, in 1891, it is reasonable to assume that some 

 degeneration has been the result of this transference from rural 

 to urban conditions of life. On the other hand must be placed 

 the facts that workmen in towns obtain better wages and therefore 

 better food than agricultural labourers, and that the sanitary 

 conditions of factories and worksfhops and of working-men's 

 houses in towns are steadily improving, though they have not 

 yet reached their proper standard. The pariah class in our towns 

 is diminishing. Anthropometric measurements on a sufficiently 

 large scale to give trustworthy averages are still wanting, and we 

 have no comparative measurements for a century or two ago. I 

 believe there is no doubt, however, that the average man of the 

 present time cannot get into the average armour of the past which 

 is now stored in the Tower of London, and that the helmet is also 

 too small. The chest width, and still more, the size of the head, 

 have increased. On the other hand, we are told by Sir Thomas 

 Crawford that " the masses, from whom the Army recruits are 

 chiefly taken, are of an inferior physique to what they were 

 twenty-five years ago/' the proportion of rejections of would-be 

 recruits have considerably increased. This conclusion has more 

 recently been shown to depend on an erroneous use of the available 

 statistics, which, when corrected, tend to show that the physique 

 of the lower classes has improved rather than otherwise. That 

 the physique of the middle and upper classes is steadily and 

 markedly improving is quite certain. Never has so much 

 attention been paid to various out-door games. Never have 

 school boys in our large public schools been allowed such an in- 

 ordinately large proportion of their time for out-door play. From 

 the physical standpoint this has produced admirable results, the 



