THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE. 149 
States where the results of legislation although brilliant for a 
time ensured destruction in the end. I take them because in 
many ways the aim was in diametrically opposite directions. 
The first is the ancient State of Sparta, when under the iron 
rule of the laws of Lycurgus. Here artificial selection was 
designedly applied, and in one definite direction, viz: to 
produce a race of valiant and invincible men. Men and 
women were treated as of no account; individually they were 
nothing, the State everything. The infant when first born 
was dragged from its mother and exposed to the public gaze, 
and if deformed or weakly, it was at once thrown out on the 
mountain to perish. Children were taken charge of by the 
State at the age of 6 years, and the male child trained to 
undergo cold, hunger, fatigue and pain without a murmur, 
and, he was not admitted to the privileges of manhood before 
he had been publicly scourged until the altar of Artemis was 
bespattered with his blood, this torture being endured without 
a cry escaping from his lips. At thirty he was allowed and 
compelled to marry, but not allowed to occupy the same dwel- 
ling, or even eat with his family, until the age of 60, for fear 
that he might in this way, acquire habits of luxury and 
effeminacy. The female child was trained, not to fit her for 
household duties, but to produce physical perfection, and was 
married at 20 in the full vigour of womanhood, in order that 
she might be the likely mother of strong men. Her education 
was also directed to discourage in her the ordinary affections 
of humanity, so that her sons might be warriors and warriors 
alone. 
These laws were successful for a time, and this small 
community, living in the midst of hostile tribes, gained an 
unquestioned predominance in Greece; but they were not in 
harmony with the laws of Nature, they ignored the passions 
of avarice and ambition, and the experiment ended in complete 
and final ruin. 
My other instance is the wonderful civilization evolved by 
