THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE. 153 
increasing acceleration producing feebleness and degeneracy. 
Can religion or patriotism ever acquire such power over 
the minds and bodies of the feeble and diseased, as to induce 
them, for the good of their race, to live long lives of self- 
abnegation and self-restraint, leaving no offspring behind 
them, to die at length ““unwept, unhonoured and unsung?” 
A different and far harder task than for a Marcus Curtius 
to leap once for all into the abyss and thus assure the 
salvation of Rome. 
Can legislation ever be so wise as to deal rightly with 
the vicious and the criminal? We know that our ancestors 
in medieval times roughly solved the problem, though in a 
Way repugnant to us now. The higher intellects, who could 
not find satisfaction in battle and tourney, feasting and min- 
strelsy—nobler in themselves although they were, but less 
suited to the genius of their time—voluntarily, and the feebler 
scions compulsorily, entered the church and monastic insti- 
tutions, and perforce, lived celibate lives, so that they left 
no lasting impress on the race. Crime had but a short shrift, 
and until the time of George IV theft to the value of twelve 
pence was punished by death. Although cruel were the laws, 
they had at least the merit of preventing the breeding of a 
race of hereditary criminals. 
Can I, whose office it is to fan the smouldering spark, and 
shield the flickering flame, of life, praise methods like these ? 
Non tali auxilio nec defensoribus istis. 
Rather let the nation, like the individual, perish at the 
appointed time from the decrepitude of old age, than prolong 
its existence by recourse to such help and to defenders like 
these. 
I know not the answer to these questions; but I do know 
that, if we ourselves are to Progress upward and onward, 
and be more than the mere “ heralds of a higher race,” it can 
only be by the patient study of Nature, and of Nature’s laws. 
We are endowed with reason, and it is both lawful and right 
