104 THE MENDEL JOURNAL 



that her decline is due to ignorance. Rather, it must 

 be said that it is coincident with a period of great 

 activity and advance in biological knowledge. To- 

 day the truth of Evolution, the Processes of the 

 Survival of the Fittest, and the fundamental facts of 

 Heredity are clearly grasped and understood by 

 biologists. At no period in human history has 

 knowledge been so extensive, so accurate and so 

 carefully generalised as now. No one acquainted 

 with human life and with lower animal life doubts the 

 identity of the natural processes that act upon both. 

 Man's ethical and sesthetic qualities are not new 

 creations — only elaborations of qualities present in 

 the living kingdom long before he came. And beneath 

 his ethical and aesthetic nature lies the animal. In 

 the long run the animal instincts, hunger and pro- 

 creation, determine man's conduct. We need only 

 recall the French Revolutions to remind us of the 

 fact. Let us not forget the guillotining until the 

 headsmen sank worn out ; followed by the fusillading 

 of little children — " the wolflings " of Marat, " who 

 might grow to be wolves " — and of women with chil- 

 dren at the breast ; of wholesale drownings, of women 

 stripped naked before they were drowned, and of 

 mothers dragged to the guillotine to witness the 

 slaughter of their innocent children. Truly did 

 Carlyle say, " Cruel is the panther of the woods, the 

 she-bear bereaved of her whelps ; but there is in man 

 a hatred crueller than that." The angelic gloss on 

 man is but a surface-coat painted in times of peace 

 and prosperity, but cast off in times of distress and 



