VIRILE SENTIMENT 135 



so with any organism as complex as a Imman being. 

 How wide is the range of human qualities which 

 determine the survival of a Congo native to-day, or 

 of a factory child a hundred years ago ? One can 

 hardly suppose that the inherent capacity for writing 

 the plays of Shakespeare or for making the dis- 

 coveries of Newton or Darwin, or any benevolence, 

 or wit, or refinement, or gaiety, or unselfishness, 

 would have very nnich to say in the matter, (liven 

 any environment, Nature will select, but the kind 

 and the range of the qualities she favours will 

 depend on the environment within which she works. 



On these two points I cannot help thinking that 

 "A Plea for Virile Sentiment" is lacking in ex- 

 plicitness, and that the author's constant use of 

 "fittest" and "best" without qualification has a 

 dangerous tendency to disguise the fact that they 

 must mean no more than "having an advantage 

 under the given conditions." This is all that Nature 

 is charged with, and in this sense the fittest will 

 survive whatever we do and whatever our aristo- 

 cratic Or democratic policy may be. Whether the 

 best in any more ordinary sense survive will depend 

 on the conditions, and these conditions, by action 

 or abstention, we must partly fix. Is it Mr, Mudge's 

 opinion that the present slum environment selects 

 its survivors on the basis of qualities so valuable 

 and so varied that we can no longer hope to 

 improve it ? 



