142 THE MENDEL JOURNAL 



one to believe me, but simply and quite honestly 

 have endeavoured to bring to the attention of my 

 countrymen some biological considerations which, 

 I am impelled to think, indicate the existence of a 

 grave and imminent danger in the present conditions 

 and the ruling sentiment of the body politic. It is 

 open to them to enquire whether those considerations 

 are valid or invalid ; and whether they do or do not 

 throw for them a new interpretation upon the origin 

 and cause of the human misery and squalor which 

 exists. In this discussion I may be allowed to claim 

 an advantage over my critic ; for I have passed 

 through the phase that marks her present attitude 

 to that which is indicated in my article. I am not 

 oblivious to the arguments, nor to the interpretations 

 of human life, which are opposed to my own. I 

 have endeavoured to consider most of them. 



Miss Wodehouse has in a very fair manner 

 intimated in the beginning of her criticism that 

 she has probably summed up my position in un- 

 scientific language, but she hopes not unfairly. 

 There are one or two statements, however, in which 

 certainly my position is not represented in language 

 which quite accurately conveys its meaning. I should 

 not, for instance, say that the environment " en- 

 couraged the fit by getting rid of the unfit." We 

 may, in social matters^ harass the fit in order to 

 encourage the unfit ; but that is a different 

 thing. Neither is my attitude quite fully 

 stated when I am credited with the statement that 

 " social reformers are wrong in attempting to alter 



