A REJOINDER 155 



are only saved from starvation because the more 

 natural and fitter parents are rated and taxed to 

 effect that purpose. It is also under such artificial 

 conditions, where the biologist has not yet been 

 adequately heard but the wailing of the sentimentalist 

 has, that hereditary races of cruel and vicious and 

 drunken parents are allowed to procreate and multiply 

 their kind, while that of the nobler parents is 

 threatened with a rapid extinction. 



Miss Wodehouse seems to think (pages 132, 134) 

 that in my treatment of the environment in relation 

 to the individual I have left an ambiguous impression 

 upon the reader's mind. I think if Miss Wodehouse 

 will read the article again she will find no ambiguity 

 manifested. But in this matter she pursues an old and 

 futile line of argument, and reminds us that all which is 

 implied by the conception expressed in the phrase, 

 " survival of the fittest," is simply the survival of 

 those " whose qualities give them an advantage " 

 under the particular conditions which prevailed 

 during their evolution. I hope she does not think 

 I am such a careless thinker, that I have forgotten 

 such an elementary fact. Any careful reader who 

 will refer to what I said about the Tasmanians 

 (page 54) will at once see that I dealt with that 

 very point. It was there stated : " Some day we 

 shall learn that the characters of men are 

 relatively fixed and stable, and are the 'products of 

 evolution under set conditions. As we find men, at 

 any given period, in any given place, they are adapted 

 to the particular combination of conditions under 



