156 THE MENDEL JOURNAL 



which they have evolved, and to no other.'''' Is there 

 any ambiguity here ? Surely Miss Wodehouse could 

 not have read this page. But in making this con- 

 tention Miss Wodehouse not only shows she has not 

 carefully read my article, but she delivers herself into 

 the hands of her opponent. For if that statement be 

 true, as we know it to be, then the masses who have 

 evolved under the conditions in which we find them, 

 are adapted to these conditions. Any alteration 

 that is made in them therefore necessarily involves 

 a new evolution. This means a new elimination. 

 Does Miss Wodehouse plead that the masses shall 

 undergo a new elimination ? Does she ask that we 

 shall interfere with them, in order that death shall 

 reap its harvest among them ? It is Miss Wodehouse 

 and those with her, and not I, who ask that the 

 ''killing of!" process shall proceed at greater pace ! I 

 simply urge that consistent with the rights of others, 

 people shall be left alone to enjoy the conditions and 

 circumstances which belong to their line of evolution. 

 I have protested against the sentimental busybodies, 

 who under the cloak of a false protection carry the 

 instrument of a real destruction. Miss Wodehouse 

 then proceeds to say : " Given any environment 

 Nature may be trusted to select." Then she puts 

 the question which, if I have not misunderstood 

 her, is the central thesis of her article, " Can we trust 

 Nature to select such qualities as we shall approve 

 of ? " Now I take two exceptions to such an attitude. 

 I should not in the first place speak of " selection 

 of individuals whose qualities give them an advantage 



