:er? 



38 THE OEIGIN OF MAN 



recent discovery of remedies for typhoid fever, yellow 

 fever and the black plague ? And what would he think 

 of saving weak babies by pasteurizing milk and of the 

 efforts to find a specific for tuberculosis and cancer? 

 Can such a barbarous doctrine be sound ? 



But Darwin's doctrine is even more destruct 

 His heart rebels against the *' hard reason " upon 

 which his heartless hypothesis is built. He says: 

 " The aid which we feel impelled to give to the help- 

 less is mainly the result of the instinct of sympathy, 

 which was ariginally acquired as a part of the social 

 instincts, but subsequently rendered in the manner in- 

 dicated, more tender and more widely diffused. Nor 

 could we check our sympathy even at the urging of 

 hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part 

 of our nature. The surgeon may harden himself while 

 performing an operation, for he knows he is acting for 

 the good of his patient ; but if we were to intentionally 

 neglect the weak and the helpless, it could be only for 

 a contingent benefit, with overwhelming present evil. 

 We must therefore bear the undoubted bad effects of 

 the weak surviving and propagating their kind." 



The moral nature which, according to Darwin, is also 

 developed by natural selection and sexual selection, re- 

 pudiates the brutal law to which, if his reasoning is 

 correct, it owes its origin. Can that doctrine be ac- 

 cepted as scientific when its author admits that we can- 

 not apply it " without deterioration in the noblest part 

 of our nature " ? On the contrary, civilization is 

 measured by the moral revolt against the cruel doctrine 

 developed by Darwin. 



