CHAP, xvi REITERATION OF DARWINISM 163 



The meek inherit the earth by the simple process of 

 "lyin' low and say in' nuffin'," like Brer Fox, or like 

 the Babes in the Wood, while the ruffians dispose of 

 one another. All this is vastly well so far as it is true ; 

 but the violent, at any rate, have no special taste for 

 singling out their violent rivals ; they are quite as ready 

 to murder, outrage, or plunder the most sympathetic 

 and inoffensive of their neighbours. 



Let us observe however the full force of the position. 

 This method of elimination is regarded as the method of 

 moral progress. It is so certain and so telling that all 

 others may safely be neglected. When Christianity 

 was accepted by the Teutonic barbarians it did not in 

 the least pull them up to its higher moral level. Slowly, 

 in the course of some thousand years or so, the incapable 

 were weeded out and the general level was raised. Those 

 sinners wandered in the wilderness for very nearly forty 

 generations till the whole stock died out in detail. This 

 is a doctrine of the most unbounded materialism. It 

 regards man as fatally determined by his antecedents. 

 Free-will is a dream, conversion or real repentance an 

 impossibility. Yes, and that is all implied in the attempt 

 to run natural selection right through to make elimina- 

 tion the only method of moral progress. 



At one point Mr. Sutherland seems inconsistent with 

 himself. In one passage he almost bursts the shackles 

 of naturalism. He speaks of imitation as a cause of 

 progress like Bagehot, or like Professor Baldwin. But, 

 so far as imitation acts, elimination is unnecessary. If 

 example can be copied, there is a short cut to progress 

 on the part of the inferior but teachable multitude. In 

 nature imitation plays a very limited part. One species 

 cannot borrow the good habits of another. If it could, 

 you would have transformations ready made without the 



