CHAP, xvi REITERATION OF DARWINISM 169 



product in evolution. In that case sympathy ought 

 to be a casual and fluctuating factor in human nature. 1 

 But Mr. Sutherland carefully rules out that view. 

 Sympathy has been in the main a condition of success, 

 and has been selected as such through untold ages. Is 

 not Darwinism, at least apart from statistical tables, 2 

 a dangerously plastic method? Anything and every- 

 thing may be conceived as a quality tending in some 

 ivay and to an undefined degree towards predominance. 

 Anything and everything may be ticketed, "First prize, 

 for fitness to survive." The formula of Darwinism 



Is twice too big, 

 And therefore needs must fit. 



Indeed, one observes that, in spite of his Darwinian 

 phraseology, Mr. Sutherland is not thinking of natural 

 selection per se as an evolutionary force, but of natural 

 selection modified by the presence of animal sympathy. 

 This seems a true account of the facts of nature, but 

 it is a miserably inadequate account of the facts of 

 human society; and unfortunately Mr. Sutherland ad- 

 mits no morality among men beyond the rudimentary 

 morality which he finds in the brute world. Elimination 

 must do everything for us ; it cannot ! And whatever 

 elimination does for human advance it is precisely that 

 elimination which is least like the Darwinian that sur- 

 vives the advent of reason. If the child of vicious or 

 criminal or heartless parents is neglected and dies, while 

 the child of honest, pure, and affectionate parents sur- 



1 Compare Mr. A. J. Balfour's remarks upon the aesthetic sense 

 (Foundations of Belief, Book IV.), based on the assumption of evolution 

 by natural selection. 



2 Demanded by Mr. Karl Pearson in The Chances of Death, etc. Dr. 

 Pearson, one notes, is a Professor of Applied Mathematics. His suggestion 

 deserves consideration. 



