CH. xvii METAPHYSICS OF NATURAL SELECTION 203 



ness will burn itself out by natural selection. Dr. G. 

 A. Reid's " Present Evolution of Man " l argues for this 

 pleasing possibility. Surely this is folly. Men are not 

 of distinct kinds, as the old Gnostics supposed. We can 

 acquire qualities by developing their germs ; we can 

 make the transition from the class of the sober to that 

 of the drunken. It is only too easy ! Frightful as are the 

 penalties of such vice, when have they proved sufficient 

 to counteract the charms of jollity and good fellowship, 

 and of a "moderation" which so easily becomes im- 

 moderate? Mr. Sutherland himself implies that each 

 generation or two develops its own criminal class, its 

 own profligates. Assuredly upon that point he is 

 credible. Human nature is versatile, and man is weak ; 

 a new crop of drunkards may easily be grown as the old 

 ones die out. If you leave everything to natural selec- 

 tion, that is how the world will go. 



Crime, or human justice punishing crime, is also a 

 form of Natural Selection B. Eighty or a hundred 

 years ago criminals were "eliminated" wholesale, with 

 little profit to society ! The problem of human advance 

 proves unexpectedly complex. Brutal violence on the 

 part of the law provoked more crime than it repressed. 

 Even at the present day, however, we do some 

 "eliminating." We hang a few criminals, and we 

 seclude others, both men and women, for long terms of 

 imprisonment, during which terms at least it is im- 

 possible for them to produce offspring. We may 

 attribute these results to Natural Selection if only 

 in this sense, that the reduction or checking of popula- 

 tion was not the design of our criminal law, but an 

 incidental consequence. 



It is a favourite idea with some students of society 



1 Quoted in Habit and Instinct and elsewhere. 



