MAN NOT SELECTED BY STRUGGLE 107 



to this process that the term "degeneration" has 

 been applied by biologists. How far it may go, and 

 what are its limits and various outcomes, I cannot now 

 discuss. It is sometimes spoken of as " retrogression " 

 which implies wrongly a return to a previous state. 

 From some points of view it might be called " simplifi- 

 cation."" 



The point to which I have been making is this that 

 civilised mankind appears to be very nearly in regard 

 to most points of structure and quality in a condition 

 of "cessation of selection." It is the better-provided 

 and well-fed, well-clothed, protected classes of the com- 

 munity, in which this cessation of selection is most 

 complete. Racial degeneration is, therefore, to be looked 

 for in those classes quite as much as in the half- starved, 

 ill-clad, struggling poor, if, indeed, it should not be 

 expected to be more strongly marked in them. There 

 are facts which tend to show that such anticipations are 

 well-founded. 



This is a matter requiring further discussion. It is 

 probable, I may say in anticipation, that whilst natural 

 selection in the struggle for existence is only obscurely 

 operative (except as to alcoholism and some diseases) in 

 civilised man, yet what Mr. Darwin called sexual selec- 

 tion the influence of preference in mating has an 

 important scope, and it may be that hereafter it will 

 be of enormous importance in maintaining the quality 

 of the race. 



Meanwhile, it seems that the unregulated increase of 

 the population, the indiscriminate, unquestioning pro- 

 tection of infant life and of adult life also without 

 selection or limitation must lead to results which can 

 only be described as general degeneration. How far 

 such a conclusion is justified, and what are possible 

 modifying or counteracting influences at work which 

 may affect the future of mankind, are questions of 

 surpassing interest. In any case, it is interesting to 



