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moral qualities, that some elimination of the worst 

 dispositions is always in progress even in the most 

 civilised nations/ 1 He is referring to such facts as 

 these, that malefactors are executed, or imprisoned 

 for long periods; that melancholic and insane 

 persons are confined or commit suicide; that violent 

 and quarrelsome men often come to an untimely 

 end ; that intemperance is so highly destructive, 

 that the expectation of the life of the intemperate, 

 at the age of thirty for instance, is only 13 8 years, 

 whilst for the rural labourers of England, at the same 

 age, it is 40 59 years ; that profligate women bear 

 few children, and profligate men rarely marry, and 

 that both suffer from disease. A deliberate survey 

 of these statements will uphold them all as supported 

 by familiar evidence. This admitted, it seems singu 

 lar, in view of the argument for evolution in which 

 our author is specially absorbed, that he should have 

 written the introductory sentence in the terms quoted, 

 some elimination of the worst dispositions is always 

 in progress even in the most civilised nations. Would 

 not this appear the most likely of things under advanc 

 ing civilisation ? Should not the evolutionist regard 

 it as one of the things to be expected, and to be ad 

 duced with prominence, and with all the formalities 

 of detailed evidence, as contributing towards the 

 support of his main contention, that the rational life 

 is an evolution from the organic ? Some elimination 

 1 even in the most civilised nations ! It is an utter 

 ance of the latent admission that in the midst of 

 civilisation entirely new conditions have appeared. 

 It points to the obvious fact that in the midst of 



1 Descent of Man, p. 137. 



