310 APPENDIX 



MI ion UK In revolutions, wars, and riots prim 



IIUMI, in nature hursts through the thin if civili/.a- 



tiou. 



It', in conclusion, we agree that there has been a well-delined 

 historii-al tendency away from liarsh social selection toward mild 

 societal selection, we are obliged to admit that the hulk of 

 adaptation is no Inn--'!- capitali/.ed in instinct and race trai' 

 is taken out in adjustments on the slipp.-ry -jroiind of hahit and 

 custom. liiolou'ically speaking, social adaptation is in modifica- 

 tion, not in congenital variation. If it is true that the n 

 social order develops no new social instincts, only new ha hits, then 

 the wild 01 lection we have indulged in throughout 



Kurope should arouse u . to the imperative need of more rational 

 social selection. Although we stand committed against a : 

 to the selective death-rate, we may yet consistently favor a 

 selective birth-rate guided by the principles of the new science of 

 lies. But. ^ranted that we establish rational social selection 

 in the fonn of the selective birth-rate of eugenics and mold a new 

 race, how do we know that future conditions will suit this race! 

 It may be said in answer that it is not a question of the future, 

 but of the present. Natural and social selection have been re- 

 stricted for so many centuries that man's present equipment in 

 instinct (notably in the pugnacious, self-assertive, and acquisitive 

 instincts) is adapted to conditions of long ago. Ther 

 that the gap be reduced and that our equipment in instinct be 

 caught up to modern requirements ; md P-sponsihilit ies. This is 

 all that rational social selection working in the form of a eugenic 

 selective birth rat. p, , do to work out a better adapta- 



tion to contemporary conditions. 



