I PROLEGOMENA 19 



be afforded by houses and clothing; drainage 

 and irrigation works would antagonise the effects 

 of excessive rain and excessive drought ; roads, 

 bridges, canals, carriages, and ships would over 

 come the natural obstacles to locomotion and 

 transport; mechanical engines would supple 

 ment the natural strength of men and of 

 their draught animals; hygienic precautions 

 would check, or remove, the natural causes of 

 disease. With every step of this progress in 

 civilization, the colonists would become more and 

 more independent of the state of nature ; more 

 and more, their lives would be conditioned by a 

 state of art. In order to attain his ends, the ad 

 ministrator would have to avail himself of the 

 courage, industry, and co-operative intelligence of 

 the settlers ; and it is plain that the interest of 

 the community would be best served by increas 

 ing the proportion of persons who possess such 

 qualities, and diminishing that of persons devoid 

 of them. In other words, by selection directed 

 towards an ideal. 



Thus the administrator might look to the 

 establishment of an earthly paradise, a true 

 garden of Eden, in which all things should 

 work together towards the well-being of the 

 gardeners : within which the cosmic process, 

 the coarse struggle for existence of the state 

 of nature, should be abolished ; in which that 

 state should be replaced by a state of art ; 



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