38 EVOLUTION AND ETHICS 1 



of the Tudors. But I am not aware of a particle 

 of evidence in favour of the conclusion that this 

 evolutionary process has been accompanied by any 

 modification of the physical, or the mental, 

 characters of the men who have been the subjects 

 of it. I have not met with any grounds for 

 suspecting that the average Englishmen of to-day 

 are sensibly different from those that Shakspere 

 knew and drew. We look into his magic mirror 

 of the Elizabethan age, and behold, nowise darkly, 

 the presentment of ourselves. 



During these three centuries, from the reign of 

 Elizabeth to that of Victoria, the struggle for 

 existence between man and man has been so 

 largely restrained among the great mass of the 

 population (except for one or two short intervals 

 of civil war), that it can have had little, or no, 

 selective operation. As to anything comparable 

 to direct selection, it has been practised on so 

 small a scale that it may also be neglected. 

 The criminal law, in so far as by putting to death, 

 or by subjecting to long periods of imprisonment, 

 those who infringe its provisions, it prevents the 

 propagation of hereditary criminal tendencies ; 

 and the poor-law, in so far as it separates married 

 couples, whose destitution arises from hereditary 

 defects of character, are doubtless selective agents 

 operating in favour of the non-criminal and the 

 more effective members of society. But the pro 

 portion of the population which they influence 



