SELECTION: ORGANIC AND SOCIAL 213 



SELECTION IN HUMAN SOCIETY 



GRADUAL DIMINUTION OF NATURAL SELECTION 

 IN MANKIND. In early days man had probably 

 a precarious foothold on the earth, contending 

 with wild beasts and with physical conditions of 

 which he had little mastery. The serpent bit 

 his heel, the thorns cut his naked skin, the floods 

 rose and drowned him in his cave. There was 

 probably much squabbling around the platter of 

 subsistence, a keen and literal struggle, and it 

 may be that we owe much to the natural selection 

 of those ancient days. But as age succeeded 

 age, and man's brain developed, he cared less 

 and less for what serpent or thorn or flood could 

 do ; his struggle for existence changed in tone 

 and colour. And nowadays, except in the out- 

 skirts of civilisation, there are few wild beasts 

 that worry man much, the serpent that bites 

 his heel is usually more or less microscopic, 

 every year increases his mastery over physical 

 forces, and he is extending his kingdom to the 

 heavens. 



All through the ages there has been a winnowing 

 by disease and famine, still very marked in certain 

 peoples, and to this also, as regards some of our 

 qualities, we have probably owed much. Of the 

 primaeval crudity of the struggle for existence, 

 to which sections of mankind are sometimes 

 forced back, we get occasional appalling glimpses ; 

 for instance, when a panic unmans men altogether. 

 But every one knows that we do all that in us 

 lies to put a stop to elimination by disease and 

 famine. Partly through genuine sympathy, partly 



