SELECTION: ORGANIC AND SOCIAL 217 



such a low death-rate. The meaning of this is 

 that man has thrown off the natural selection 

 bondage, and insists on saying, and saying success- 

 fully, "I will live," when every natural chance 

 is against him. 1 



THE DILEMMA OF CIVILISATION. The whole 

 trend of evolution since civilisation began has 

 been to throw off the yoke of natural selection, 

 and we are thus brought face to face with a for- 

 midable dilemma. It is impossible to return to a 

 natural selection regime, and yet we have not 

 been able to put an equally effective social selection 

 into operation. No one has stated the dilemma 

 more clearly than Herbert Spencer : " The law 

 that each creature shall take the benefits and 

 the evils of its own nature has been the law under 

 which life has evolved thus far. Any arrangements 

 which, in a considerable degree, prevent superiority 

 from profiting by the rewards of superiority, or 

 shield inferiority from the evils it entails any 

 arrangements which tend to make it as well to be 

 inferior as to be superior, are arrangements dia- 

 metrically opposed to the progress of organisation, 

 and the reaching of a higher life." 



THE EXTREME " LAISSEZ-FAIRE " POSITION. In 

 face of this dilemma various suggestions have been 

 made. The first is that we should try to restrict 

 our kindness a kindness which the future may 

 call cruelty. Plato, in his " Laws," recognised the 

 value of the " purgation of the State " which was 

 effected automatically by a stern struggle for 

 existence ; and to an interference with natural 

 selection, it is said, much of our sea of troubles is 



1 See " The Kingdom of Man," by Sir E. Ray Lankester. (London, 

 1906.) 



