218 DARWINISM AND HUMAN LIFE 



due. Can we not return, then, in some measure 

 to the old regime ? Should we not be more 

 guarded in our interference with natural elimination, 

 e.q. in preventing the elimination of weaklings and 

 wasters whose survival and propagation cannot but 

 be a drag on the race ? 



This suggestion is open to many objections. In 

 the first place, there is the general answer that, as 

 civilisation has involved continuous interference 

 with natural selection, there is danger in the 

 proposal to pursue directly opposite tactics. In 

 the second place, the theoretical suggestion to 

 return to the old natural selection regime is not 

 practicable, partly because of the complexity of 

 our social organisation, which offers so many 

 niches of opportunity to weaklings and wasters, 

 and partly because, without a great change in social 

 sentiment, it is in civilised communities quite 

 impossible not to try to save those to whom 

 Nature would show no mercy. It is likely that 

 we are often cruel in our charity, but we cannot 

 altogether help it. 



Besides these general objections to the extreme 

 laissez-faire position, there are many particular 

 objections. Let us take, for instance, the sugges- 

 tion that we should cease supporting hospitals and 

 the like. 



(1) Our attempt to lessen an artificially ex- 

 aggerated infantile mortality cannot be accurately 

 described as an interference with the order of 

 nature ! 



(2) Much weakness which we try to strengthen 

 is only superficially, not organically weak ; and 

 while we keep alive some who are rotten we save 

 many who only require temporary shelter. One 



