EVOLUTION THE MASTER-KEY 



upon reproduction, but also a posteriori, by con- 

 sideration of the observed facts of animal and 

 human reproduction. The falling birth-rates of 

 civilization are unquestionably, to my mind, re- 

 lated in some measure to this biological law. 



And so, also, are the falling death-rates of civil- 

 ized peoples. We are evidently approaching a 

 period of adequate adaptation, when the abomi- 

 nable infantile mortality which now disgraces civil- 

 ization will be abolished as it might be to-morrow 

 if we cared enough and when the number of 

 births and of deaths will fall almost to a minimum ; 

 every birth being the beginning, and almost every 

 death being the conclusion, of a complete life: in- 

 stead of, as now, an immense proportion of births 

 being the prelude to, and deaths the expression of, 

 failure. In those days men will see shame and not 

 humor in the question attributed to the dead in- 

 fant : If I was so soon to be done for, what was I be- 

 gun for ? That question should be addressed to, and 

 answered by, not Deity, but man and his humanity. 



But those who have not come to see that moral 

 evil is so called only because it implies physical or 

 mental evil or disease to its subject or to others, 

 may argue that the practical abolition of disease, 

 and of any deaths save such as peacefully close a 

 rounded life, are matters of no moment if moral 

 evil is to survive. Let us, then, ask whether, in 

 this relation also, science permits us to call our- 

 selves meliorists. 



294 



