'Chapter VII 



I 



INTRODUCTORY 



THE main principles of evolution must, if they are true, be of Main prin- 

 universal application : what is true of the organic world generally " th 

 must, if we allow for modifying conditions, be true of man. If 

 development proceeds on Neo-Darwinian and not on Lamarckian 

 principles in the animal and plant worlds as a whole, this must 

 hold true also of human evolution. A strong race must result 

 from a struggle with hard conditions, not from high feeding or 

 other things favourable to the individual. If among wild animals 

 what has been gained by the long-continued working of Natural 

 Selection is lost comparatively quickly when selection ceases, 

 we must expect to find, among men no less, under like circum- 

 stances a like degeneration. 1 Adaptation is the rule in the 

 human race as everywhere else in the organic world, and if the 

 conditions of life become soft, then the race will in time become 

 soft and enervated. 



Everywhere in animated nature the same moulding principles 

 are at work. But the circumstances under which men, especially 

 civilised men, live, are exceptional and peculiar. And thus, 

 though the general principles of evolution hold true here as 

 elsewhere, we must study the altered circumstances before we 

 attempt to apply them. As we proceed in the study of human 

 evolution, we shall see the familiar phenomenon, the species 

 adapting itself to its conditions. But we shall see also 

 phenomena that are entirely new to the evolutionist who has 

 limited his attention to the lower animals or to plants. 



1 On pammixis, see pp. 94-103. 



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