INTRODUCTORY 203 



And if, as the decades and the centuries pass, the process is 

 continued, the race will step by step adapt itself, through the 

 constant elimination of the unfit, to conditions which result from 

 human effort. Thus, as far as morality is concerned, the human 

 race is master of its own future. 



It does not seem likely that there will be a corresponding intellect 

 evolution of intellect. There is very little elimination for 

 stupidity. A comparatively small number of thinkers, discoverers, 

 inventors do the high intellectual work for the masses of men, 

 who are able to make use of the work done by brains of a higher 

 order, whereas a man's virtue must be his own. 



Physically speaking, the race continues its evolution, adapting Physique 

 itself to the new conditions which advancing civilisation makes ^ ra \- lt 

 for it. But here the result is not what we should wish. The civilisation 

 conditions are progressively softened, and adaptation must there- advances 

 fore mean a decline in physique. Thus intellectually man is 

 hardly able to raise the survival standard : physically he is con- 

 stantly lowering it. Morally he is able to raise it, and certainly 

 in some nations the upward movement is beyond dispute. And 

 as inventors increase men's wealth and leisure more and more, 

 there must be a corresponding development of moral principle, 

 or the nation will be wrecked for want of it. The bare mini- 

 mum of religion and morality necessary was very small when 

 almost the whole energy of man was required for the struggle 

 to maintain life. The individual has ample opportunity now to 

 deviate into habits that must be injurious to the nation to which 

 he belongs. Thus the growth of wealth raises the minimum 

 standard of virtue. The nation must grow morally better as it 

 grows richer, or it will be conquered by some other nation that 

 has not lost its equilibrium. 



What has been said has already brought out a distinction that Progress 

 must never be lost sight of. Progress in civilisation is not the "JJlution 

 same thing as evolution. But moral evolution, as I have shown, 

 must follow in the wake of progress. When the standard of 

 morality is raised, it comes about continually that those to whom 

 the new atmosphere is uncongenial suffer elimination. Intel- 

 lectually, there is progress through the accumulation of know- 



