234 PROBLEMS OF HUMAN EVOLUTION 



Civilised man can undoubtedly weather many diseases that 

 are fatal to the savage. But is it certain that this power will 

 remain his, now that medical science is advancing with a 

 rapidity unknown hitherto and shielding him from enemies 

 against which formerly his own strength of constitution was his 

 only defence ? 



For the Darwinian the matter might seem to be settled by 

 the simple statement that all organisms tend to become adapted 

 to their surroundings. If, however, a race character, once it 

 has been well established, cannot be lost or seriously impaired 

 in less, say, than 100,000 years, the vital question still remains 

 unanswered. 



The more important points at issue, I shall, therefore, discuss 

 in some detail, bearing in mind that what we wish to know is 

 not so much whether degeneration is taking place but whether 

 it is rapid enough to be worth considering. 



I must first, however, guard against the drawing of a false 

 inference from a fact which I have already brought to the 

 reader's notice. Natural Selection still secures as its victims 

 nearly half the persons born and from this it might be argued 

 that the softening of the conditions of life has not gone far 

 enough as yet to involve any danger : that civilisation has, 

 after all, only brought it about that the percentage of the 

 population eliminated in the present day is some 48 compared 

 with about 57 some forty years back a reduction of 9 per 

 cent, or less. To this objection there is a very simple answer. 

 Hard upon the softening of the environment, which reduces 

 the amount of elimination, there follows (if pammixis works 

 as I believe it does) a deterioration in physique. Hence, 

 however easy life may be made, as long as the process is gradual, 

 there will never be any great reduction of the death-rate. It 

 is not the easiness of the conditions of life but the change in 

 them, the change from hard to easy, that lowers the rate of 

 mortality. And, surely, a reduction of 8 or 9 per cent, is no 

 trifle. 



