QUESTION OF PHYSICAL DEGENERATION 249 



chest development and other malformations predispose towards 

 consumption. 



What effect then, is the tendency just described likely to have Conclusion 

 upon physique ? One thing seems plain ; many congenital de- 

 fects that formerly were able to eliminate, will lose their power, 

 since they will have to work unaided : greater defect, wider 

 deviation from the normal, will be possible, without the fatal 

 limit being reached. Persons, therefore, of a lower standard of 

 physique will survive and leave off-spring. Hence it follows 

 that there must be some lowering of the physical strength of 

 the nation. It is. of course, possible that it may be screened by 

 the softening of the conditions of life, so that relatively to their 

 environment men may be stronger. But barbarous or half 

 barbarous races sometimes become part of an environment and 

 then strength of that kind is not of much avail. Our ultimate 

 decision as to the amount of danger in the present tendency must 

 depend on our belief or unbelief in pammixis, as Weismann has 

 called the cessation of selection. If pammixis, by merely allow,- 

 ing disintegration, can bring about loss of whole structures, the 

 masterpieces of organic architecture, imitating in the work of 

 undoing the cumulative action of Natural Selection in building, 

 then the danger is very great. That pammixis has worked 

 among civilised races with apparent cumulative power is, I think, 

 shown by the great development of diseases. Take rheumatism 

 as an instance. We can hardly believe that when it first appeared 

 it had anything like its present malignity since a very slight 

 attack would have left a primitive savage at the mercy of his 

 environment his -enemies or his friends. Its power, therefore, 

 has increased as the generations have passed. And yet men 

 have been selected, as far as selection has continued, not for 

 rheumatic tendencies but rather for their freedom from them. 

 If, however, we deny that pammixis has what is equivalent to 

 cumulative power and admit only that it can produce instability 

 of important race-characters no longer protected by Natural 

 Selection in their full development, even then the danger is not 

 inconsiderable. 1 



1 On the working of pammixis see the next section. 



