272 PROBLEMS OF HUMAN EVOLUTION 



On the soundness of these the general vigour of the organism 

 depends. For example, no artificial peptonising of food is ever 

 likely to relieve it of the task of assimilation. On the other 

 hand, a man who is bald at thirty, whose teeth are artificial, and 

 whose eyesight is far from perfect, may be vigorous and efficient 

 under modern conditions. Now we may feel sure- that those 

 qualities which are essential to general efficiency will die harder 

 than those which, in their perfection at least, have become mere 

 luxuries, if we may so describe soundness of teeth and keenness 

 of sight. The former can at the fastest degenerate only at a rate 

 proportionate to the general softening of the environment ; the 

 latter may have a velocity of their own since they have ceased to 

 rank among things of first-rate importance. 



Thus we can see clearly that certain powers are likely to be 

 lost rapidly as compared with others. This, however, tells us 

 nothing about the absolute rate ; the number of generations in 

 which any given organ will have dwindled so far as to lose, say, 

 half its efficiency. Such definiteness is from the nature of the 

 case unattainable. But, by the distinction just made, much light 

 is thrown on a very interesting question. We often hear of the 

 permanence of race characters. These permanent characters are 

 those that are maintained by the environment. If Englishmen 

 are now, as regards their most salient qualities, what they were 

 in the sixteenth century, it is because the same qualities are still 

 in demand. To bring together two more distant dates, if men 

 who may be regarded as the prize products of civilisation are 

 capable when need arrives of fighting as fiercely as any bar- 

 barians, that is because modern civilised life demands the 

 quality of combativeness in a high state of development. We 

 have everywhere a competitive system. In trade, speculation, 

 the professions, education, athletics, there is a struggle to de- 

 feat rivals or to fight against hard conditions. Law and honour 

 forbid the combatants to inflict bodily injury upon each other or 

 to resort to sharp practice of any kind ; this is the same spirit of 

 humanity that in real war spares and tends the enemy's wounded. 

 Trade between nations is largely of the same nature as war. It 

 it is not merely a friendly exchange but a struggle between 



