308 PROBLEMS OF HUMAN EVOLUTION 



for survival is lower. But there remains a standard, to fall 

 below which is fatal. In the same way morality founded upon 

 a religious basis has come in to check vice before it has pro- 

 ceeded far enough to entail elimination and to check tendencies 

 which, however harmful to the State, may bring material 

 prosperity to the individuals in whom they show themselves. 

 Natural Selection remains in the background, but not so very 

 far off. Religion and morality make their appeal to a man, and 

 if that appeal fails he falls a victim eventually to his own vices, 

 or is removed by certain indirect means of elimination that 

 Natural Selection has at command for those who are deficient 

 in morality, deficient, that is, in any of the qualities that are 

 essential to social life. As to self-indulgence, there is no need 

 to say more than has been said already. Science does its best 

 to save a man from the consequences, but in the end, if there 

 is persistence, elimination must follow. But as to the social 

 virtues and the way in which they are fostered by evolution in 

 its present course much remains to be said. The anti-social 

 sins all spring from want of respect for the rights of others. 

 Dishonesty in its many forms is, probably, the most ruinous 

 of all. And what we wish now to discover is the process by 

 which honesty, as we find it in civilised states, has been evolved. 

 Now there are two ways in which we can imagine this possible. 

 A body of religious principles might be accumulated and these 

 might be in successive generations preached with intensified 

 effect, each generation perhaps adding something, each pointing 

 to the venerable character and prestige of the truths insisted on. 

 But such influences working alone could do but little, a fact 

 that becomes clear when we reflect that exhortation is not 

 creation : it can only awaken and stimulate qualities that are 

 already present. In other words, morality is not transferable. 

 Preaching and example can develop what is good in a character, 

 and cause the starvation of what is bad, but they cannot implant 

 new tendencies. This is not said with a view to detract from 

 the value of preaching by example or precept, but to show 

 that there must be a basis of natural disposition on which the 

 influence of religion and moral principle may work. This 



