Chapter XII 



THE GREAT PRACTICAL PROBLEM 



I HAVE shown or attempted to show (l) that the tendency of Recapitu- 

 civilisation is to reduce physical vigour ; (2) that among men ^eepre- 

 Natural Selection often fails to eliminate individuals for conduct ceding 

 that is ruinous to the tribe or nation to which they belong ; from apte 

 this failure of Natural Selection has resulted the evolution of 

 morality and religion which have stepped in to save the human 

 race from falling victims to their own vices ; that now among 

 civilised peoples evolution is working mainly towards a strength- 

 ening of the moral virtues j (3) that intellect, though there is no 

 increase in actual brain power, is yet becoming more and more 

 potent, since it has at its command an ever-growing accumulation 

 of knowledge. Inventors are constantly making it easier to get interaction 

 food or minerals out of the earth, to turn raw material into useful 

 appliances, and to transfer commodities from one part of the world 

 to another. To the inventor the world owes an enormous growth 

 of wealth, a very marked growth of leisure. Such changes de- 

 mand a corresponding increase of morality and religion. When 

 almost the whole energies of man were required to keep body 

 and soul together, then the need of moral principle was not so 

 great. All material progress necessitates an advance in morality, 

 or else retrogression will set in, the nation not having sufficient 

 virtue to stand the new strain. It is not difficult, if we pass in 

 review the various nations that have hitherto ranked as progres- 

 sive, to find some whose further advance seems to be arrested, 

 not by a failure of intellectual power, but by a deficiency of 

 moral principle. 



But moral principle is not only the cementing force that holds 

 society together. It tends also to hasten the process of physical 

 degeneration. To take the most striking instance, men are 



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