THE GREAT PRACTICAL PROBLEM 337 



With men this is not so. The vicious man does not immediately 

 suffer the penalty for his vices : his children may survive though 

 he neglects them. Anti-social conduct may escape detection 

 and remain unpunished. Thus a place is made for morality and 

 religion. They intervene when Natural Selection retreats into 

 the background and acts on the tribe or nation, not on the 

 individual. I have re-stated this position instead of merely 

 referring to it, because of its great importance. Grant that 

 morality was thus evolved and, I believe, the conclusion towards 

 which I am working follows. 



The circumstances under which morality and religion first 

 arose suggest a remedy for the evil that now endangers civilisa- 

 tion. Once more Natural Selection is retreating, is being driven 

 further into the background. Comparative ease and comfort 

 due to the advance of science and the growing spirit of altruism 

 are likely ere long to be the lot of the large majority of civilised 

 men. This, in itself a thing to be welcomed, must ultimately 

 lead to physical degeneracy. Once more, in fact,the slackening 

 of Natural Selection is bringing with it a danger similar to that 

 with which men were confronted when human reason first began 

 to work. Ages back, vice and anti-social conduct threatened 

 tribes and nations with ruin, and morality and religion stepped 

 in to save them, or rather those of them who could feel the 

 value of such things. Now the increased softness of the en- 

 vironment threatens physical degeneracy. Since in both cases 

 the danger has been due to the slackening of Natural Selection, 

 may not in each case the remedy be the same ? Morality and 

 religion interposed to avert ruin when man's ancestors first 

 became men : may they not equally step in now, annexing new 

 regions hitherto not subject to them ? 



There is no need to go into details as to the method of their 

 working. From the nature of the case, legislation can give but 

 little assistance, though it may give some. It is only the educa- 

 tion of the people to a higher morality that can be of much 

 avail : in time the propagation of weakness and misery may 

 come to be counted among sins. The services of sexual selec- 

 tion may be enlisted and may effect a great deal. I have shown 



