88 HEREDITY 



The tendency of civilisation, from its very start, has 

 been to prevent the action of natural selection between 

 individuals. Under modern conditions the weak are 

 protected as far as possible, and, beyond a proportion 

 of our lunatics and habitual drunkards, there are few 

 men who find it impossible to rear families. Natural 

 selection, it is true, has not entirely ceased to operate. 

 Diseases, such as consumption, exercise a selective influ- 

 ence, and alcoholism prevents many more from repro- 

 ducing ; so that the race is probably progressing towards 

 immunity from consumption and towards natural 

 sobriety. But, on the whole, as regards the main im- 

 portant qualities of physical fitness, moral characters, and 

 intellect, natural selection has nearly ceased to operate. 



There remains, of course, a genuine struggle for supre- 

 macy among the nations, which has the effect of sup- 

 pressing very decadent peoples ; but its positive result 

 in the way of improving the species generally cannot 

 be large. 



With the domestic animals man has replaced natural 

 by artificial selection, and his results have been little 

 short of marvellous. As regards his own species, he 

 has provided no substitute for natural selection. 



But this is not all. It is a recognised fact that in 

 most civilised societies the net rate of increase is con- 

 siderably greater in the lower grades than in the higher ; 

 the lower and in general less desirable classes tend to 

 multiply at the expense of what are regarded as the 

 better types, and the general average is dragged lower 

 in each successive generation. 



With reference to the remedy for this state of affairs, 

 some biologists have regarded the elimination of natural 

 selection as a disaster to the race. They have concluded 

 that the remedy is to be found in a return to a state of 

 the sternest individualism, in which there would be no 

 hospitals or charities, so that the weak and the unfit 

 should receive no encouragement. Modern legislation 

 providing for old-age pensions, unemployment insurance, 

 &c., has been deprecated as tending to encourage the 

 weak at the expense of the strong. 



