8 THE FAMILY AND THE NATION 



Unless the fittest to survive hand on their qualities to 

 a larger number of descendants than are left by the 

 failures, natural selection cannot act. It is of no use for 

 an organism individually to survive unless it transmits 

 the character which enabled it to do so to a preponder- 

 ating number in succeeding generations. Until recent 

 years, success in life's race among men has in general 

 meant an increased number of offspring and a better 

 chance for their survival. But now the growing restric- 

 tion of the birth-rate in the successful classes in all ranks 

 of society has separated the two essential concomitants 

 of progress, and even of stability. A struggle for life 

 and the survival of the fittest are meaningless alone ; 

 the qualities of the fittest must survive superabundantly 

 his own fleeting existence, if the struggle and the 

 survival are to produce any good effect on the race. 



In older, more natural, ages, when success in life 

 and a dominant rate of reproduction went hand in 

 hand, two kinds of struggle are to be distinguished. 

 There is the individual rivalry between man and man 

 for the fruits of the earth and the beauty of woman. 

 There is the combined clash of family with family, 

 tribe with tribe, nation with nation. In both the fittest 

 tend to survive ; but the fittest in the individual fight 

 do not always go to make the more efficient social 

 organism. 



To conquer in the duel and in love a man needs 

 courage, strength, skill, virility, and good looks. And 

 it is necessary that the society which surrounds him 

 should regard his success as natural and justifiable. 

 The social conditions must be too simple and too 

 healthy for it to be possible that 



