32 THE KINGDOM OF MAN 



step. Or again we may think of him as the heir to a vast 

 and magnificent kingdom who has been finally educated 

 so as to fit him to take possession of his property, and is 

 at length left alone to do his best ; he has wilfully abro- 

 gated, in many important respects, the laws of his mother 

 Nature by which the kingdom was hitherto governed ; he 

 has gained some power and advantage by so doing, but is 

 threatened on every hand by dangers and disasters 

 hitherto restrained : no retreat is possible his only 

 hope is to control, as he knows that he can, the sources 

 of these dangers and disasters. They already make him 

 wince : how long will he sit listening to the fairy-tales 

 of his boyhood and shrink from manhood's task ? 



A brief consideration of well-ascertained facts is 

 sufficient to show that Man, whilst emancipating him- 

 self from the destructive methods of natural selection, 

 has accumulated a new series of dangers and difficul- 

 ties with which he must incessantly contend. 



14. MAN AND DISEASE. 



In the extra-human system of Nature there is no 

 disease and there is no conjunction of incompatible 

 forms of life, such as Man has brought about on the 

 surface of the globe. In extra-human Nature the 

 selection of the fittest necessarily eliminates those 

 diseased or liable to disease. Disease both of parasitic 

 and congenital origin occurs as a minor phenomenon. 

 The congenitally diseased are destroyed before they 

 can reproduce : the attacks of parasites great and small 

 either serve only to carry off the congenitally weak, and 

 thus strengthen the race, or become harmless by the 

 survival of those individuals which, owing to peculiar 

 qualities in their tissues, can tolerate such attacks with- 



