MISPLACED RELIANCE. 155 



potentialities does not directly or readily tend to 

 become congenital, it is evident that some consider- 

 able amount of natural or artificial selection of the 

 more favourably varying individuals will still be the 

 only means of securing the race against the constant 

 tendency to degeneration which would ultimately 

 swallow up all the advantages of civilization. The 

 selective influences by which our present high level 

 has been reached and maintained may well be modi- 

 fied, but they must not be abandoned or reversed 

 in the rash expectation that State education, or 

 State feeding of children, or State housing of the 

 poor, or any amount of State socialism or public 

 or private philanthropy, will prove permanently 

 satisfactory substitutes. If ruinous deterioration 

 and other more immediate evils, are to be avoided, 

 the race must still be to the swift and the battle to 

 the strong. The healthy Individualism so earnestly 

 championed by Mr. Spencer must be allowed free 

 play. Open competition, as Darwin teaches, with 



