The Theory of Evolution 43 



charity, social legislation, or, in fact, any at- 

 tempt to interfere with the severe competition 

 which wore out and flung aside the workers, 

 M^as regarded as unscientific. The law of natu- 

 ral selection in society should not be thwarted. 

 Let the commercial struggle go on ; let the able 

 and the shrewd build their leisure classes on 

 the basis of ownership of land and other prop- 

 erty; let them increase in numbers while the 

 severity of conflict causes the weaklings to be 

 exploited and to perish, and progress was con- 

 sidered certain. By some extremists it was 

 even thought to be advisable to promote vices 

 such as drunkenness and sensuality, since by 

 such means the unwary might be entrapped 

 and destroyed. As one scientist phrased it, 

 keep "a wide open door to hell," and so let 

 the unfit perish and the fit survive. Man's 

 kinship with the animals having been definitely 

 established, society was to find its pattern in 

 the jungle. Such was the practical, though 

 unwarranted, outcome of Darwinism. 



With Darwin and Spencer that burst of 

 intellectual life which had come with the ad- 

 vent of the machine age reached its height. 

 Even during their time it had begun to lessen. 

 British thought became timid, and the intel- 



