Social Environment and Eugenics 121 



of primitive customs expressive of the blood 

 bond, by which the individually weak were 

 welded into the socially strong group. And 

 such measures are in reality the most practi- 

 cable eugenic measures. If society is to con- 

 tinue it must devise means to perpetuate the 

 lives and homes of the productive and the so- 

 cially minded against those who are examples 

 of the natural standard of success in their abil- 

 ity to take. The natural standard readily 

 asserts itself in the hisses faire of the market 

 and the battlefield; social standards can be 

 maintained only by the persistent effort of the 

 social mind. 



Evolution has always been sympodial; each 

 succeeding age has been a judgment day that 

 pulled down the mighty and exalted them of 

 low degree. The giant ferns, the dinosaurs, 

 and the mastodons have their day at the pin- 

 nacle of creation, then disappear in favor of 

 some insignificant competitor. So when the 

 present-day lust of greed and blood shall have 

 spent itself, it may be found that the kingdom 

 of the future belongs to some of the despised 

 and the rejected. Who are the fittest ? Is the 

 standard of the jungle or the standard of the 

 gospels to be applied? 



