NATURAL SELECTION 159 



meaning of what they carry on their shoulders? 

 The perfecting of man consists in the perpetual 

 improving of his intelligence, and this can be done 

 only by a wise and methodical application that 

 secures the correspondence of the internal to the 

 external. Of what use could an unconscious force 

 such as the struggle for existence be to humanity \ 

 Of only one : to justify its continuance in barbarism. 

 There are other contradictions, truly puerile. 

 I refer to what in natural selection is included in 

 the struggle against climate, inclemency, cold, 

 storms, rains, or drought, and a thousand circum- 

 stances in which is brought into play, as one of 

 the many factors, what we have agreed to call the 

 struggle for life. It is man who can best support 

 all climates ; he is the only animal that has been 

 able to adapt himself for life from the equator to 

 the poles; considering man as an organism, and 

 comparing him as an animal with all other animals, 

 the advantage lies with man ; but to stop at this 

 sole comparison, forgetting the significance of 

 intelligence, would be to incur an error like Malthus. 

 Man conquers the inclemencies of climate, not 

 only through being able to adapt himself to them 

 better than all other animals, but chiefly because 

 his industry provides him with shelter against the 

 rigours of cold, rain, etc. The proof of this is that 

 it is not the healthiest countries that have the best 



