6 2 National Life 



of brain and muscle is pushed down into 

 occupations which have little apparent need 

 of them, or forced into new lands even at 

 the expense of inferior races. For upon this 

 reserve we shall surely have to fall back in 

 times of crisis and such crises will come 

 in our lifetime, to judge by economic and 

 political history, which may far surpass in 

 magnitude even that of this year.* Shortly, 

 the statesman has to hold the balance be- 

 tween the strong social feelings upon which 

 are based the external success of the nation 

 and the crude natural check to the unlimited 

 multiplication of the unfit upon which the 

 internal soundness of the nation depends. 

 That is the great lesson we must learn from 

 natural selection and the law of inheritance 

 as applied to human communities. 



I have endeavoured to place before you 

 a few of the problems which, it seems to me, 

 arise from a consideration of some of our 

 recent difficulties in war and in trade. Science 

 is not a dogma ; it has no infallible popes to 

 pronounce authoritatively what its teaching 

 is. I can only say how it seems to one in- 

 * 1900. 



