NATURAL SELECTION AMONG CIVILIZED MEN 107 



bearing, his hands, his large brain, and his intelligence, are 

 of enormous antiquity. On the other hand, our civilized social 

 organism which preserves the unfit, and our weapons of war 

 which destroy the fit and unfit alike, are modern inventions. 

 Not long ago prince and slave fought side-by-side and hand-to- 

 hand in savage and continuous warfare. Even to-day a bent 

 back, a defective hand, or a low grade of intelligence is a draw- 

 back in the struggle for descendants. 



170. It is unlikely, therefore, that there has been much 

 regression as yet, at any rate as regards the characters on which 

 biological and philosophical writers have fixed their attention. 

 The time has been too short. Indeed there is evidence of some 

 progression, for the armour of our not very remote ancestors 

 must have belonged to quite small men, and it is said that 

 modern Norwegians are able to introduce one hand only into 

 the two-handed sword-hilts of their ancestors. Probably the 

 defective sight, hearing, and teeth of civilized men are 

 attributable largely to the effect of disuse on the individual. 

 Boers and Australian Bushmen appear to have senses as keen 

 as those of savages, and Negroes dwelling in the Northern 

 States of the American Union are said to suffer as much from 

 caries of the teeth and defective sight as white men. The 

 intellectual achievements of the ancient Greeks were very 

 splendid, but there are strong reasons to believe that their 

 superiority was due more to the excellence of their mental 

 training than to the greatness of their natural powers. 



171. Other writers maintain that man is undergoing, not 

 regression, but great and rapid evolution. They point, as 

 proof, to his recent wonderful advance in civilization. But 

 here the word evolution is not used in its biological sense. 

 The existence of the steam-engine and the electric telegraph 

 do not imply an intrinsic change in mind and body. They 

 belong not to human evolution, but to what has been termed 

 " evolution in the environment." 



172. The truth appears to be that the gradual cessation of 

 the old causes of elimination has caused or is causing human 

 evolution on ancient lines to cease ; but as yet the time has 

 not been sufficient to permit appreciable regression. Just as 

 hands and feet ceased to evolve hundreds of thousands of 

 years ago, just as heart and lungs ceased to evolve at a 

 period still more remote, so the evolution of size, strength, 

 and intelligence has probably reached its term. In all these 

 particulars the race is so well adapted to the environment 

 that the amount of elimination which now obtains merely 

 sustains, but does not add to, the antecedent evolution. But 



