The General Good 37 



with man, would appear to be free from all unnatural 

 crimes which militate directly against their own race 

 survival. "The instincts of the lower animals," says 

 Darwin, "are never so perverted as to lead them reg- 

 ularly to destroy their own offspring," ^ and, he 

 might have added, "or themselves," in the case at 

 least of the higher gregarious animals. A thief who 

 preys upon his own kind, a sensualist who sacrifices the 

 young of his or her own race to his or her selfish lust, a 

 parasite who lives upon his fellows, in a word the spoilers 

 and exploiters of mankind, would seem to violate the 

 moral law of their own race, i.e., the general welfare, 

 in a way which the lowest gregarious animal would not 

 be guilty of habitually. True, the lower animals will 

 sometimes "expel a wounded animal from the herd, 

 or gore or worry it to death. This is almost the 

 blackest fact in natural history, unless indeed the 

 explanation which has been suggested is true, that their 

 instinct or reason leads them to expel an injured com- 

 panion lest beasts of prey, including man, should be 

 tempted to follow the troop," ^ thus aiding instead 

 of militating against race survival, thus helping on the 

 good of the general. Darwin defined the term " gen- 

 eral good " as " the rearing of the greatest possible num- 

 ber of individuals in full vigor and health and with all 

 their faculties perfect, under the conditions to which 

 they are exposed." ^ In his view of the future of our 

 race he would seem to incline to the view that selec- 



1 The Descent of Man, vol. I. p. 129. 



2 Ibid. p. 73. 3 Ibid. p. 94. 



