LESSONS OF EVOLUTION 613 



of relaxed sifting. In regard to that the records of organic 

 and social evolution are alike eloquent. No one has stated 

 the dilemma more poignantly than Spencer : '' Any arrange- 

 ments which, in a considerable degree, prevent superiority 

 from profiting by the rewards of superiority, or shield in- 

 feriority from the evils it entails — any arrangements which 

 tend to make it as well to be inferior as to be superior, are 

 arrangements diametrically opposed to the progress of or- 

 ganisation, and the reaching of a higher life." That way 

 perdition lies. It is a dilemma of civilisation that we can- 

 not tolerate Nature's regime, the individual life means so 

 much to us; and yet we have not replaced it by any suffi- 

 ciently strict, and consistent, and carefully thought-out sift- 

 ing methods of our own. 



There is satisfaction in healing the sick and preventing 

 wastage of life; we cannot but try to alleviate suffering; 

 but there is no gainsaying the danger of being cruel to fu- 

 ture generations by being kind in the present. There is the 

 undeniable risk of helping too much, of coddling the un- 

 desirable and unwholesome so that they get strength enougli 

 to multiply, often spoiling good stock with the infiltration 

 of bad. The wheat may have too much sympathy for the 

 tares, and societies for the amalgamation of heaven and hell 

 do not commend themselves to the wise. 



This is a large and difficult question — the transition from 

 Natural Selection to some other kind of selection which will 

 grip the germ-plasm. The following three considerations 

 are submitted. (1) In a number of cases the diseases and 

 miseries with which civilised man is successfully coping are 

 indiscriminate in their elimination. They thin the ranks, 

 but they do not weed out or sift. The checking of such 

 diseases and miseries will not, therefore, especially encourage 



