EGOISM IN THE HUMAN RACE 245 



small number of stocks. If we look through the com- 

 munities and find out how many individuals pass 

 through life without leaving behind them at least 

 two offspring to continue the race, we shall, perhaps, 

 be surprised at their number, and we shall be im- 

 pressed with the fact that even in our civilized com- 

 munity influences act upon mankind, producing the 

 constant extinction of lines of descent. This is 

 natural selection, slowly but surely cutting out lines 

 of descent, exactly parallel to that which occurs in 

 animals, even though the facts that contribute to it 

 are so wonderfully different. 



These factors, acting in the various strata of 

 society, result in constant elimination of individuals, 

 families, and even races. But elimination is nature's 

 method of producing progress. Thus the human 

 race is by no means exempt from this law of struggle 

 of man with man; and among the confusing condi- 

 tions of modern civilized society it is as true as it 

 ever was that those individuals continue to exist who 

 are best adapted to the conditions of life in which 

 they live, although the best adapted are not always 

 the so-called higher classes. Man still lives under 

 the influence of natural selection. It is no longer 

 lack of food that eliminates from existence the indi- 

 vidual, or the family, or the race. It is no longer 

 over-reproduction that causes the struggle for exist- 

 ence, for with the expanding intelligence and power 

 of mankind the world is still large enough for all the 

 individuals that can come into it, and food enough 

 can be produced to furnish them all with suste- 

 nance. His struggle comes now from other causes — 

 from disease, sensualism, and, above all, from the 

 series of artificial customs which he has built up 



