ALTRUISM 251 



where bolstering up the weak classes of the world 

 and preserving them, instead of allowing them to 

 yield to the struggle for life according to the inexo- 

 rable law of natural selection. The aid given every- 

 where among civilized races to the lower classes of 

 unfortunates, and extended to the weak races of the 

 world, has a tendency to preserve the weak at the 

 expense of the strong. All these factors have been 

 thoroughly recognized over and over again by all 

 who think clearly upon the conditions of modern 

 society. They constitute a reversal of natural selec- 

 tion. The ethical side of man's nature preserves 

 those who are least fitted to live, and then, by the 

 inexorable law of heredity, their weaknesses are 

 transmitted to the following generations. 



The Ethical Sense Alone Peoduces Strong 



Nations 



Biologists particularly have been seriously asking 

 what results may be expected from the reversal of 

 the law of natural selection, since elsewhere in the 

 animal kingdom selection is required, not only to 

 produce, but to retain characters. Weismann has 

 studied this principle, which he calls panmixia, and 

 has shown that, among animals, it always results in 

 degradation and weakness. We are forced to ask, 

 therefore, whether such is not the law of mankind as 

 well as of other animals. If so, will not the inevi- 

 table result of the ethical law, which preserves the 

 weak as well as the strong, be a degeneration of man- 

 kind? Are not our ethical rules fastening weakness 

 upon the race and turning mankind downward 

 instead of upward? The result of such considera- 

 tions, in recent years, has led some of our biological 



