Heredity in Man. 



00/ 



inefficiency, and the consequent hereditary increment of 

 efficiency in those who remain to contribute as parents 

 to the continuation of the race, much confusion of thought 

 would be avoided. In this sense I contend that natural 

 selection is not an important factor in human progress 

 among the civilized races of to-day. 



What does take place is a good deal of selective ar- 

 rangement of the individuals constantly coming to maturity. 

 But, as I have elsewhere contended,* it is obvious that 

 such selection, without the removal or exclusion of the 

 non-selected, does nothing to alter the general level of 

 faculty, in the race of Englishmen for example. Nay, 

 more, if the elimination of the unintellectual may be 

 excluded, and if they steadily increase by natural genera- 

 tion more rapidly than the intellectual, the general level 

 of faculty must, on purely natural selection principles, 

 be steadily falling. Be this as it may, such selection, 

 without elimination, as occurs is merely a classification of 

 the individuals in order of merit. It arranges the indi- 

 viduals in classes, but does nothing more. Let me ex- 

 emplify by an analogous case. Fifty boys who have been 

 admitted to a public school, await examination in a class- 

 room. They are at present unclassified, but there is a 

 mean of ability among the whole fifty. A week afterwards 

 they are distributed in different forms. Some are chosen 

 for a higher form, others have to take lower places. But 

 though selection has classified the material, it has not 

 altered the mean of ability among the fifty boys. This can 

 only be done by rejecting a certain number altogether, 

 or excluding them from the school. Then the mean ability 

 of those that remain will of course be raised. Selection, 

 without elimination, involves no racial progress. 



* "Animal Life and Intelligence," p. 499, from which some of the 

 material of this paragraph has been extracted. 



Z 



