4 o6 MY LIFE 



inward or outward breathing, and especially the mute or 

 liquid consonants ending words which serve to indicate abrupt 

 or continuous motion, have corresponding - meanings in so many 

 cases as to show a fundamental connection. I thus enormously 

 extend the principle of onomatopoeias in the origin of vocal 

 language. As I have been unable to find any reference to this 

 important factor in the origin of language, and as no compe- 

 tent writer has pointed out any fallacy in it, I think I am 

 justified in supposing it to be new and important. Mr. Glad- 

 stone informed me that there were many thousands of illustra- 

 tions of my ideas in Homer. 



10. In 1890 I published in the Fortnightly Review an article 

 on "Human Selection," and in 1892 (in the Boston Arena) 

 one on " Human Progress, Past and Future." These deal 

 with different aspects of the same great problem — the gradual 

 improvement of the race by natural process; and they were 

 also written partly for the purpose of opposing the various 

 artificial processes of selection advocated by several English 

 and American writers. I showed that the only method of 

 advance for us,, as for the lower animals, is in some form 

 of natural selection, and that the only mode of natural selec- 

 tion that can act alike on physical, mental, and moral qual- 

 ities will come into play under a social system which gives 

 equal opportunities of culture, training, leisure, and happi- 

 ness to every individual. This extension of the principle of 

 natural selection as it acts in the animal world generally is, 

 I believe, quite new, and is by far the most important of the 

 new ideas I have given to the world. 



A short summary of these papers appears in my thirty- 

 third chapter; but every one interested in the deepest social 

 problems should read the articles themselves (in my " Stud- 

 ies"), which give a very condensed statement of the whole 

 argument. 



11. In an article on " The Glacial Erosion of Lake Basins ' 

 (in the Fortnightly Review, December, 1893), I brought to- 

 gether the whole of the evidence bearing upon the question, 



