THE CAUSATION OF DISEASE. 2$7 



place, lie may possess hereditary wealth. In this case he does 

 not require to struggle for food, and, like the parasite, is apt 

 to retrograde, but such deterioration is rather a moral than a 

 physical one, and does not immediately concern the pathologist. 

 In the second place, the E of a sickly individual may be made 

 easy by scrupulous and unremitting care. Have we to deal 

 with a weak and sickly child, we may, by great care, and, it 

 may be, skill, rescue it from a death which was otherwise 

 certain, and the like is true of those suffering from many 

 diseases, such as pneumonia, stone, strangulated hernia. Now, 

 whenever life is thus artificially preserved, the operation of 

 natural selection is interfered with. The physician is, in fact, 

 part and parcel of the E of sick people, and whenever he 

 rescues an individual not past the procreative period from 

 a disease due to other causes than accident, he interferes with 

 the operation of natural selection, and so far, by rendering 

 the E less rigorous, tends to lower the health standard of the 

 race. I advisedly say tends, for, as we shall see in a future 

 chapter, the health standard is not in all cases thus necessarily 

 lowered. If a number of sickly, delicate children are by skilful 

 treatment successfully reared, the general health standard is 

 necessarily lowered, no doubt, but the like cannot be said when 

 life is saved by operating on a strangulated hernia. 



Nevertheless, for the reasons just mentioned — i.e., because 

 sufficient food is placed within the reach of the weak as well 

 as the strong ; and, secondly, by reason of a wise and careful 

 manipulation of the E — we may safely conclude that in civilized 

 communities the physical health tends to deteriorate. The 

 individual tends to become levelled down to a less rigorous E. 



And what is true of the physical man is true also of the moral. 

 A perusal of Spencer's " Sociology " will make this manifest. 

 Therein he deals with the moral man. He points out the 

 harmful influence on the poor of excessive State aid ; for, in 

 proportion as they are helped — that is to say, as the E is made- 

 easy for them — in that same proportion will there occur a 

 degeneration of the moral self, so far, at least, as the capacity 

 of self-help is concerned. Not only does no moral improve- 

 ment result from excessive State intervention, but there is an 

 actual levelling down of the individual to his more easy E. 



