CHAPTER XVI. 



Criticism of Dr. Mott's Views — Concluding Remarks on Evolution. 



In concluding my remarks on evolution, I should like to allude 

 to an interesting and suggestive paper,* which I read after 

 the foregoing chapters were written. The object of the author 

 is to show that " the outcome of modern intellectual develop- 

 ment in the production of great social changes is to produce a 

 widespread physiological dissolution — namely, a lowering of the 

 vitality of the individual." 



As the result of civilization, the rich, he tells us, get too 

 much, the poor too little ; people, moreover, tend to accumulate 

 in unhealthy towns, to suffer from alcoholism, syphilis, over- 

 pressure of business, &c. A further evil, he believes, results 

 from the fact that artificial selection is " replacing natural selec- 

 tion," and that medical science preserves degenerate types. 

 So far (as my remarks have, I hope, made clear), I entirely 

 concur with this author, but I think he under-estimates the 

 influence of natural selection among civilized peoples. Imper- 

 fect and inferior types are, as I have shown, being perpetually 

 weeded out. Moreover, we may, I believe, conclude that so 

 long as the population of a country (like our own, for instance) 

 goes on increasing, the physical standard of the nation, as a, 

 ivhole, must keep at a high level, for, owing to the rigour 

 of the E — which is in direct proportion to the severity of the 

 struggle for existence — a high average strength is required. 



I further take exception to another opinion which Dr. Mott 

 arrives at. In a huge, social organism like London, where 

 waste and repair are ceaselessly going on, fresh material for 

 assimilation is provided in the shape of a continually in-pouring 

 populace, notably from the country. But Dr. Mott believes 

 * Dr. Mott, Edinhurgh Medical Journal, April 1887. 



