64 HUXLEY MEMORIAL LECTURES 



cient will tend to drive out the other. But the 

 state of less efficient labour may be stronger as a 

 military force, and throw the sword into the scale, 

 or it may be wiser politically and make treaties 

 which shall give it an advantage in the markets. 

 Or it may by higher internal organization diminish 

 the friction which wastes power, and so make up 

 for inferior powers of production. And within a 

 state persons or classes of persons who would in 

 the natural course of things be starved on account 

 of their inefficiency may be kept alive through 

 feelings of humanity. And education regulated 

 by the state may be shaped for the particular pur- 

 pose of promoting the efficiency which leads to 

 survival. 



In speaking of the conditions and environment 

 of life it must not be supposed that I speak as a 

 materialist, and am thinking only of the natural 

 frame in which our lives are set. I believe fully 

 that we also live in a spiritual environment, that 

 our lives are parts of a greater and universal life, 

 that we belong to a great commonwealth of spirit. 

 And further I believe that in this spiritual world 

 there may be traced something akin to human 

 will and purpose, but on a higher scale. The 

 ultimate fact for us is not the material world, but 

 the spiritual power which dwells in it and has 

 created it. But this spiritual world also has its 

 laws, not fixed and rigid like the course of the 

 stars, but yet overpowering and dominant. 



Our environment may best be regarded as a 



