396 THE WORLD OF LIFE 



CHAP. 



but by the agency of his ministering angels through many 

 descending grades of intelligence and power. 



Diversity of Human Character 



Many people are disturbed by the now well-established 

 fact that the effects of use, of training, or of education, are 

 not inherited ; and that though innate mental as well as 

 bodily characters vary much through inheritance, these can 

 only be developed in special directions by some form of 

 selection. There being very little if any effective selection 

 of character among civilised people, they therefore fear that 

 there can be no continued advance of the race. Quite 

 recently I have discussed this question from two points of 

 view. By a general glance over the early history of 

 civilised man I have shown that there is little if any 

 evidence of advance in character or in intellect from the 

 earliest times of which we have any record. 1 I had already, 

 twenty years ago, shown in some detail how, under a rational 

 system of society, in which all the present soul-degrading 

 influences of individualistic wealth and poverty would be 

 abolished (especially as leading to unholy marriages), a 

 progressive advance in character would necessarily arise 

 through elimination of the worst and most degraded 

 by an effective and truly natural selection. 2 The following 

 passage towards the end of the former article will briefly 

 indicate the nature of the argument in both these essays : 



" The great lesson taught us by this brief exposition of the 

 phenomena of character in relation to the known laws of organic 

 evolution is this : that our imperfect human nature, with its almost 

 infinite possibilities of good and evil, can only make a systematic 

 advance through the thoroughly sympathetic and ethical training 

 of every child from infancy upwards, combined with that perfect 

 freedom of choice in marriage which will only be possible when all 

 are economically equal, and no question of social rank or material 

 advantage can have the slightest influence in determining that 

 choice." 



It now only remains to show, very briefly, how the views 

 here sketched out are in perfect harmony with the entire 



1 "Evolution and Character," Fortnightly Review, January i, 1908. 



2 "Human Selection," Fortnightly Review, September 1890. Reprinted 

 in Studies, Scientific and Social, 1900, vol. i. p. 509. 



