NATURAL SELECTION 39 



selective agencies which have been at work among 

 civilized mankind are being weakened in their action 

 by that very improvement in the environment for 

 which the past century has been noted. The criminal 

 is no longer hanged out of hand, to perish with his 

 abnormal physical condition and with his hereditary 

 criminal propensities. The unsuccessful are relieved 

 and the hungry children of unemployed or inefficient 

 work-people are fed. Disease is slackening its hold 

 on our more sanitary towns, and the death-rate is 

 falling in all ranks of life, and especially in those classes 

 where once it was highest. But all these agencies, 

 brutal though they appear to be to us, had selective 

 value, and tended to fit the race more nearly to its 

 environment. 



Mr Arthur Balfour has forcibly pointed out the 

 resulting antithesis between the theory of selection, 

 and those humanitarian feelings on which the past fifty 

 years in particular have specially plumed themselves. 

 Ought we then to stop all efforts at hygienic im- 

 provement in the interests of the future of the race ? 

 Assuredly not ; though more knowledge and discrimi- 

 nation would be desirable. A little further analysis 

 shows that the difficulty is more apparent than real. 

 While it is true that disease tends to cut off those with 

 weakly general constitutions who are not satisfactory 

 parents for the next generation, it is no less true that 

 it weakens also those of sound constitution whom it 

 attacks. In this way it may do much harm indirectly, 

 even though its evil effects, being acquired, are not 

 directly hereditary. Moreover, part of its selective 

 effect is exercised against those who, quite sound 



