268 THE ASCENT OF MAN 



the world around. A prize-fighter is stronger than 

 a cripple ; but in the environment of modern life 

 the cripple is cared for by the people, is judged 

 fit to live by a moral world, while the pugilist, 

 handicapped by his very health, has to conduct 

 his own struggle for existence. Physical fitness 

 here is actually a disqualification ; what was once 

 unfitness is now fitness to survive. As we rise 

 in the scale, the physical fitness of the early world 

 changes to fitness of a different quality, and this 

 law becomes the guardian of a moral order. In 

 one era the race is to the swift, in another the 

 meek inherit the earth. In a material world social 

 survival depends on wealth, health, power ; in a 

 moral world the fittest are the weak, the pitiable, 

 the poor. Thus there comes a time when this 

 very law, in securing survival for those who would 

 otherwise sink and fall, is the minister of moral 

 ends. 



When we pass from the animal and the savage 

 states to watch the working of the Struggle for 

 Life in later times, the impression deepens that, 

 after all, the " gladiatorial theory " of existence has 

 much to say for itself. To trace its progress fur- 

 ther is denied us for the present, but observe before 

 we close what it connotes in modern life. Its 

 lineal descendants are two in number, and they 



