CONDITIONS OF PROGRESS 



tain the precise circumstances to which the pre- 

 valence and the improvability of certain races are 

 to be attributed. Nevertheless we can here, too, 

 point out sundry general principles in accord- 

 ance with which natural selection has deter- 

 mined the course of events. 



In considering the action of natural selec- 

 tion upon the human race, we must first note 

 how that action is, in some respects, materially 

 modified by social conditions. Among inferior 

 animals, even those which are gregarious, as 

 the ruminants and sundry smaller carnivora, 

 the preservation of any individual requires his 

 almost complete adaptation to surrounding cir- 

 cumstances. There is so little division of labour, 

 and consequently so little mutual assistance, 

 that all must be capable who would survive. 

 With the earliest manifestations of true sociality 

 this state of things must be somewhat altered. 

 Even in the rudest actual or imaginable society 

 there is some division of labour, and some mu- 

 tual assistance. Those who are less swift for 

 hunting or less strong for fighting may at least 

 perform services for the hunters and warriors, 

 and in return will be more or less efficiently fed 

 and protected ; so that those who fall below the 

 average capability of the race are no longer sure 

 to be prematurely cut off, and thus the agency 

 of natural selection in keeping up a nearly 

 uniform standard of fitness is to some extent 



