94 HEREDITY 



ring amongst any classes of our people have it in- 

 cumbent upon them to demonstrate either the falsity 

 or the suspension of the law of natural selection. 

 Biology asserts that hereditary degeneracy is neces- 

 sarily doomed to extinction, provided that there 

 obtain the conditions that make for any selection 

 at all. As long as there is a struggle for existence 

 the fittest must survive. This a ]jriori argument 

 against the existence of a progressive degeneration 

 amongst our people is not properly complete unless 

 the objection be met that the "fittest" — as I seek 

 to show in the volume on organic evolution — does 

 not necessarily mean what we call the " best." The 

 fittest are merely the most perfectly adapted to the 

 conditions of the environment. No one, however, 

 will maintain that, even in the highly " unnatural " 

 environment of civilisation, or even the malignant 

 environment of crowded cities, the physically "de- 

 generate " are any " fitter " than their neighbours. 

 Indeed, they are obviously less so : they tend to an 

 early death, to a relative or absolute sterility, and 

 their stock soon dies out. 



Later we must meet the argument of the Cessation 

 of Selection, which declares that heredity is a factor 

 in this question, because the law of natural selection 

 has been abrogated by civilisation, and thus the 

 deteriorates are allowed to propagate their de- 

 terioration. 



Meanwhile, however, let us notice the conse- 

 quences that must follow upon the exclusion of 

 heredity from this problem, and the reference of the 

 facts to the action of the environment alone. This 

 advance in the discussion not only greatly simplifies 



