506 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP. 



human progress, if, as seems not improbable, the results 

 on the individual of our "present social arrangements 

 are, on the whole, evil. It may be fairly argued that 

 the rich suffer, morally and intellectually, from these 

 conditions quite as much as do the poor; and that the 

 lives of idleness, of pleasure, of excitement, or of de- 

 bauchery, which so many of the wealthy lead, is as 

 soul-deadening and degrading in its effects as the sordid 

 struggle for existence to which the bulk of the workers 

 are condemned. It is, therefore, a relief to feel that 

 all this evil and degradation will leave no permanent 

 effects whenever a more rational and more elevating 

 system of social organization is brought about. 



How Progress will be Effected. 



If, then, education, training, and surrounding con- 

 ditions can do nothing to affect permanently the march 

 of human progress, how, it may be asked, is that pro- 

 gress to be brought about ; or are we to be condemned 

 to remain stationary in that average condition which, 

 in some unknown way, the civilized nations of the 

 world have now reached ? We reply, that progress is still 

 possible, nay, is certain, by the continuous and perhaps 

 increasing action of two general principles, both forms 

 of selection. The one is that process of elimination 

 already referred to, by which vice, violence, and reck- 

 lessness so often bring about the early destruction 

 of those addicted to them. The other, and by far the 

 more important for the future, is that mode of selection 

 which will inevitably come into action through the ever- 

 increasing freedom, joined with the higher education of 

 women. 



There have already been ample indications in literature 

 that the women of America, no less than those of other 

 civilized countries, are determined to secure their personal, 

 social, and political freedom, and are beginning to see the 

 great part they have to play in the future of humanity. 

 When such social changes have been effected that no 

 woman will be compelled, either by hunger, isolation, or 



