34 EVOLUTION AND ETHICS i 



selection, in view of an ideal of usefulness, or of 

 pleasantness, to man, of which the state of nature 

 knows nothing. 



I have proceeded to show that a colony, set down 

 in a country in the state of nature, presents close 

 analogies with a garden; and I have indicated the 

 course of action which an administrator, able and 

 willing to carry out horticultural principles, would 

 adopt, in order to secure the success of such a 

 newly formed polity, supposing it to be capable of 

 indefinite expansion. In the contrary case, I have 

 shown that difficulties must arise ; that the un- 

 limited increase of the population over a limited 

 area must, sooner or later, reintroduce into the 

 colony that straggle for the means of existence 

 between the colonists, which it was the primary 

 object of the administrator to exclude, insomuch 

 as it is fatal to the mutual peace which is the 

 prime condition of the union of men in society. 



I have briefly described the nature of the only 

 radical cure, known to me, for the disease which 

 would thus threaten the existence of the colony ; 

 and, however regretfully, I have been obliged 

 to admit that this rigorously scientific method of 

 appl}dng the principles of evolution to human 

 society hardly comes within the region of practical 

 politics ; not for want of will on the part of a great 

 many people; but because, for one reason, there is no 

 hope that mere human beings will ever possess 

 enough intelligence to select the fittest. And I 



