84 DARWINISM AND RACE PROGRESS. 



The Power of the Community over the Individual. 



It might appear to the superficial reader that I am 

 advancing arguments which would give a moral 

 sanction to the broadcast scattering of the germs of 

 phthisis and enteric fever, and to the leaving of 

 unlimited whisky as a stumbling block at the door- 

 steps of one's weaker neighbours. This is far from 

 being the case. While it is undoubtedly true that 

 the germs of phthisis have from time immemorial 

 been freeing humanity from an unhealthy variation 

 to which we are subject, and while alcohol has on 

 the whole been ridding us of the vicious and up- 

 roarious since our forefathers first drank mead from 

 the teats of the she-goat Heidhrun, yet it does not 

 follow that any individual or set of individuals have 

 a right to take upon themselves the responsibility 

 of retaining and meting out such selective treat- 

 ment. 



Were there, indeed, no other means of improving 

 the race and eliminating its at present inherent 

 faults, it might be different, and, perhaps, one could 

 hardly say that society might not take upon itself 

 the responsibility of the actual outrooting of these 

 faults by drastic measures ; but other ways are open 

 to it. At present society claims the right to exter- 

 minate the murderer, and a few decades back the 

 life of the thief was also taken. But while these 



