ii8 DARWINISM AND RACE PROGRESS. 



well-to-do tradesman has more meat and wine than 

 he can consume, more books than he can read, more 

 works of art than he can understand, and yet he is 

 not satisfied ; but there is one thing sweeter to him 

 than anything else, and that is to pass his neighbours 

 in the race of life, and in his turn to be equal with 

 those who once ran before him, and who at one time 

 looked back at him with scorn. The brute unconsci- 

 ously struggles to survive through instinct of the dire 

 necessity of self-preservation, but man's struggle in 

 too many cases is a pastime that is sweet to him, and 

 one which he will pursue through his whole life-time, 

 and will follow eagerly with the tottering steps of 

 extreme old age, although he thereby dwarfs what is 

 noblest and best in his humanity. 



While society has been unable, until lately, to do 

 much towards the active preservation of the sickly, who 

 have in consequence tended to fall a prey to disease 

 and hardship, yet the foolish and mentally incapable, 

 while they have suffered in the race for wealth, have not 

 to any great extent been permitted to undergo ex- 

 treme privation, and it remains to be seen whether they 

 have contributed their share of progeny, for if they 

 have done so it is easy to understand how little 

 advance in organic mental activity can have taken 

 place. And this is indeed indicated by a comparison 

 between our skulls and those taken from sepulchral 

 barrows since early neolithic times. 



