2l8 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD PART in 



than with the lowest, and we decided that some other 

 factor making for progress must be in operation there 

 besides natural selection (A). We have no similar 

 assurance that biological evolution in the sense of 

 progress is continuing among men have we not 

 heard of the " arrest of the body " ? If evolution 

 continues it must owe its strength to something be- 

 sides the recurrence of famine. That is not frequent 

 enough. It does not " eliminate " severely enough 

 to enforce progress, even if it tends that way. 



On the other hand, famine has been no rare thing 

 among savages no rare thing even in the history 

 of the civilised world. For good or for evil, elimina- 

 tion has acted on mankind through this agency ; and 

 yet every civilised government, even the hardest, is 

 ashamed of famine, and overwhelmed with a sense 

 of defeat when its people are starved. Probably, if 

 famine were allowed to stalk the world unchecked, 

 we should see the selection of a corresponding physi- 

 cal type in the human races ; a low type ; prolific ; 

 tenacious of bare existence ; never rising much above 

 the margin of subsistence and possible survival. The 

 upward path lies elsewhere. 



Pestilence is another eliminating agency which 

 takes the weak and spares the strong, though it is 

 much more likely than famine to leave behind it dan- 

 gerous and enfeebling " dregs " in those who recover. 

 It has been supposed, indeed, that the Jewish race 

 owes some of its health to the fact that the hideously 

 insanitary conditions of the mediaeval ghettos killed 

 off the weak. Strange if the most sanitary and the 

 least sanitary conditions should alike result in pro- 

 ducing a healthy human type ! But there seems 



