SIGHT IN SAVAGES 175 



beyond its wont will grow, and thus meet increase 

 of demand by increase of supply," Herbert Spen- 

 cer says; but, he adds, there is a limit soon 

 reached, beyond which it is impossible to go. This 

 increase of demand with us is everywhere now 

 on this organ and now on that, according to our 

 work and way of life, and the eye is in no worse 

 case than the other organs. There are among us 

 many cases of heart complaint; civilization, in 

 such cases, has put too great a strain on that or- 

 gan, and it has reached the limit beyond which 

 it cannot go. And so with the eye. The total 

 number of the defective among us is no doubt very 

 large, for we know that our system of life retards 

 it cannot effectually prevent the healthy ac- 

 tion of natural selection. Nature pulls one way 

 and we pull the other, compassionately trying to 

 save the unfit from the consequences of their unfit- 

 ness. The humane instinct compels us; but the 

 cruel instinct of the savage is less painful to con- 

 template than that mistaken or perverted compas- 

 sion which seeks to perpetuate unfitness, and in 

 the interest of suffering individuals inflicts a last- 

 ing injury on the race. It is a beautiful and sacred 

 thing to minister to the blind, and to lead them, 

 but a horrible thing to encourage them to marry 

 and transmit the miserable defective condition 

 to their posterity. Yet this is very common ; and 

 not long ago a leader-writer in one of the prin- 

 cipal London journals spoke of this very thing 

 in terms of rapturous approval, and looked for- 



