40 



It is not, therefore, correct to claim that 

 natural selection determined by the struggle 

 for existence secures the survival of the best ; 

 really it secures the survival of the best adapted. 



It is very different whether it is a question 

 of natural or of social Darwinism. 



The struggle for existence necessarily deter- 

 mines the survival of the individuals best 

 adapted to the society and the time in which 

 they live. 



In the natural, biological domain the free 

 play of forces and of cosmic conditions secures 

 a progressive elevation of living forms from 

 the microbe up to man. 



In human society, on the contrary, that is to 

 say in the superorganic evolution of Mr. H. 

 Spencer, the interference of other forces and 

 of other conditions determines occasionally a 

 selection which is retrograde but which always 

 secures the survival of those best adapted to a 

 given society and point of time, in keeping 

 with the corrupted conditions if they are 

 such of this same society and point of time. 



The problem is one in "social selections." 

 It is in starting from this idea wrongly in- 

 terpreted that certain writers, socialists and 

 non-socialists, arrive at refusing to Darwinian 

 theories an applicability to human society. 



One knows in fact that in the contemporary, 

 civilised world natural selection is vitiated by 

 military selection, by matrimonial selection, 

 and principally by economic selection.* 



* Broca, Les selections ( Social selections) in 

 Mdmoires d' anthropologie, Paris, 1877, in. 205 Lapouge, 

 Les Selections sociales, in Revue d' anthrop. 1887, p. 

 519. Loria, Discorso su Carlo Darwin, Siena, 1882. 



