42 Evolution and Religion 



the ravens, though they sow not, neither reap," who 

 i( clotheth the lilies of the field, though they toil not, 

 neither do they spin" True, the evolutionary theory 

 of a struggle for existence has opened men's eyes to the 

 fact that certain of these forms of lower life (like dis- 

 ease germs) would appear to be inimical to man's 

 survival, and hence render it his duty to attempt to 

 stamp them out as such. But this is apparently no 

 more true of pernicious forms of lower animal or vege- 

 table life than it is of pernicious forms of human life, 

 which, either through degeneracy or imperfect develop- 

 ment, assail the general well-being and threaten the 

 survival of the truly fittest. Nature seems to be already 

 engaged in slowly blotting out or obliterating these 

 degenerate, pernicious breeds among mankind. But 

 man is kin to Nature; he is part of Nature. He should 

 therefore apparently assist Nature in exterminating or, 

 better, sterilizing all decadent breeds which militate 

 against the general welfare. We attempt to do this 

 in a slipshod, haphazard sort of way at present, with 

 our imperfectly developed, and still more imperfectly 

 administered, criminal laws. The trouble would seem 

 to be that we do not begin to go far enough in the truly 

 scientific application of our best knowledge to the 

 subject of properly eradicating the criminal, the vicious, 

 the parasitic, and the worthless. 



A Dilemma 



Man's reason, therefore, seems to bring us logically to 

 the point where we must view the world as a sort of 



