82 The Biological Errors 



the weaker and take away their sunshine. This 

 produces at first atrophy in some of the branches 

 and finally the death of the entire plant. The 

 struggle by elimination can also be practised 

 among animals, not only among the herbivorous 

 but among the carnivorous animals, when the 

 stronger animals drive away the weaker from the 

 food and force them to die of inanition. 



The Darwinian theory has found in the process 

 of elimination as applied in sexual selection, one 

 of the agencies in the transformation of species, 

 but the direct action of the process of elimination, 

 both as regards foodstuffs and as regards reproduc- 

 tion, is of secondary importance in the human 

 species. As regards reproduction, Darwin pointed 

 out that the factor often works in the reverse 

 direction, the largest number of children coming 

 from the feeble-minded and lowest strata of 

 society. ^ 



The analogy which is often drawn between the 

 struggle for existence by elimination in biology 

 and the process of elimination in human society 

 fails because in the one case the result is the total 

 death of the conquered while in society the result 

 is a diminution of vital power or partial death. 

 This radical difference gives rise to an immense 

 number of new social phenomena which constitutes 

 a new social kingdom, so different is it from the 

 animal or plant kingdom. The substitution of 

 partial death for total death is one of the first 



* See The Descent of Man, chap, v., p. 154. 



