118 ORGANIC EVOLUTION 



all that is possible, and two considerations con- 

 nected therewith are constantly forgotten. The 

 first is that conscious human intervention in this 

 regard is not our only means of protection. Nature 

 takes this matter into her own hands far more 

 thoroughly than we always remember ; certainly far 

 more thoroughly than is recognised by the advocates 

 of certain preposterously impracticable measures, 

 such as the performance of a surgical operation on 

 all such as somebody or other shall deem suitable 

 subjects therefor. Nature herself places the ban of 

 extinction upon degeneracy : the " rapid multipli- 

 cation of the unfit " is a self-stultified phrase, since 

 unfitness and infertility rise and fall together. 

 Whilst, therefore, we may well approve the embargo 

 proposed to be laid upon the insane and the 

 criminal, we must remember that insanity and 

 criminality would be immeasurably more ripe 

 amongst us to-day than they actually are, had 

 not some protective forces, not of conscious human 

 origin, been always in action. 



The second consideration, often forgotten by those 

 who pin their faith exclusively to the negative 

 proposals of eugenics, is that the mere extermi- 

 nation of those who fall below the normal standard 

 of any race does not make for advance, but merely 

 ensures against regression. Mr. Wells, in opposing 

 Mr. Galton's teaching, has based his objections upon 

 an extraordinary misunderstanding of the law of 

 natural selection : " The real fact of the case is that 

 in the all-round result the inferior usually perish, 

 and the average of the species rises. . . . The way 

 of Nature has always been to slay the hindmost, 



