THE FUTURE EVOLUTION OF MAN 119 



and there is still no other way, unless we can pre- 

 vent those who would become the hindmost being 

 born. It is in the sterilisation of failures, and not in 

 the selection of successes for breeding, that the possi- 

 bility of an improvement of the human stock lies." l 



This quotation contains all the errors that could 

 be crammed into the space it occupies. Obviously 

 the perishing of inferior apes would improve the 

 average of the apes, but how would that yield us 

 man ? The Darwinian principle, as understood by 

 Mr. Wells, could never explain the origin of any 

 species, but merely the preservation of a species from 

 degeneration. Further, " the way of Nature," as 

 Darwin proved before Mr. Wells was born, has been 

 " the selection of favoured races," and not the slaying 

 of the hindmost. As to the alleged uselessness of 

 the " selection of successes for breeding," it is to 

 be hoped that no breeder of stock will judge the 

 Sociological Society by this absurd utterance. 



On the contrary, it is precisely in following the 

 example of Nature by selecting successes for breed- 

 ing that the possibility and the only possibility of 

 an improvement of the human stock lies. Organic 

 evolution depends upon factors, of which the 

 chief is natural selection. This has served in the 

 production of man from the ape ; and a process 

 which is absolutely identical therewith — notwith- 

 standing that it happens to be consciously directed 

 by man towards the ideal of fitness for a social 

 environment, rather than by Nature towards the 

 ideal of fitness for a natural environment — will 

 serve for the evolution in man of psychical char- 



1 " Sociological Papers" (Macmillan), p. 60. 



