224 SCIENCE AND IMMORTALITY 



valuable qualities of character in esse or in posse. 

 Nature seemed very wanton when she engulfed 

 the great primaeval forests, but she was looking 

 some hundreds and thousands of years ahead, and 

 preparing coal .to drive the "Mauretania" across 

 the Atlantic. Nature never errs in the long-run. 

 She made man from a shred of the Milky Way, 

 and she may be trusted to look after the creature 

 she has made. / 



A similar selection is being made by alcohol ; 

 it has killed off most of the Red Indians, and also 

 a pretty fair percentage of Englishmen. 



When Nature has finished with man's body it 

 will be exempt from most, if not from all, the 

 diseases flesh is at present heir to, but the muscle 

 and bone and nerve changes are not likely to be 

 great. We have no reason to believe that man's 

 body has much further capacity for variation, 

 and less reason still to believe that any muscular 

 or bone or nerve variations would have much 

 survival-value. 



Let us look next at marriage — a much more im- 

 portant evolutionary factor. 



The germinal variations, then, which are making 

 mankind are produced by marriage, and can be 

 perpetuated only by marriage ; and therefore, if we 

 wish to foresee the future of mankind, we must 

 give special regard to the marriage both in its 



