XXIII HUMAN SELECTION 517 



practically nothing to do, there is the smallest probability 

 that we can deal successfully with such tremendous social 

 problems as those which involve the marriage tie and the 

 family relation as a means of promoting the physical and 

 moral advancement of the race ? What a mockery to 

 still further whiten the sepulchre of modern society, in 

 which is hidden " all manner of corruption," with schemes 

 for the moral and physical advancement of the race ! 



Social Advance tvill result in Lnjjrovement of Character. 



It is my firm conviction, for reasons which I shall state 

 presently, that, when we have cleansed the Augean stable 

 of our existing social organization, and have made such 

 arrangements that all shall contribute their share of 

 either physical or mental labour, and that all workers 

 shall reap the full and equal reward of their Avork, the 

 future of the race will be ensured by those laws of human 

 development that have led to the slow but continuous 

 advance in the higher qualities of human nature. When 

 men and women are alike free to follow their best 

 impulses ; Avhen idleness and vicious or useless luxury 

 on the one hand, oppressive labour and starvation on the 

 other, are alike unknown ; when all receive the best and 

 most thorough education that the state of civilization and 

 knowledge at the time will admit ; when the standard of 

 public opinion is set by the wisest and the best, and that 

 standard is systematically inculcated on the young ; then Ave 

 shall find that a system of selection will come spontaneously 

 into action Avhich will steadily tend to eliminate the lower 

 and more degraded types of man, and thus continuously 

 raise the average standard of the race. I therefore 

 strongly protest against any attempt to deal with this 

 great question by legal enactments in our present state 

 of unfitness and ignorance, or by endeavouring to modify 

 public opinion as to the beneficial character of monogamy 

 and permanence in maniage. That the existing popular 

 opinion is the true one is well and briefly shown by 

 Miss Chapman in a recent number of Lip'pincott' s 

 Magazine ; and as her statement of the case expresses my 



