DARWINISM AND MALTHUS. 239 
the unfit”? The Victoria Institute is not the place for the 
expression of the spirit of party politics, but this would be sheer 
brutality against which the Christian spirit among us would 
energetically protest. Insanity, feeble-mindedness and other causes 
of unfitness are largely due to drunkenness, immorality and the 
excessive stress of life. Suppress drunkenness, make immorality a 
crime in both sexes, overthrow the tyranny of inordinate wealth, give 
the people room to live, and bring in the ethics of the Gospel of 
Christ into our national life, and you will soon get rid of the wicked 
and nonsensical talk about the “survival of the fittest,” and the 
“elimination of the unfit,” so far as mankind is concerned. 
AvutTHOoR’S REpty. 
While thanking those who have done this paper the honour of 
criticizing it a few deprecatory observations may be made. 
The reference to Newton is merely an obiter dictum. No comparison 
is made between the two discoveries so unlike in many respects, 
but it is pointed out that Darwin’s theories affected a greater variety 
of subjects. 
The paper assumes Darwinism only so far as it is generaliy 
accepted. That Darwin and Wallace pointed out some most and 
important and unnoticed factors in the production of types of life 
is unquestionable : but these are not all the factors, nor do they 
explain everything. 
Dr. Alfred Russell Wallace, in his book entitled Darwinism, 
shows that there are gaps which Darwinism cannot bridge over ; 
and there are other factors at work which have yet to be discovered 
and explained. For example, there are subtle influences of climate, 
locality, and environment that affect both physical and mental 
characteristics in ways of which at present no explanation can be 
given. To take acase. In the last three centuries a new type has 
arisen in the human race—the North American or Yankee type. 
This differs considerably in feature, which are marked, and in bodily 
and mental characteristics, from its English or European ancestors. 
And where the type does so differ it conforms to or takes after the 
aboriginal inhabitants of the soil, and that without the slightest 
admixture of blood. Here then there have been at work influences 
whose effects may be observed, but whose mode of action has not 
been explained. 
