234 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 



means of which the fit and unfit alike are rendered immune and survive; 

 and as a result of education, by which the mediocre, and even the poor 

 (mentally), as well as the apt, are adapted to their environment and are 

 thus enabled to survive, to make a living, and to bring up a family, 

 natural selection can operate less and less on both the mental and 

 physical side, and man's evolution, so far as body, and mind are con- 

 cerned tends to a limit. One feature that distinguishes social evolution 

 from merely organic evolution, which we see among lower animals, is 

 the predominant part played by the fittest in raising the level of the less 

 fit. Not a much higher man either physically or intellectually can be 

 produced under the functioning of present conditions. Progress must 

 be along the line of superorganic development, and along the line of 

 cumulative environmental factors. 



It can easily be seen how even retrogression in the human species 

 under present conditions can be, and probably is being, brought about. 

 In every country in which a large standing army is kept up, the best 

 young men are enlisted. These are subjected to exposure, to death in 

 war, to temptation in vice, and are prevented from marrying during the 

 prime of life, whereas the feebler men stay at home marry and have 

 large families. 1 The careless, squalid, unaspiring multiply, like rodents, 

 whereas the sagacious, prudent, aspiring, and intelligent struggle for 

 fame and wealth in celibacy. They marry late, if ever, and have small 

 families. Rome can attribute her fall to the drafting away of her aggres- 

 sive and ambitious elements. From the rural districts, where no adequate 

 means of realization are afforded, the aspiring element of the rising 

 generation is drawn to the city and other places of opportunity, where 

 there is close competition and where the strenuous life is essential and 

 nervous diseases inevitable. The residue left behind composed of a 

 large mass of a helpless, conservative, unaspiring element tends ulti- 

 mately, if this selective process is long enough continued, to produce a 

 peasant population. 



As a result of the complication of the environment and the lack of 

 man's adaptation to it, through the operation of natural selection, 

 civilization is becoming more and more artificial, and many "dishar- 



1 Fick, Einfiuss der Nalururissenschaft auj das Recht. 



