ANNUAL ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. XLVII 
all the highes animals are physically discrete, psychic relations 
must be established, in order that they may meet for the act of re- 
production. These psychic relations gradually develop into choice, 
or sexual selection, and by methods which have been clearly pointed 
out by biologists the minute increments of change that result there- 
from eventually accumulate into strong variations, always adapted 
to the conditions of the environment. Thus the survival of the 
fittest is accelerated by sexual selection. 
EVOLUTION IN THE ANTHROPIC KINGDOM. 
If attention is directed exclusively to animal life, we notice that 
evolution has proceeded pari passu with specialization. Of the 
forms that have been specialized from time to time some have be- 
come extinct, some have been degraded, and some have been evolved 
in varying degree. One form, not the most specialized, made the 
greatest progress in evolution, until an organism was developed of 
so high a grade that this species became more independent of en- 
vironment than any other, and, by reason of its superiority, spread 
widely throughout the land portion of the globe. This superior 
animal was early man, when he first inhabited all the continents 
and the great islands. The production of this superior, 7. e. more 
highly systematized organism, was the antecedent to the inauguration 
of new methods of evolution. 
It has been shown that the great efficiency of the biotic method 
of evolution by survival depends upon competition for existence in 
enormously overcrowded population. Man, having acquired superi- 
ority to other animals, passed beyond the stage when he had to 
compete with them for existence upon the earth and into the stage 
where he could utilize plants and animals alike for his own pur- 
poses. They could no longer crowd him out, and to that extent 
the law of the survival of the fittest in the struggle for existence 
was annulled in its application to man. - He artificially multiplies 
such of the lower animals as are most useful to him, and domesti- 
cates them, that they may be more thoroughly under his control, 
and modifies them, that they may be more useful, and uses such as 
he will for beasts of burden; and the wild beasts he destroys from 
the face of the earth. In like manner he cultivates useful plants, 
and destroys such as are worthless to him. He does not compete 
with other biotic species, but utilizes them for his wélfare. Yet 
