SEPTEMBER 3, 1897. ] 
efficiency to differences in acquired mental 
characters, that is, to differences in educa- 
tion. Mr. Kidd attributes social efficiency, 
which he derives from the greater or lesser de- 
velopment of the altruistic feeling, to natural 
selection ; but natural selection implies elimi- 
nation of the unfittest, and he has failed to re- 
cord a single death as due to the absence of 
this feeling in him who perished and the pres- 
ence of it in him who survived. If it be main- 
tained, as is sometimes done, that ‘social effi- 
ciency’ has been evolved, not through selec- 
tion of individuals, but through selection of 
communities, then I can only say that such a 
contention appears to me to involve a complete 
misconception. Evolution can result only from 
the selection of individuals, never from the se- 
lection of communities; except, indeed, in the 
ease of such communities (e. g., ants, bees, ter- 
its) as are the progeny of a single pair of indi- 
viduals, when the parent individual is selected 
in the person of the progeny. Supposing a su- 
perior community (of men, for instance), with- 
out individual selection within itself, causes_the 
elimination of an inferior community, then, as 
a consequence, the former spreads, but does un- 
dergo evolution. Its superiority (if inherent, 
and not acquired) arises from an antecedent se- 
lection of individuals within itself. Professor 
Cockerell says that sanitary arrangements ‘do 
select the citizens of one town, state or country 
as against others, or those of the rural districts 
as against the towns.’ But surely sanitary ar- 
'rangements do not come under the head of hu- 
man evolution, but under what has been called 
‘Evolution in the Environment.’ The knowl- 
edge of itis acquired. If New York now val- 
ues sanitation more than it did fifty years ago, 
or more than Baltimore does at the present 
time, is this not due, beyond doubt, to a differ- 
ence in education (@. e., acquired mental char- 
acters), not to an inborn intellectual difference ? 
I now come to the last of Professor Cocker- 
ell’s objections and I wish exceedingly I had 
more space to deal with it. I have shown that 
certain powerful narcotics (e. g., alcohol and 
opium) are great causes of elimination; that 
races (e. g., Greeks, Italians, South Frenchmen, 
Spaniards, Portuguese) which have long pos- 
sessed a cheap and abundant supply of alcohol, 
SCIENCE. 
atl 
for instance, are the least prone to excessive in- 
dulgence of all races on earth; that other 
races, (€. g., Anglo-Saxons, Scandinavians, 
Russians, ete.), which have had a less extended 
experience are more prone to intemperance; 
that yet other races (e. g., savages of all kinds, 
whether inhabiting the frigid, the temperate or 
the torrid zones), who have had little or no ex- 
perience of alcohol, crave for that narcotic so 
intensely that, in the presence of an abundant 
supply and the absence of prohibitory laws, 
they perish of excessive indulgence ; and have 
argued, firstly, that the craving for narcotic in- 
dulgence was inborn in man as a by product of 
mental evolution ;* secondly, that the Italian, 
for instance, is more temperate than the Amer- 
ican Indian, as a result of natural selection, 
t. e., alcoholic selection; and thirdly, that to 
render a race more temperate we must elim- 
inate, not drink, but the excessive drinker, 
for compulsory temperance must lead to the 
survival of the unfit and consequent retrogres- 
sion of the race to the ancestral type, when the 
craving was stronger than it now is in a race 
which has undergone alcoholic selection. 
Had I proved my facts and used this line of 
argument as regards any physical structure I 
think all the world would have agreed with 
me; but, because I dealt with the burning ques- 
tion of intemperance, I have met with numerous 
objectors ranging from a clerical gentleman, 
who found distinct points of resemblance be- 
tween Satan and me, and argued that, therefore, 
my theory ‘must be a lie,’ through Professor 
Ray Lankester, who, while admitting the truth 
of the theory, apparently thought that a ten- 
dency to get excessively drunk might be neces- 
sarily correlated to extremely valuable quali- 
* Just as the paresis which accompanies excessive 
fear is inborn, e. g., in frog when attacked by snake, 
as a by product, a correlated variation, of the life 
saving faculty of fear. Of course, I do not mean that 
an American Indian, for instance, who has never 
tasted alcohol, craves knowingly for it; I merely 
mean that he has an inborn love for such feelings as 
are induced by deep indulgence, just as he has an in- 
born love for such feelings as may be induced by eat- 
ing a delicious food. ‘Till he tastes a peach, for in- 
stance, of course he does not knowingly crave for it, 
yet nevertheless the love for the peach is born and in 
like manner is that for alcohol. 
