OCTOBER 8, 1897. ] 
Now, as to ‘social efficiency,’ I am equally 
unconvinced of error. Is it not clear that so- 
cial conditions powerfully affect the selection 
of individuals, and therefore a society or nation 
depends for its existence largely on its corpo- 
rate virtue? It is a commonplace of history 
that the success of nations has depended largely 
on their laws and customs, those advancing and 
spreading whose social conditions favored the 
existence of brave and noble men. To the eyo- 
lutionist, the most discouraging feature of our 
present day civilization is the survival of knaves 
and fools, while good men and true so often go 
to the wall. If this process is not checked, the 
inevitable result is the breaking-up of society 
and a return to some form of savagery. 
Mr. Reid’s argument about alcohol appears 
to depend largely on his theory of retrogression 
—a theory which I do not accept. Of course, 
Ido not deny that the general use of alcohol 
will lead to a process of evolution against it, 
but Ido deny the desirability of any race un- 
dergoing such a process. The practices of the 
Spartans led to the survival of the strongest 
among their children, while weaklings perished; 
and while we should not now imitate them, 
they were justified in so far as the survivors 
were best fitted to defend the community in a 
time when physical defense was of prime im- 
portance and incapables were a serious hin- 
‘drance. But the survivors of the pot-house 
are not particularly yaluable individuals in 
other respects, nor is the ability to remain un- 
affected in the presence of whiskey a guarantee 
of good citizenship. Those very nations which 
are said by Mr. Reid to drink heavily are the 
leading nations of the world to-day. If Greece 
was anciently drunken and now is temperate, 
by all means give us drunken Greece ! 
There are three kinds of people, thus: 
1. Those who have strong desires and keep 
them within bounds or divert them into suit- 
able channels for social reasons. 
2. Those who have strong desires but do not 
keep them within bounds or divert them into 
suitable channels. 
3. Those who have not strong desires. 
Mr. Reid’s alcoholic evolution would appar- 
ently give us the third class. Savages largely 
belong to the second. I maintain that both the 
SCIENCE. 
563 
second and third classes are wholly undesirable, 
and that the first is the one to make a success- 
ful nation and to prove itself the fittest in the 
struggle for existence.* The second may be- 
come the first more easily than the third, and 
hence is more desirable. As missionaries will 
say, give us a man who strongly believes some- 
thing, however demoniacal, and we can do 
something with him; but give us a man with 
no beliefs and we are almost helpless. 
I fear Mr. Reid will feel strongly the inade- 
quacy of my reply to his criticism, but he will 
forgive me in view of the difficulty of express- 
ing oneself on such subjects in a few words. 
One’s opinions are founded on the sum-total of 
one’s knowledge and experience, and cannot al- 
ways find justification in a few paragraphs. 
T. D. A. CoCKERELL. 
MESILLA, NEw MEXxIco, 
September 9, 1897. 
SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 
Elementary Solid Geometry and Mensuration. 
Henry DALLAS THompson, D.Se., Ph.D., 
Professor of Mathematics in Princeton Uni- 
versity. New York, The Macmillan Com- 
pany. 1897. 8vo. Pp. vii+199. 
*The best nation would be one which contrived 
the fullest expressions of its desires with the mini- 
mum of harm. Some repression would be necessary 
because some of our desires or feelings were devel- 
oped under different conditions. Thus the desire to 
kill an enemy may formerly have been advantageous, 
but could not be allowed full play under existing so- 
cial conditions. I think we all at times would be 
more pugnacious if we permitted ourselves absolute 
freedom! At the same time, there is no doubt that 
under present circumstances excessive repression 
works a great injury, as I stated in my former arti- 
cle. One may compare the desires of the people to 
water flowing through a valley; if it is permitted to 
flow where it will it may be useless for agriculture 
and may even do much damage; if it is merely 
dammed up it is equally useless and is likely to 
break loose and do more harm than in the first in- 
stance; but if, by skillful engineering, it is directed 
into suitable channels it may all be made available for 
mills and irrigation, while dangers of flooding are 
avoided. Let those who are engineering the United 
States remember this and aim neither to waste nor 
repress the desires and energies of the people, but use 
them all for the good of all, 
