128 HOMO V. DARWIN. 



rook-morality, and rabbit-morality, and horse and dog- 

 morality, &c., as well as bee-morality and man-morality. 



Lord G. Such supposed cases do not throw one spark of 

 light on the question before us — Can any animal whatever 

 acquire a moral sense or conscience ? 



Homo. Very true, my Lord ; but they illustrate Mr. 

 Darwin's views on morals. There is another passage in his 

 work bearing on this subject, to which I must beg your 

 Lordship's attention. At page 168, treating of "Natural 

 Selection as affecting Civilized Nations," he says, " With 

 savages the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated, 

 and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state 

 of health. We civilized men, on the other hand, do our 

 utmost to check the process of elimination ; we build 

 asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick ; we 

 institute poor laws, and our medical men exert their utmost 

 skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. 

 There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved 

 thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly 

 have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of 

 civilized societies propagate their kind. No one who has 

 attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt 

 that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It 

 is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly 

 directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race ; but 

 excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is so 

 ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed." 



Lord G. Does Mr. Darwin mean to say then that, in 

 building asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, the sick ; 

 instituting poor laws ; enforcing vaccination — endeavouring 

 thus to prolong the lives of our fellow-creatures — we are 

 directing our care wrongly, and causing a degeneration of 

 the race of man ? 



