BIOLOGICAL AND SOCIAL FITNESS 179 



from the natural conditions whicli alone are proper to it, is to 

 fall back from the standard attained under the action of those 

 conditions. It behoves us, therefore, applying the laws of selec- 

 tion to the human species, to see whether the conditions under 

 which the evolution of that species in its highest forms is taking 

 place are conditions which are favourable to the operation of these 

 laws and to the action of natural conditions ; or, in other words, to 

 see whether Western civilisation is pursuing a course of evolution 

 which tends to maintain the standard of efficiency indispensable 

 to the nurture and production of the highest forms of our race. 



When we come to the domain of man, the problem of selection 

 confronts us under a different aspect to that under which it 

 confronted us when treating of the life of the other species ; 

 or, rather, whereas selection among the other species does but 

 aim — if we may be permitted to make figurative use of a teleo- 

 logical expression — at biological fitness, among the human 

 species it tends likewise to social fitness. Social fitness does 

 not mean intellectual fitness only ; the emotional nature of man 

 — and the arts which are its most profound expression — and also 

 his moral sentiments, all go to compose the social constitution 

 of humanity. The Red Indian was superior physically to the 

 white man ; but the social qualities of the white man enabled 

 the latter to emerge victorious. In our Western civilisation 

 to-day too little value is placed on the biological fitness of 

 individual members of society ; it is the progress of our institu- 

 tions, the fruit of centuries of social evolution in the strict sense 

 of the word, to which we attach importance and of which we 

 are proud. In the following chapters we shall have occasion to 

 deal with the question of the biological fitness of our Western 

 civilisation. For the present, we will content ourselves with 

 a glance at our much-vaimted social progress ; and, in order to 

 do this, we will take a concrete case in sociology — the question 

 of the rate of suicide and of its increase. 



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