BIOLOGICAL AND SOCIAL FITNESS 359 



social culture presupposes a certain degree of biological develop- 

 ment, and is impossible without it. 



3. A race wMcli is biologically fit and socially unfit is inferior, 

 as regards the chances of victory in the immediate conflict, to 

 a race which is highly developed both biologically and socially. 



4. Biological fitness is to be estimated, not only by the capacity 

 of physical endurance, but by the capacity of reproduction, by 

 the capacity of adaptation to new conditions of social life, and 

 by the power of resisting the importation of foreign vices and 

 diseases. 



From this point of view we may attribute the annihilation or 

 decay of uncivilised races brought into contact with Western 

 civilisation to both biological (eugenic) and social (traditional) 

 inferiority. 



II 



The innate tendency of all life is to degenerate from a level 

 once attained, not to advance. Life, left to itself, does not enter 

 the path of progress, but that of regression. We see this ten- 

 dency everywhere manifesting itself in the organic world. Bach 

 time an organ, or part of an organ, has ceased to be profitable to 

 the individual, this organ or part will degenerate from its 

 former level ; and this regression sets in because selection no 

 longer intervenes to maintain the organ in question in its pre- 

 vious state of efficiency. An organ or part which ceases to 

 have biological value is withdrawn from the action of selection, 

 which has no interest in its further conservation ; and, once 

 selection no longer intervenes, all Ufe degenerates. 



Thus, selection appears as an instrument destined to counter- 

 balance the innate tendency of life, to prevent this tendency from 

 manifesting itself. And, as a matter of fact, wherever this 

 tendency of life to regression manifests itself, decay and death are 

 the invariable result. Selection is therefore an indispensable 

 condition of life ; and, being such, we may expect to find it active 



