404 HEREDITY AND SELECTION IN SOCIOLOGY 



preserve the incapable and the unfit at the expense of the capable 

 and the fit ; and which mitigates immediate sufEering, which is 

 often deserved, at the expense of incalculably greater future 

 suffering, which is always undeserved. Thus we may say that, 

 if social evolution does tend in one direction to greater altruism, 

 in so far as a greater number of incapable persons are to-day 

 protected against the natural consequences of their incapacity 

 than formerly ; it tends at the same time to render life more 

 difficult for those who, under normal conditions, would be most 

 capable of leading useful lives. So far, then, as altruistic in- 

 fluences are at work in social evolution, it is impossible to admit 

 the beneficial tendencies of these influences ; one of the greatest 

 errors of which is the sacrifice of the future of the race to 

 the preservation of individuals who even in the present are 

 useless. 



Let us turn now to the second point. We have already ex- 

 pressed a doubt as to whether the shifting of the balance of social 

 power which has taken place at the expense of the wealthier 

 classes is due to the action of ethical influences. If we turn our 

 attention once more to certain social phenomena which we have 

 considered in the last four chapters, we shall find our doubts 

 strengthened. The phenomenon of suicide has been insuffi- 

 ciently studied up to the present ; with the notable exception of 

 Durkheim in France and of Baer in Germany, few sociologists 

 have given much attention to this matter. Even Oettingen, in 

 his great work on Moralstatistik, notices the phenomenon of 

 suicide very cursorily. Yet few phenomena are more instructive 

 than the steady and universal increase in the rate of suicide — 

 a rate which shows a degree of stability even greater than the 

 rate of general mortality ; and we may consider this phenomenon 

 as shedding a most useful light on some of the ethical aspects of 

 Western civilisation to-day. 



But this light is not favourable to the view that the primary 

 force shaping the development of our civilisation is the softening 



