IMPROVING THE HUMAN PLANT 



natural standards, but they are the only standards 

 compatible with the persistence of the unnatural 

 state of society that we term civilized. 



So it has come about that the condition of men 

 in civilized society is closely comparable to the 

 condition of plants in a hothouse or in a carefully 

 cultivated and weeded garden. The very condi- 

 tions of civilization make it as essential that the 

 human weed should be removed and the unfit 

 members of the community prevented from propa- 

 gating their kind as that similar principles should 

 apply in the hothouse or the flower garden. 



Under the conditions of barbaric life, and feven 

 under those of the high civilization of classical 

 antiquity, the principles of eugenic selection thus 

 implied were carried out with a good deal of rigor. 

 Even if the weaklings were not consciously re- 

 moved — and this was sometimes done — the stress 

 of living was such that the abnormal or weakly 

 infants were claimed by disease, and the adults 

 who lacked strength and intelligence were likely 

 to succumb to the attacks of wild pests, to starva- 

 tion, or to the onslaught of human enemies. 



So the principle of selective or eugenic breed- 

 ing was all along applied, even when no one com- 

 prehended its meaning or gave it a name ; and the 

 results are seen in the progress of humanity to its 

 present state. 



[213] 



