202 THE TREND OF THE RACE 
tion’ is being curiously revived by these inexperienced eugenists 
just when it is being discarded by biologists, we may note that 
any process of selection which can be justified must weed out 
the worthless without damaging the worthy. Such is the pre- 
sumed action of natural selection. But to talk of natural selec- 
tion in anything so hideously unnatural as a slum is wildly un- 
scientific. . . . What really happens in a slum, of course, is the 
damaging of all the life therein.”” We need not tarry over the 
reckless statements into which Dr. Saleeby has been led appar- 
ently through the warmth of indignant protest against what 
he has called the “‘better dead school.” We might be tempted 
to remark that it was ‘‘inexcusable”’ for any one having the least 
acquaintance with current biological thought and investigation 
to refer to natural selection as a sort of exploded notion which has 
been given up by modern biologists. And we might comment 
on the absurdity of saying that natural selection cannot be oper- 
ative in a slum because the conditions there are ‘‘unnatural.” 
But disregarding these somewhat impetuous pronouncements, 
it may be said in regard to the main conclusion that the fact 
that agencies which are inimical to infancy may also deteriorate 
the quality of the survivors in no wise proves that natural selec- 
tion is not in vigorous operation. Its effects may not, on the 
whole, be desirable, but that is another matter. If bad environ- 
ment weeds out unfavorable germinal variations, while at the 
same time it stunts the development of the more favorable 
ones which it spares, the biological, or perhaps we should say 
the germinal gain might be more than offset by the social loss. 
It might not profit us to be the product of superior germ plasm 
if we had to live under conditions in which we could not attain 
our full development. To how great an extent do the agencies 
that commonly produce a high infant mortality handicap in- 
dividuals in their later development? How far is the fact that 
certain localities with a high infant mortality have a high child 
and adult mortality due to the handicapping of infancy, and how 
far is it due to the direct effect of the unfavorable conditions of 
later years? There is reason to believe that both of these factors 
