220 DARWINISM AND HUMAN LIFE 



them first ; might they not say, " Yet we are 

 the movers and shakers of the world for ever, it 

 seems " ? 



Perhaps the time may eome when the noblest 

 social sentiment and a maturer science will agree 

 that this bud and that should not be allowed to 

 open ; but the time is not yet. The biologist dis- 

 trusts social surgery because of his ignorance ; 

 the sociologist rejects it because the thought of it 

 makes the foundations of society tremble, and 

 because the social ideal of good citizens is wider 

 than the ideal of good physiqu e ; and the practical 

 man will not hear of it because he knows that it 

 is not in us to practise it. Even if the way 

 were clear, it would be hke destroying fruits and 

 leaving roots, and securing a fictitious comfort by 

 an entirely artificial method of disowning our 

 social Uabilities. 



Is Social Selection compensating for the 

 Diminution ov Natueal Selection ? — A third 

 suggestion leads us nearer practicable tactics, for 

 it raises an inquiry into the modes of selection 

 which are at present in operation in human societies. 

 How do these compare with natural selection, and 

 how far can they be trusted to effect the purgation 

 of the State ? 



AVhatever form natural selection may take — 

 and it has a thousand — this is always true about 

 it, that the ehminated are eliminated because of 

 some defect in or pertaining to them, " the unlit 

 lamp and the ungirt loin " in some form, and that 

 the survivors survive because of some relatively 

 advantageous quality in or pertaining to them. 

 But there are many selective processes in human 

 society which depend on something else than the 



