SELECTION: ORGANIC AND SOCIAL 229 



surroundings is inestimable. It makes for health, 

 of body and brain ; it awakens long-dormant buds ; 

 it fills up the life with wholesome delights ; it pro- 

 duces pleasant modifications on the individual ; and 

 who can tell how its potent messages may travel 

 by " the wireless telegraphy of ante-natal life " ? 



All this is famihar, yet are we not slow to adopt 

 a resolute policy of securing one of the really good 

 things in life — a Eutopia ? Every one knows that 

 this is no Utopia, if we can only make up our 

 minds to live more in the present and less in the 

 future. 



Selection of Healthful Occupations. — With- 

 in the hands of all men of good-wiU there is 

 a powerful instrument of progress, technically 

 known as " the criticism of consumption." It is 

 one of the most effective factors in amelioration, 

 especially as regards the selection of healthful 

 occupations. Perhaps more might be made of it 

 if the strategy involved was more generally recog- 

 nised. When we discover that certain articles 

 are socially injurious, bad for the maker, bad for 

 the buyer, we should not buy them, but get instead 

 something which it was good for a man to make, 

 and good for us to have. Now, if we do this 

 consistently and keep at it unwaveringly, and 

 get others to do the same, we will, if we keep 

 the selection a-going long enough, often enough, 

 stringently enough, put an end to an ugly article 

 and an injurious occupation. The process is never 

 quick enough to be unjust or cruel, as the swings 

 of fashion often are. Apply this consistent selec- 

 tion to favouring wholesome people, not wasters, 

 constructive occupations, not destructive ones, 

 beautiful places, not ugly ones— and we have 



