112 ANALYSIS OF THE FOUR PRINCIPLES. 



drudgery. If degeneracy is threatened, the remedy will not be found 

 in restoring the conditions of savage life, in which the imbecile and the 

 insane, the deaf and the diseased, are all eliminated by starvation; 

 but rather by such forms of institutional and prudential selection, 

 enforced by public opinion and law, as will prevent the marriage of 

 those who are specially liable to have defective offspring. It thus 

 appears that institutional selection and prudential selection, both of 

 which may be subjected to rational control, are the chief factors by 

 which man may hope to maintain and control his own evolution. 



The powerful influence of institutions on human evolution will be 

 recognized by those who consider the effects that must be produced 

 on the vigor and vitality of a nation when military organization and 

 destructive wars prevent many of the most vigorous men from having 

 any share in producing the next generation, while many others who 

 leave children are suddenly removed by death when their families 

 most need their aid. Again, the institutions in which the community 

 combines for the maintenance of justice and order and the training of 

 the young must have a profound influence on the physical inheritance 

 of the race, through the advantage it gives to the peaceful and law- 

 abiding. 



In the evolution of civilized man the law of natural increase is 

 liable to be set aside in a way that often becomes extremely abnormal. 

 I refer to the effects of prudential selection in limiting the size of 

 families, both by delaying marriage and by restraint after marriage. 

 Of course, both methods of using the reason are legitimate if the end 

 sought is not a selfish desire to be free from care and responsibility. 

 The evil has grown to such proportions in certain communities that 

 the very existence of these groups is threatened. The fundamental 

 difficulty seems to be that public opinion has failed to set before the 

 men and women of force and character — before those who are the back- 

 bone of the nation — the double ideal of maintaining a vigorous life 

 and civilization during their own generation and of transmitting the 

 same to a posterity of unabated vigor and of high native character, 

 as well as of high training and culture. It is impossible that this 

 standard should be attained if there is unwillingness to establish 

 family relations until the battle of Hfe has been fought out and won. 

 Nor can it be realized if after marriage those who should become 

 parents wish to reserve the chief portion of their energy for social 

 entertainments or for the pleasures of art, science, literature, and 

 travel, with no consideration of how these great gifts of past genera- 

 tions can be best transmitted and rendered continuously progressive 



