74 PROLEGOMENA 



to the gallows, or to the hulks. Moreover, it is fairly 

 probable that the children of a "failure" will receive 

 from their other parent just that little modification of 

 character which makes all the difference. I sometimes 

 wonder whether people, who talk so freely about extir- 

 pating the unfit, ever dispassionately consider their own 

 history. Surely, one must be very "fit," indeed, not to 

 know of an occasion, or perhaps two, in one's life, when 

 it would have been only too easy to qualify for a place 

 among the "unfit." 



In my belief the innate qualities, physical, intellectual, 

 and moral, of our nation have remained substantially the 

 same for the last four or five centuries. If the struggle 

 for existence has affected us to any serious extent (and 

 I doubt it) it has been, indirectly, through our military 

 and industrial wars with other nations. 



XIV. 



What is often called the struggle for existence in so- 

 ciety (I plead guilty to having used the term too loosely 

 myself), is a contest, not for the means of existence, but 

 for the means of enjoyment. Those who occupy the 

 first places in this practical competitive examination are 

 the rich and the influential ; those who fail, more or less, 

 occupy the lower places, down to the squalid obscurity 

 of the pauper and the criminal. Upon the most liberal 

 estimate, I suppose the former group will not amount to 

 two per cent, of the population. I doubt if the latter 

 exceeds another two per cent. ; but let it be supposed, for 

 the sake of argument, that it is as great as five per cent. 25 



25 Those who read the last Essay in this volume will not 

 accuse me of wishing to attenuate the evil of the existence of 

 this group, whether great or small. [T. H. H.] 



The essay referred to is Social Diseases and Worse Remedies, 

 which includes The Struggle for Existence and Letters to the 

 "Times" on the "Darkest England Scheme," a condemnation of the 

 constitution of the Salvation Army. 



