EXTEIsrSIO:N^S OF DARWINISM 307 



Thus and thus only, as it seems to mo, can we under- 

 stand the raison d' etre of these small-brained animals. They 

 were outgi'owths of the great tree of life for a temporary pur- 

 pose, to keep doA\Ti the coarser vegetation, to supply animal 

 food for the larger Carnivora, and thus give time for higher 

 forms to obtain a secure foothold and a sullicient amount of 

 varied form and structure, from which they could, when bet- 

 ter conditions prevailed, at once start on those wonderful di- 

 verging lines of advance which have resulted in the perfected 

 and glorious life-world in the midst of which we live, or ought 

 to live. 



This view of the purport, the meaning, and the higher func- 

 tion of the gTcat and varied life-world brings us by a differ- 

 ent route to what many of our better thinkers and teachers 

 have tried to impress upon us — • that our great cities are the 

 " wens,'' the disease-products of humanity, and that until they 

 are abolished there can be no approach to a true or rational 

 civilisation. 



This was the teaching of that true and far-seeing child of 

 nature, William Cobbett; it is the teaching of all our greatest 

 sanitarians ; it is the teaching of Nature herself in the com- 

 parative rural and urban death-rates. Yet we have no legis- 

 lator, no minister, who will determinedly set himself to put 

 an end to the continued growth of these " wens " ; which are 

 wholly and absolutely evil. I will, therefore, take this oppor- 

 tunity of showing how it can be done. 



There is much talk now of what will and must be the 

 growth of London during the next twenty or fifty years ; and 

 of the necessity of bringing water from Wales to su})])ly the 

 increased pojjulation. But where is the necessity ? Why pro- 

 vide for a population which need never have existed, and 

 whose coming into existence will be an evil and of no pos- 

 sible use to any human beings but the landowners and specu- 

 lators, who will make money by the certain injury of their 

 fellow-citizens. If the House of Commons and the l>ondt»n 

 County Council are not the bond-slaves of the landowners and 



