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1916-17.] Darwinism and Human Civilisation. 
it has impoverished the many and supplied incentives to fraud, theft, and 
all manner of crime. Patriarchal establishments have given way to social 
organisations governed by laws founded on moral sentiment and ethics ; 
but their by-products are extreme luxury and extreme poverty. Hence, to 
support the weak and the unfortunate is no longer a matter of charity, but 
a moral obligation. Notwithstanding the size of your asylums, hospitals, 
and almshouses, they are always full and always on the increase. You 
have formulated various systems of religion, but whether founded on the 
principles of fetichism, polytheism, or monotheism, they are all more or less 
permeated with contradictory or controverted creeds and dogmas. National 
sport, as practised with weapons of modern precision, can only be character- 
ised as legalised killing of helpless creatures. To shoot pigeons suddenly 
liberated from a box at a measured distance, or to slaughter overfed pheasants, 
or even to stalk semi-domesticated deer driven to the muzzle of a rifle — all, 
of course, within sight of a luncheon-basket, — is a poor substitute for the 
excitement and field incidents of the chase in Palaeolithic times. With no 
better weapons than a wooden spear, or lance, tipped with a pointed flint, 
and a small dagger of bone or horn, we had, not infrequently, to encounter 
in mortal combat the mammoth, rhinoceros, cave-bear, or some other fierce 
and hungry animal which, like ourselves, was prowling in quest of a 
morning meal. Such scenes had many of the elements of true sport, and, 
being essential to our existence, were of daily occurrence. Moreover, from 
the standpoint of modern ethics, our method of sport put the combatants 
on something like a footing of equality, and gave our opponents a fair 
chance of escape. Nor did we in the least infringe the principles of 
modern societies against cruelty to animals. We cultivated physical 
qualities by the natural exercise of the senses ; and so personal prowess 
was the distinguishing prerogative of our heroes. Thus we acquired the 
experience, skill, strength, and courage of practised athletes — qualities 
which left no room for fear or cowardice. With us brain-power passed 
almost directly from the generating organ to the muscles of the adminis- 
trator ; with you it has to pass through a complicated system of accumulators 
liable to various degrees of leakage ; and it is this leakage which often 
sucks dry the blood-life of your civilisation. Finally, the permanence of 
your civilisation remains to be tested by the touchstone of time. For 
civilisations, like the genera and species of the organic world, have their 
life-histories determined by as fixed laws as those that govern the parallelo- 
gram of forces. To cosmic evolution, under which, to a large extent, our 
race flourished, you have superadded altruism, which means the survival 
of the weak as well as the strong. But altruism will continue to be a 
