168 
THE DESCENT OF MAN. 
Part I. 
by Mr. Wallace and Mr. Gallon . 11 Most of my remarks 
are taken from these three authors. With savages, the 
weak in body or mind are soon eliminated ; and those 
that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of 
health. We civilised' men, on the other hand, do our 
utmost to check the process of elimination ; we build 
asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick ; we 
institute poor-laws; and our medical men e*xert their 
utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last 
moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination 
has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution 
would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus 
the weak members of civilised societies propagate their 
kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of 
domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly 
injurious to the race of man. It. is surprising how soon 
a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the 
degeneration of a domestic race ; but excepting in the 
case of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as 
to allow^ his worst animals to breed. 
The aid which we feel impelled to give to the help- 
less is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of 
sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of 
the social instincts, but subsequently rendered, in the 
manner previously indicated, more tender and more 
widely diffused. Nor could we check our sympathy, if 
so urged by hard reason, without deterioration in the 
and a rejoinder in the ‘ Spectator/ Oct. 3rd and 17th 1868. It has. 
also been discussed in the ‘ Q. Journal of Science/ 1869, p. 152, and by 
Mr. Lawson Tait in the ‘ Dublin Q. Journal of Medical Science/ Feb; 
1869, and by Mr. E. Ray Lankester in his * Comparative Longevity/ 
1870, p. 128. Similar views appeared previously in the ‘Australasian/ 
July 13, 1867. I have borrowed ideas from several of these writers. 
11 For Mr. Wallace, see ‘ Anthropolog. Review/ as before cited. 
Mr. Galton in ‘Macmillan's Magazine/ Aug. 1865, p. 318; also his 
great work, ‘Hereditary Genius/ 1870. 
