50 EVOLUTION MADE PLAIN 
runts, and the mal-formed—cursed with morons, 
sub-morons, half-wits, quarter-wits, and pre¬ 
destined criminals? And worse for the entire 
race, this class shades upward by imperceptible 
degrees into all gradations, mingling its in¬ 
ferior strains with the best. It has always 
been so; therefore all of us, far more than 
wild animals, have a mixed ancestry, of the 
good and the less good. 
Why is it that man has not learned to rid 
himself of this lower fringe of degeneracy as 
is done in the case of every other species of 
animal? It is mainly because the superstition 
of an out-worn theology has so muddled his 
brains that he has been unable to see that the 
laws of Nature are as applicable to himself 
as to all other creatures. He has always fan¬ 
cied himself as occupying a higher plane than 
that on which Nature has her laboratory. So 
he has always depended on “divine” laws, not 
those o£ “carnal nature,” to plant his feet on 
higher ground. And we see the result. Not¬ 
withstanding his high intellectual and moral 
faculties, as a race, he is the most defective 
animal on earth. What is the remedy? 
If we would solve this pressing problem we 
must apply the laws of Nature to man in some 
such manner as they have always applied to 
the rest of the animal kingdom. The unfit 
must be prevented from reproducing its kind. 
How? There are only two methods: Nature’s, 
by bringing about the death of the unfit pros¬ 
pective parent, and man’s, the sterilization 
method. But among the better traits of man 
which have been slowly evolved in his age¬ 
long struggle reaching back to an immemorial 
