{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_50289/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_50289","id":"gutenberg_50289","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/50289","summary":null,"tags":["Category: History - Other","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Sociology","Natural selection","Social ethics"],"text":"Transcriber's Notes: Variations in spelling and hyphenation remain as\nin the original. A row of asterisks represents a thought break except\nin poetry where a row of asterisks indicates an ellipsis. A complete\nlist of corrections follows the text.\n\n\n\n\n                          SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT\n\n                                  AND\n\n                            MORAL PROGRESS\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: Alfred R. Wallace\n\n      _Photo: Reginald Haines_]\n\n[Illustration: Alfred R. Wallace signature]\n\n\n\n\n                          Social Environment\n                                  and\n                            Moral Progress\n\n                                  BY\n\n                         Alfred Russel Wallace\n                           O.M., D.C.L.Oxon.\n                              F.R.S., &c.\n\n            Author of \"The Malay Archipelago,\" \"Darwinism,\"\n          \"Man's Place in the Universe,\" \"The World of Life,\"\n                                &c. &c.\n\n\n                       Cassell and Company, Ltd\n                London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne\n                                 1913\n\n\n\n  First Edition _March 1913_.\n  _Reprinted April and June 1913._\n\n\n\n\nContents\n\n\n  PART I.\u2014HISTORICAL\n\n  CHAPTER                                              PAGE\n\n   1. INTRODUCTORY                                        1\n\n   2. MORALITY AS BASED UPON CHARACTER                    4\n\n   3. PERMANENCE OF CHARACTER                             8\n\n   4. PERMANENCE OF HIGH INTELLECT                       15\n\n   5. SPEECH AND WRITING AS PROOFS OF INTELLIGENCE       28\n\n   6. SAVAGES NOT MORALLY INFERIOR TO CIVILISED RACES    31\n\n   7. A SELECTIVE AGENCY NEEDED TO IMPROVE CHARACTER     36\n\n   8. ENVIRONMENT DURING THE NINETEENTH CENTURY          40\n\n   9. INSANITARY DWELLINGS AND LIFE-DESTROYING TRADES    47\n\n  10. ADULTERATION, BRIBERY, AND GAMBLING                55\n\n  11. OUR ADMINISTRATION OF \"JUSTICE\" IS IMMORAL         62\n\n  12. INDICATIONS OF INCREASING MORAL DEGRADATION        67\n\n\n  PART II.\u2014THEORETICAL\n\n  13. NATURAL SELECTION AMONG ANIMALS                    75\n\n  14. SELECTION AS MODIFIED BY MIND                      93\n\n  15. THE LAWS OF HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT              103\n\n  16. MORAL PROGRESS THROUGH A NEW FORM OF SELECTION    125\n\n  17. HOW TO INITIATE AN ERA OF MORAL PROGRESS          150\n\n      INDEX                                             159\n\n\n\n\n  Social Environment\n  and\n  Moral Progress\n\n\n\n\nPART I.\u2014HISTORICAL\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nINTRODUCTORY\n\n\nBefore entering on the question of the relation of morality to our\nexisting social environment, it will be advisable to inquire what\nwe mean by moral progress, and what evidence there is that any such\nprogress has occurred in recent times, or even within the period of\nwell-established history.\n\nBy morals we mean right conduct, not only in our immediate social\nrelations, but also in our dealings with our fellow citizens and with\nthe whole human race. It is based upon the possession of clear ideals\nas to what actions are right and what are wrong and the determination\nof our conduct by a constant reference to those ideals.\n\nThe belief was once prevalent, and is still held by many persons, that\na knowledge of right and wrong is inherent or instinctive in everyone,\nand that the immoral person may be justly punished for such wrongdoing\nas he commits. But that this cannot be wholly, if at all, true is shown\nby the fact that in different societies and at different periods the\nstandard of right and wrong changes considerably. That which at one\ntime and place is held to be right and proper is, at another time or\nplace, considered to be not only wrong, but one of the greatest of\ncrimes. The most striking example of this change of opinion is that as\nto slavery, which was held to be quite justifiable by the most highly\ncivilised people of antiquity, and hardly less so by ourselves within\nthe memory of persons still living. The owners of sugar estates in\nJamaica cultivated by slaves were not stigmatised as immoral by their\nrelatives in England or by the public at large; and it was the horror\nexcited by the slave-trade in Africa, and in the \"middle passage\" on\nthe slave ships, rather than by the slavery itself, that so excited\npublic opinion as to lead to the abolition first of the one and then of\nthe other.\n\nWe are obliged to conclude, therefore, that what is commonly termed\nmorality is not wholly due to any inherent perception of what is\nright or wrong conduct, but that it is to some extent and often very\nlargely a matter of convention, varying at different times and places\nin accordance with the degree and kind of social development which\nhas been attained often under different and even divergent conditions\nof existence. The actual morality of a community is largely a product\nof the environment, but it is local and temporary, not permanently\naffecting the character.\n\nTo bring together the evidence in support of this view, to distinguish\nbetween what is permanent and inherited and what is superficial and not\ninherited, and to trace out some of the consequences as regards what we\nterm \"morality\" is the purpose of the present volume.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nMORALITY AS BASED UPON CHARACTER\n\n\nThough much of what we term morality has no absolute sanction in human\nnature, yet it is to some extent, and perhaps very largely, based\nupon it. It will be well, therefore, to consider briefly the nature\nand probable origin of what we term \"character\"\u2014in individuals, in\nsocieties, and especially in those more ancient and more fundamental\ndivisions of mankind which we term \"races.\"\n\nCharacter may be defined as the aggregate of mental faculties and\nemotions which constitute personal or national individuality. It is\nvery strongly hereditary, yet it is probably subject to more inherent\nvariation than is the form and structure of the body. The combinations\nof its constituent elements are so numerous as, in common language,\nto be termed infinite; and this gives to each person a very distinct\nindividuality, as manifested in speech, in emotional expression, and in\naction.\n\nThe mental faculties which go to form the \"character\" of each man or\nwoman are very numerous, a large proportion of them being such as are\nrequired for the preservation of the individual and of the race, while\nothers are pre-eminently social or ethical. These latter, which impel\nus to truth, to justice, and to benevolence, when in due proportion to\nall the other mental faculties, go to form what we distinguish as a\ngood or moral character, and will in most cases result in actions which\nmeet with the general approval of that section of society in which we\nlive; and this approval reacts upon the character so that it often\nappears to be better than it really is.\n\nSo great is the effect of this approval of our fellows that it\nsometimes leads to behaviour quite different from what it would\nbe if this approval were absent. This is especially the case when\nthe approval leads to wealth or positions of dignity or advantage.\nOccasionally, in cases of this kind the individual cannot resist his\nnatural impulses, and then acts so as to show his underlying real\ncharacter. We term such persons hypocrites for making us believe that\nthey were inherently good, instead of being so in appearance only\nwhen the good action was profitable to them. Hence in a highly complex\nstate of civilisation it becomes exceedingly difficult correctly to\nappraise characters as moral or immoral, good or bad; while there is no\nsuch difficulty as regards the intellectual and emotional aspects of\ncharacter, which are less influenced by the general environment, and\nwhich there is less temptation to conceal.\n\nAll the evidence we possess tends to show that although the actions\nof most individuals are to a considerable extent determined by their\nsocial environment, that does not imply any alteration in their\ncharacter. Everyone's experience of life, and especially the example of\nhis friends and associates, leads him to repress his passions, regulate\nhis emotions, and in general to use his judgment before acting, so as\nto secure the esteem of his fellows and greater happiness for himself;\nand these restraints, becoming habitual, may often give the appearance\nof an actual change of character till some great temptation or violent\npassion overcomes the usual restraint and exhibits the real nature,\nwhich is usually dormant.\n\nNow it is this inherent and unchangeable character itself that tends\nto be transmitted to offspring, and this being the case, there can be\nno progressive improvement in character without some selective agency\ntending to such improvement. By means of a general discussion of the\nnature and origin of \"Character,\" I have elsewhere shown that there\nis no proof of any real advance in it during the whole historical\nperiod.[7:A] I show later on what the required selective agency is, and\nhow it will come into action automatically when, and not until, our\nsocial system is so reformed as to afford suitable conditions. (_See_\nChapter XVI.)\n\n    [7:A] See _Character and Life_, edited by P. L. Parker, pp.\n    19-31. (Williams and Norgate; November, 1912.)\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nPERMANENCE OF CHARACTER\n\n\nI will now call attention to a few of the facts which lead to the\nconclusion as to the stationary condition of general character from\nthe earliest periods of human history, and presumably from the dawn of\ncivilisation. In the earliest records which have come down to us from\nthe past we find ample indications that general ethical conceptions,\nthe accepted standard of morality, and the conduct resulting from\nthese, were in no degree inferior to those which prevail to-day, though\nin some respects they differed from ours.\n\nAs examples of great moral teachers in very early times we have\nSocrates and Plato, about 400 B.C.; Confucius and Buddha, one\nor two centuries earlier; Homer, earlier still; the great Indian Epic,\nthe Maha-Bharata, about 1500 B.C. All these afford indications\nof intellectual and moral character quite equal to our own; while their\nlower manifestations, as shown by their wars and love of gambling,\nwere no worse than corresponding immoralities to-day.\n\nIn the beautiful translation by the late Mr. Romesh Dutt, of such\nportions of the Maha-Bharata as are best fitted to give English readers\na proper conception of the whole work, there is a striking episode\nentitled \"Woman's Love,\" in which the heroine, a princess, by repeated\npetitions and reasonings persuades Yama, the god of death, to give back\nher husband's spirit to the body. It is described in the following\nverses:\n\n    \"And the sable King was vanquished, and he turned on her again,\n     And his words fell on Savitri like the cooling summer rain:\n     'Noble woman, speak thy wishes, name thy boon and purpose high,\n     What the pious mortal asketh gods in heaven may not deny!'\n\n    \"'Thou hast,' so Savitri answered, 'granted father's realm and might,\n     To his vain and sightless eyeballs hath restored the blessed light;\n     Grant him that the line of monarchs may not all untimely end,\n     That his kingdom to Satyavan and Savitri's sons descend!'\n\n    \"'Have thy wishes,' answered Yama; 'thy good lord shall live again,\n     He shall live to be a father, and your children, too, shall reign;\n     For a woman's troth endureth longer than the fleeting breath,\n     And a woman's love abideth higher than the doom of death.'\"\n\nAnd when at the end of the epic, the kings and warriors welcome each\nother in the spirit world, we find the following noble conception of\nthe qualities and actions which give them a place there:\n\n    \"These and other mighty warriors, in the earthly battle slain,\n     By their valour and their virtue walk the bright ethereal plain!\n     They have lost their mortal bodies, crossed the radiant gate of\n         heaven,\n     For to win celestial mansions unto mortals it is given!\n     Let them strive by kindly action, gentle speech, endurance long,\n     Brighter life and holier future unto sons of men belong!\"\n\nMr. Dutt informs us that he has not only reproduced, as nearly as\npossible, the metre of the original, but has aimed at giving us a\nliteral translation. No one can read his beautiful rendering without\nfeeling that the people it describes were our intellectual and moral\nequals.\n\nThe wonderful collection of hymns known as the Vedas is a vast system\nof religious teaching as pure and lofty as those of the finest portions\nof the Hebrew scriptures. A few examples from the translation by Sir\nMonier Monier-Williams will show that its various writers were fully\nour equals in their conceptions of the universe, and of the Deity,\nexpressed in the finest poetic language. The following is a portion of\na hymn to \"The Investing Sky\":\n\n    \"The mighty Varuna, who rules above, looks down\n     Upon these worlds, his kingdom, as if close at hand.\n     When men imagine they do aught by stealth, he knows it.\n     No one can stand or walk, or softly glide along\n     Or hide in dark recess, or lurk in secret cell\n     But Varuna detects him and his movements spies.\n\n                *       *       *       *\n\n                  This boundless earth is his,\n     His the vast sky, whose depth no mortal e'er can fathom.\n     Both oceans find a place within his body, yet\n     In the small pool he lies contained; whoe'er should flee\n     Far, far beyond the sky would not escape the grasp\n     Of Varuna, the king. His messengers descend\n     Countless from his abode\u2014for ever traversing\n     This world, and scanning with a thousand eyes its inmates.\n     Whate'er exists within this earth, and all within the sky,\n     Yea, all that is beyond King Varuna perceives.\n     May thy destroying snares cast sevenfold round the wicked,\n     Entangle liars, but the truthful spare, O King.\"\n\nThe following passage from a \"Hymn to Death,\" shows a perfect\nconfidence in that persistence of the human personality after death,\nwhich is still a matter of doubt and discussion to-day:\n\n    \"To Yama, mighty king, he gifts and homage paid.\n     He was the first of men that died, the first to brave\n     Death's rapid rushing stream, the first to point the road\n     To heaven, and welcome others to that bright abode.\n     No power can rob us of the home thus won by thee.\n     O king, we come; the born must die, must tread the path\n     That thou hast trod\u2014the path by which each race of men,\n     In long succession, and our fathers too, have passed.\n     Soul of the dead! depart; fear not to take the road\u2014\n     The ancient road\u2014by which thy ancestors have gone;\n     Ascend to meet the god\u2014to meet thy happy fathers,\n     Who dwell in bliss with him.\n     Return unto thy home, O soul! Thy sin and shame\n     Leave thou behind on earth; assume a shining form\u2014\n     Thy ancient shape\u2014refined and from all taint set free.\"\n\nIn this we find many of the essential teachings of the most advanced\nreligious thinkers\u2014the immediate entrance to a higher life, the\nrecognition of friends, the persistence of the human form, and the\nshining raiment, typical of the loss of earthly taint.\n\nBut besides these special deities, we find also the recognition of the\none supreme God, as in the following hymn:\n\n    \"What god shall we adore with sacrifice?\n     Him let us praise, the golden child that rose\n     In the beginning, who was born the Lord\u2014\n     The one sole lord of all that is\u2014who made\n     The earth, and formed the sky, who giveth life,\n     Who giveth strength, whose bidding gods revere,\n     Whose hiding place is immortality,\n     Whose shadow, death; who by his might is king\n     Of all the breathing, sleeping, waking world\u2014\n     Who governs men and beasts; whose majesty\n     These snowy hills, this ocean with its rivers,\n     Declare; of whom these spreading regions form\n     The arms by which the firmament is strong,\n     Earth firmly planted, and the highest heavens\n     Supported, and the clouds that fill the air\n     Distributed and measured out; to whom\n     Both earth and heaven, established by his will,\n     Look up with trembling mind; in whom revealed\n     The rising sun shines forth above the world.\"\n\nIf we make allowance for the very limited knowledge of Nature at this\nearly period, we must admit that the mind which conceived and expressed\nin appropriate language, such ideas as are everywhere apparent in\nthese Vedic hymns, could not have been in any way inferior to those of\nthe best of our religious teachers and poets\u2014to our Miltons and our\nTennysons.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nPERMANENCE OF HIGH INTELLECT\n\n\nAccompanying this fine literature and moral teaching in Ancient\nIndia was a civilisation equal to that of early classical races, in\ngrand temples, forts and palaces, weapons and implements, jewelry\nand exquisite fabrics. Their architecture was highly decorative and\npeculiar, and has continued to quite recent times. Owing perhaps to the\ntropical or sub-tropical climate, with marked wet and dry seasons, the\noldest buildings that have survived, even as ruins, are less ancient\nthan those of Greece or Rome\u2014but those corresponding in age to the\nperiod of our Gothic cathedrals are immensely numerous, and show an\noriginality of design, a wealth of ornament, and a perfection of\nworkmanship equal to those of any other buildings in the world.\n\nTwo other great civilisations of which we have authentic records are\nthose of Egypt and Mesopotamia, both of which appear to have been\nmuch older than those of India or Greece. But whereas Egypt has left\nus the most continuous series of tombs, temples, and palaces in the\nworld, abundant works of art in statues and sculptures, together with\ncharacteristic reliefs and wall paintings, showing the whole public\nand domestic life of the people, Mesopotamia is represented only by\nvast masses of ruins on the sites of the ancient cities of Nineveh\nand Babylon, from which have been disinterred many fine statues and\nreliefs, exhibiting a very distinct style of art. For more than 2,000\nyears the history and remains of this once greatest of civilisations\nwas absolutely unknown, except by a few doubtful facts and names in\nGreek and Hebrew writings. But during the latter half of the nineteenth\ncentury a band of explorers and students, such as Layard and Rawlinson,\nmade known, first the works of art, and, latterly, an enormous quantity\nof small bricks and stone slabs, thickly covered with a peculiar\nkind of writing known as the cuneiform inscriptions, which, after\nan enormous amount of labour, have at length been translated. Whole\nlibraries of these brick-books have been discovered, and as the reading\nand translating goes on, we obtain a knowledge of the history, laws,\ncustoms, and daily life of this ancient people almost equal to that we\nnow possess of the ancient Indians and Egyptians.\n\nFor our present purpose, however, Egyptian civilisation is the most\nimportant, because it presents us with the most definite proof of the\nattainment of a high degree of what is specially scientific attainment\nat the very dawn of historical knowledge. This is well exhibited by\nthat most wonderful work of constructive art\u2014the Great Pyramid of\nGizeh\u2014which, though not quite the earliest, is the largest and most\nremarkable of about seventy pyramids in various parts of Egypt, and has\nbeen more thoroughly explored and studied, both as to its proportions,\nconstruction and uses, than any of the others.\n\nThis pyramid is known historically to have been built by the order of\nKing Cheops (or Khufu), and the date of its design and erection can be\npretty accurately fixed as about 3700 B.C., or nearly 2,000\nyears earlier than that of the civilisation depicted in the Indian\nand Greek epics. The internal structure of this pyramid is its most\ninteresting feature, because it shows clearly that it was designed\nto be not only the tomb of the king who built it, but also a true\nastronomical observatory during his life. This has been denied by some\nmodern historians. In Harmsworth's _History of the World_ (p. 2034)\nit is said: \"For the pyramids are nothing but tombs. They have no\nastronomical meaning or intention whatever.\" And then, after referring\nto the ideas of Piazzi Smyth and others as \"vain imaginings,\" it is\nadded: \"There is nothing marvellous about these great tombs, except\ntheir size and the accuracy of their building.\" An almost exactly\nsimilar statement is made in the great _Historian's History of the\nWorld_, and in \"Chambers's Encyclop\u00e6dia.\"\n\nIf the writers of these histories had read Mr. R. A. Proctor's book,\n_The Great Pyramid: Observatory, Tomb and Temple_, they would have\nknown that this statement is entirely erroneous. The size, shape,\nand angles of the internal passages have been described and measured\nby many competent students, among the most careful and exact of whom\nwas Piazzi Smyth, then Astronomer Royal of Scotland. It is true he\nhad many \"vain imaginings,\" but his measurements were among the most\ntrustworthy. The \"pyramid religion,\" which he helped to establish by\na series of \"coincidences\" in the dimensions of various parts of the\npyramid with astronomical dimensions, of which the pyramid builders\ncould have had no knowledge whatever (such as the distance of the\nsun, the precession of the equinoxes, etc.), was no doubt a \"vain\nimagining,\" but he frankly claimed it as a divine inspiration. All\nthese are rejected by Mr. Proctor, who clearly explains the purpose\nof the greater part of the internal structure as only an experienced\npractical astronomer could do. I will now state as briefly as possible\nwhat are the well-established facts, as well as the conclusions at\nwhich Mr. Proctor arrives.\n\nThe Great Pyramid and the two smaller ones near it, forming the\npyramids of Gizeh, are placed on a small rocky plateau near the apex\nof the delta of the Nile. The largest of these is situated so that its\nnorthern face rises from the very edge of this plateau. The reason of\nthis seems to have been that the builders wished to place it as nearly\nas possible on the 30th parallel of latitude. It is really about a\nmile and a third south of that parallel, and it is shown that such an\nerror is a small one for that early period, and would matter but very\nlittle for the purpose required. The next feature is that it is truly\noriented; that is, the four sides run north and south, east and west.\nIt is also a true square, the four sides being of equal length, and the\nfour corners are on a truly level plane.\n\nThe first thing the builders had to do was to get a true meridian\nline, and they could have done this in two ways\u2014by observations of\nthe sun or of the pole star, the latter being much the more accurate,\nthough more laborious and costly. At the time the pyramid was built\nthe pole star was Alpha Draconis, which was farther from the pole than\nour pole star and revolved around the true pole in a circle of 7\u00b0 24\u2032\nin diameter. In order to observe the direction of this star at its\nlowest point, the builders excavated in the solid rock a tunnel about\n4 feet in diameter, so as to keep this star visible each day at the\nlowest point of its circuit. This tunnel extended 350 feet through the\nrock to a point nearly under the centre of the pyramid, where, by a\nsmall vertical boring, a plumb-line could have been dropped so as to\nobtain the exact line of the meridian on the surface, and afterwards\non each successive step of the pyramid as it was built up. While the\nbuilding went on the sloping tunnel was continued backwards to its\nnorthern face; and a tunnel ascending to the south was formed of the\nsame size and making the same angle with the horizon. This had puzzled\nall previous explorers of the pyramid till Mr. Proctor showed that, by\nstopping up the downward passage at the angle and filling the hollow\nwith water the pole star could be observed by reflexion and thus give\nthe exact direction of the meridian on the upper surface of the pyramid\nwith extreme accuracy, as it was built up slowly year by year.\n\nBut at a distance of 127 feet a new feature appears. The ascending\ntunnel is changed into what is called the Great Gallery, which, while\ncontinuing exactly the same floor line as the tunnel, is suddenly\nraised to a height of 28 feet, with a width of 7 feet on the floor\nand 3\u00bd feet at the top. Along each side there is a ledge or seat,\n20 inches broad and 21 inches high. The sides do not slope inwards,\nbut are formed of seven courses of stone, each one overlapping the\none below by about 3 inches. The whole of this gallery, or inclined\ncorridor, is formed of limestone beautifully smooth, or even polished.\nThe length of this gallery is 156 feet, and its floor terminated at\nthe platform of the pyramid, upon the central line from east to west,\nwhen it had reached two-thirds of its total height. This is on the\nlevel of the King's Chamber; and it was probably only after the king\nwas dead and his body embalmed and placed in his sarcophagus that the\npyramid was completed, the openings of the passages carefully closed\nup, and the whole exterior covered with a smooth casing of stone, very\nsmall portions of which now remain. There are two other features of\nthis gallery which have puzzled the merely antiquarian explorers. These\nare square holes cut in the sloping benches close to the side walls,\nand about 5\u00bd feet apart, there being eighteen on each side exactly\nopposite each other. On each side of the gallery, about half-way\nup, is a longitudinal groove, which would serve to carry transverse\nscreens which could be slid up or down, and easily wedged in position\nin order to mark exactly the central line, like the cross hairs in an\nastronomical telescope. The holes on the benches would serve to carry\ncross seats on which the observer could be firmly and comfortably\nseated while observing a transit of sun, star, or planet.\n\nBeing open to the south, the Great Gallery would give a magnificent\nview of the southern sky, and enable observers to determine the\naltitudes and azimuths of many stars, and of the superior planets\nMars, Jupiter and Saturn. The star Alpha Centauri, which was at that\nperiod of the first magnitude though now much diminished in brightness,\nwould, when crossing the meridian, have been situated about the centre\nof the field of view as seen from this remarkable feature of the\npyramid which, Mr. Proctor considers, was the finest transit-instrument\never constructed for naked-eye observations. Tycho Brah\u00e9, with his\ncelebrated Quadrant at Uranienburg, did not attain such a degree of\naccuracy as did these Eastern astronomers nearly 6,000 years ago. One\ngreat superiority of the subterranean observatory over any open-air\nobservations that can be made without telescopes is, that by closing up\nthe end, except for the small aperture required to see the object, the\nbrighter stars could be well observed in the daytime.\n\nWhen we remember that the Great Pyramid covers 13\u00bd acres of ground,\nthat it is truly square and on a truly horizontal base, that each side\nis accurately directed to a point of the compass, that the angle of its\nslope is such that the area of each of the four triangular faces is\nequal to that of a square whose sides are equal to the height of the\npyramid; and, further, that the slope of the long descending tunnel is\nprecisely such as to point accurately to the pole star of the epoch\nat the lowest part of its circuit round the true pole; and, lastly,\nthat all this could only be done, as accurately as it has been done,\nby the system of subterranean tunnels and galleries that actually\nexists, while almost all the details of their construction are shown to\nbe adapted for astronomical observations of the nature required, the\nconclusion becomes irresistible that they were designed and used for\nsuch observations, and that by no other means could the same amount of\naccuracy have been attained.\n\nI have given a rather full account of what the Pyramid builders really\ndid, because it forms a very important part of the argument I am\ndeveloping as to the stationary condition of the human intellect during\nthe historical period.\n\nThe great majority of educated persons hold the opinion that our\nwonderful discoveries and inventions in every department of art and\nscience prove that we are really more intellectual and wiser than\nthe men of past ages\u2014that our mental faculties have increased in\npower. But this idea is totally unfounded. We are the inheritors of\nthe accumulated knowledge of all the ages; and it is quite possible\nand even probable, that the earliest steps taken in the accumulation\nof this vast mental treasury required even more thought and a higher\nintellectual power than any of those taken in our own era.\n\nWe can perhaps best understand this by supposing any one of our great\nmen of science to have been born and educated in one of the earliest\nof the civilisations. If Newton had been born in Egypt in the era of\nthe Pyramid builders, when there were no such sciences as mathematics,\nperhaps even no decimal notation which makes arithmetic so easy to\nus, he could probably have done nothing more than they have actually\ndone. In building up the sciences each of the early steps was the work\nof a genius. But now that there has been nearly a hundred centuries of\ndiscovery and specialisation by thousands or even millions of workers,\nthat by means of writing and of the printing press every discovery is\nquickly made known, and that ever larger and larger numbers devote\ntheir lives to study, the rate of progress becomes quicker and quicker,\ntill the total result is amazingly great. But that does not prove\nany superiority of the later over the earlier discoveries. There is,\ntherefore, no proof of continuously increasing intellectual power.\n\nBut we have now evidence of another kind, which adds to the force of\nthis argument.\n\nQuite recently, papyri have been discovered which give us information\nas to the ideas, the beliefs, and the aspirations of a period even\nearlier than that of the Great Pyramid. The result of the study of\nthese and other records of early Egypt is thus stated by Professor\nAdolf Erman in _The Historian's History of the World_:\n\n    \"But when one considers the ancient resident of the valley\n    of the Nile as a human being, with desires, emotions, and\n    aspirations almost precisely like our own; a man struggling\n    to solve the same problems of practical Socialism that we are\n    struggling for to-day\u2014then, and then only, can the lessons of\n    ancient Egyptian history be brought home to us in their true\n    meaning, and with their true significance. And clearest of all\n    will that significance be, perhaps, if we constantly bear in\n    mind the possibility that the whole sweep of Egyptian history,\n    during the three or four thousand years that separated the\n    Pyramid builders from the contemporaries of Alexander, was a\n    time of national decay\u2014a dark age, if you will\u2014in Egyptian\n    history.\"\n\nThat a great historian, from a study of the ideas and social\naspirations of the earliest known civilisations, should have arrived at\nsimilar views as to the identity of their mental capacity with our own\nas I have deduced from their scientific attainments, must be held to be\na very strong argument in support of the accuracy of our independent\nconclusions.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nSPEECH AND WRITING AS PROOFS OF INTELLIGENCE\n\n\nThere is yet another proof that the faculties of mankind at a very\nearly epoch were fully equal to those of our own time. There is\nperhaps nothing more difficult in its nature, more utterly beyond the\nmere lower animal, than the faculty of articulate speech possessed\nby every race of mankind. We cannot but believe that its acquisition\nwas an extremely slow process, and that it is rendered possible by\nspecial cerebral developments giving the necessary mental power for its\nacquirement.\n\nHow long a process this would be, it is impossible to say, but it\nwould certainly have had to reach a high degree of perfection before\nthe equally difficult process of inventing a mode of writing could\nhave been brought to such perfection as to facilitate the further\ndevelopment of the higher faculties through poetry on the one hand\nand the preservation of facts and discoveries, as well as trains of\nreasoning, on the other.\n\nNow, I wish to call attention to the very important fact that the\norigin and development of speech, and later, of writing, were\napparently almost simultaneous, and certainly quite independent of\neach other, in countries not very distant apart. This is shown by the\nradical diversity of the different groups of languages in Europe,\nEastern Asia and North Africa, and the equal diversity of Egyptian,\nAssyrian, and Chinese writing. All other written characters are\nbelieved to be derived from one or other of these, and it is known that\nthe forms and peculiarities of alphabetic characters have been greatly\nmodified by the various materials employed, such as wood and stone\nslabs, clay, or wax; papyrus, paper or parchment; and whether engraved,\nimpressed or painted, whether written with a reed or quill pen, or with\na small brush.\n\nBut if intellectual man as a species of mammal had developed by the\npreservation of variations of survival-value, we should expect to\nfind such an important faculty as speech to have originated in one\ncentre and to have spread rapidly over the world with only slight\nmodifications in isolated communities. The fundamental diversities\nwe find seem to accord better with the conception that when, as a\nmere animal, his material organism had reached the required degree of\nperfection, there occurred the spiritual influx which alone enabled\nhim to begin that course of intellectual and moral development, and\nthat marvellous power over the forces of Nature, in which speech and\nwriting, followed by printing, have been such important factors.\n\nIn order for man to develop speech he must have possessed a brain and\nan intellect far above that of the brutes. As in the more fundamental\nproblem of the origin of life, it is admitted that organisation is a\nproduct of life\u2014not life of organisation\u2014so we must believe that\nspeech was a product of a brain and an intellect sufficient for their\ndevelopment. But such brain and intellect were not necessary for the\nlower animals, which have reached their highest lines of development in\nthe dog, horse, elephant, and ape without making any definite approach\nto the acquirement of such higher faculties.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nSAVAGES NOT MORALLY INFERIOR TO CIVILISED RACES\n\n\nIf the facts and arguments set forth in the preceding chapters are\ncorrect we should not expect to find any living examples of the\nunspiritualised man, since the assumption is that the whole race\nreceived the influx which started them on their course of purely human\ndevelopment within a strictly limited period, perhaps of a very few\ngenerations or even one generation. The ancestral form\u2014the supposed\nmissing link\u2014would then have become extinct.\n\nIf this were not so we should expect to find some isolated groups of\nspeechless man, and of this there is no example; but, on the contrary,\nthe very lowest of existing races are found to possess languages which\nare often of extreme complexity in grammatical structure and in no way\nsuggestive of the primitive man-animal of which they are supposed to be\nsurviving relics. So long as we got our knowledge respecting them from\nthe low-class Europeans who captured them for slaves or shot them down\nas wild beasts, we could not possibly acquire any real knowledge of\nthem as human beings. But now that we have more trustworthy accounts of\nthem by intelligent travellers or missionaries, we find ample evidence\nthat when by kindness and sympathy we penetrate to their inner nature,\nwe discover that they possess human qualities of the same kind as our\nown. A few examples of what unprejudiced witnesses say of them will be\nvery instructive.\n\nDarwin, after attending a meeting between Captain Fitzroy and the chief\nof a small island near Tahiti to settle a question of compensation for\ninjury to an English ship, says: \"I cannot sufficiently express our\nsurprise at the extreme good sense, the reasoning powers, moderation,\ncandour, and prompt resolution which were displayed on all sides.\"\n\nCaptain Cook himself, who saw them in their primitive condition,\nspeaks of the natives of the Friendly Isles as being \"liberal, brave,\nopen and candid, without either suspicion or treachery, cruelty, or\nrevenge\"; and a century later Admiral Erskine remarks that \"they carry\ntheir habits of cleanliness and decency to a higher point than the\nmost civilised nations\"; while all the Polynesian races are kind and\nattentive to the sick and aged, and unlimited hospitality is everywhere\npractised by them.\n\nEven the Australian aborigines, who are often said to be one of the\nlowest of human races, are found to possess many good qualities by\nthose who know them best. Mr. Curr, who was for forty years protector\nof the aborigines in Victoria, says:\n\n    \"Socially, the black is polite, gay, fond of laughter, and\n    has much _bonhomie_ in his composition. . . . The natives are\n    very strict in obeying their laws and customs, even under\n    great temptation. The horror of marrying a woman within the\n    prohibited degrees of relationship, the extreme grief they\n    manifest at the death of children or relatives, and sometimes\n    even for white men, as illustrated by the native boy who\n    was the sole companion of the unfortunate Kennedy when he\n    was murdered, are sufficient to indicate that they possess\n    affections and a sense of right and wrong not very different\n    from our own.\"\n\nThe fact that the physical characteristics of the Australians are\nsubstantially those of the Caucasian race in its lowest types has led\nme to conclude that these interesting people may have been descended\nfrom much more civilised remote ancestors, and are thus an example of\ndegradation rather than of survival.[34:A]\n\n    [34:A] See my _Australia and New Zealand_, Chap. V., \"The\n    Australian Aborigines,\" where this view was first set forth.\n    (Stanford, 1893.) For cases of _morality_ among savages see my\n    _Natural Selection and Tropical Nature_, pp. 199-201.\n\nMany other illustrations of both intelligence and morality are\nmet with among savage races in all parts of the world; and these,\ntaken as a whole, show a substantial identity of human character,\nboth moral and emotional, with no marked superiority in any race or\ncountry. In intellect, where the greatest advance is supposed to\nhave occurred, this may be wholly due to the cumulative effect of\nsuccessive acquisitions of knowledge handed down from age to age.\nEuclid and Archimedes were probably the equals of any of our greatest\nmathematicians of to-day, while the architecture of Greece, of India,\nand of Central America is little inferior to medi\u00e6val Gothic. But none\nof these, though so different in style, can be said to prove any real\nadvance in intellectual power from that of the builders of the much\nmore ancient temples and pyramids of Egypt. This latter country, too,\nin its high material civilisation and its remarkable religious system,\nshows itself the equal of any that has succeeded it.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nA SELECTIVE AGENCY NEEDED TO IMPROVE CHARACTER\n\n\nThe general result of the facts and arguments now set forth in the\nmerest outline leads us to conclude that there has been no definite\nadvance of morality from age to age, and that even the lowest races, at\neach period, possessed the same intellectual and moral nature as the\nhigher. The manifestations of this essentially human nature in habits\nand conduct were often very diverse, in accordance with diversities\nof the social and moral environment. This is quite in accordance with\nthe now well-established doctrine that the essential character of man,\nintellectual, emotional, and moral, is inherent in him from birth;\nthat it is subject to great variation from individual to individual;\nand that its manifestations in conduct can be modified in a very high\ndegree by the influence of public opinion and systematic teaching.\nThese latter changes, however, are _not_ hereditary, and it follows\nthat no definite advance in morals can occur in any race _unless there\nis some selective or segregative agency at work_.\n\nAs there is a great amount of misconception on this subject some\nexplanation may be advisable. Many well-educated and intelligent\npersons seem to think that whatever characters or faculties are\nhereditary are also necessarily cumulative. They hear that mental as\nwell as physical characteristics are hereditary; their own observation\ntells them that there are musical families as well as tall families.\nThey hear that the late Sir Francis Galton wrote a book on _Hereditary\nGenius_, and perhaps they have read it; but they do not observe that\nneither he nor anyone else has proved that genius of any kind is\ncumulative, that is that a man or woman of genius will have, on the\naverage, some one or more children with a greater amount of that\nspecial power or faculty than their own. The very contrary of this is\nreally the case. The more a person's talent or mental power is above\nthe average the less chance there is that any of his or her children\nwill have still more of that power than he has. A really great poet, or\npainter, or musician, appears suddenly in a family of mediocre ability\nor of no ability at all in that special direction. A few examples may\nbe instructive.\n\nSir William Herschell was the son of a German musician, and was himself\na musician by profession; but he became an astronomical genius, one\nof the greatest of his age. His son, Sir John Herschell, was a very\nclever man, with advantages of education and position. He followed his\nfather as an astronomer, and was a great mathematician, but is never\nconsidered to be equal to his father. Darwin's most eminent son was a\nmathematician, not a naturalist.\n\nThe reason of this is that heredity follows the law of \"recession to\nmediocrity.\" This is, that all groups of living things vary around an\naverage or mean as regards each of their characters; and those near\nthe average are always numerous, while as we approach the extremes in\neither direction the numbers become less and less. Families follow the\nsame law. If you take a family for three or four generations, including\nperhaps some hundreds of persons, some will be short, some tall; but\nthe majority will be near the mean, and the tallest of all will be\nless likely to have taller descendants than themselves than those\nnearer the average. But the children of the tallest, though generally\nshorter than their parents, will still tend to be above the average\nheight.\n\nWhen a character is so useful to its possessor in the struggle for\nexistence as to be of what is termed \"survival value,\" then those that\nvary most above the average will be preserved or selected generation\nafter generation as long as the increase is useful.\n\nIt is because the higher intellectual or moral powers are so rarely of\nlife-preserving value, and are not unfrequently the reverse, that they\nare not _cumulative_, though they are _hereditary_.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWith this explanation we will now proceed to examine somewhat closely\nour moral position as a nation; what is the nature of our social\nenvironment; how it came to be what it is, and what lessons we may\nlearn from it.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nENVIRONMENT DURING THE NINETEENTH CENTURY\n\n\nDuring the eighteenth century our material civilisation, which had\nlong been almost stationary, began to advance with the growth of the\nphysical sciences, but at first with extreme slowness. The earliest\nsteps were made by the application of machinery to some of the domestic\narts. Some refinements were made in the manners and customs of our\ndaily life; but there were few, if any, indications of permanent or\nwidespread change, either for better or worse, in our intellectual or\nmoral nature.\n\nThe nineteenth century, however, saw the initiation of a great change\nin the economic environment due to the rapid invention of labour-saving\nmachinery; which, with the equally rapid application of steam power,\nled to an increase of wealth production such as had never been known\non the earth before. During the same period new modes of locomotion\nwere brought into daily use, the facilities for inter-communication\nwere increased a hundred-fold, scientific discoveries opened up to us\nnew and unthought-of mysteries of the universe, and the whole earth\nwas ransacked for its treasures, both vegetable and mineral, to an\nextent that surpassed all that had been accomplished since the dawn of\ncivilisation.\n\nBut this rapid growth of wealth, and increase of our power over Nature,\nput too great a strain upon our crude civilisation and our superficial\nChristianity, and it was accompanied by various forms of social\nimmorality, almost as amazing and unprecedented. Some of these may be\nhere briefly referred to.\n\nOur vast textile factory system may be said to have commenced with\nthe nineteenth century, and the profits were at first so large and so\ndependent on the supply of labour that the mill-owners hired children\nfrom the workhouses of the great cities by hundreds and even thousands.\nThese children, from the age of five or six upwards, were taken as\napprentices for seven years, and they really became the slaves of the\nmanufacturers, whose managers made them work from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m.,\nor sometimes longer; and, in order to keep them awake in the close\natmosphere of the factories it was found necessary to whip them at\nfrequent intervals. It was not till 1819 that the age of children\nemployed in factories was raised to nine years, while in 1825 the\nworking hours were _limited_ to seventy-two a week!\n\nFrom that time onward, during the whole of the nineteenth century,\nthere was a continued succession of \"Factory Acts,\" each aiming at\nabolishing or ameliorating the worst results of child labour\u2014its\ninhumanity, its cruelty, and its immorality. These legislative efforts\nwere always opposed by the employers, who usually succeeded in so\nmutilating them in Committee of the House of Commons as to render them\nalmost useless. Mrs. E. B. Browning's noble verses, _The Cry of the\nChildren_, show that after nearly fifty years of struggle the condition\nof the child-workers was still, in a high degree, cruel, degrading, and\ntherefore immoral; while that of the half-timers who succeeded them was\nalmost as injurious.\n\nAs the century wore on, other evils of a similar nature were\ngradually brought to light. Children and women were found to be\nworking underground in coal mines, under equally vile conditions as\nregards health and morality; and an enormous loss of life was caused\nby inadequate ventilation, insecure roof-propping, imperfect winding\nmachinery, and other causes, all due to want of proper precautions by\nthe owners of the mines. As a matter of simple justice, such owners\nshould be held responsible to the injured person not only to the full\nextent of his wages and for medical attendance, but should also pay a\nliberal compensation for the pain suffered, and for the extra labour,\nexpense and anxiety to his family. But all such things are ignored\nin the case of poor workers, so that even the money compensation is\nreduced to the smallest amount possible.\n\nIt is one of the great defects of our law that deaths due to\npreventable causes _in any profit-making business_ are not criminal\noffences. Till they are made so, it will be impossible to save the\nhundreds, or even thousands, of lives now lost owing to neglect of\nproper precautions in all kinds of dangerous or unhealthy trades.\nHowever costly such precautions may be, expense should not be\nconsidered when human life is risked; and the present state of the law\nis therefore immoral.\n\nNotwithstanding Acts of Parliament and numerous Inspectors (whose\nsalaries should be paid by the mine owners), explosions and other\naccidents underground continue to increase, the year 1910 being a\nrecord year, with its 1,775 deaths; and even the number in proportion\nto the workers employed is the highest for the last twenty years.\n\nYet no one is punished, or even held responsible for these deaths.\nSurely, this shows a deplorable absence of moral feeling, both in the\ngeneral public and in Parliament. The responsibility of Parliament is\nreally criminal, since it always allows its legislation to be made\nineffective by the fear of diminishing the employers' profits, thus\ndeliberately placing money-making above human life and human well-being.\n\nIn the case of mines and quarries, Parliament is especially\nresponsible, because the possession of the mineral wealth of our\ncountry by private individuals is itself a gross usurpation of public\nrights, and should have been long ago declared illegal. Whatever\narguments\u2014and they are very strong\u2014show us that the land itself\nshould not be private property, are ten times stronger in the case\nof the minerals within its bowels. The value of land increases with\nits proper use, but in the case of minerals, the value is absolutely\ndestroyed. Surely, it is a crime against posterity to allow the\nstrictly limited mineral wealth of our country to be made private\nproperty, and very largely sold to foreigners, solely to increase the\nwealth of individuals and to the absolute impoverishment of ourselves\nand our children.[45:A]\n\n    [45:A] I pointed this out forty years ago in an article\n    entitled _Coal a National Trust_, which I republished twelve\n    years ago in my _Studies, Scientific and Social_ (Vol. II.,\n    Chap. VIII.).\n\nI will here add one other argument which goes to the root of the\nmatter by showing that the alleged owners of minerals have not even\na legal title to them. It is, I believe, a maxim of law that public\nrights cannot be lost by disuse. Landed estates were, in our country,\ncreated by the Norman Conqueror to be held subject to the performance\nof feudal duties. Deep-seated minerals were then not known to exist,\nand were not (I believe) specifically included in the original grants.\nExcept, therefore, where they have since been made private property\nby _Act of Parliament_, they still remain public property. I submit,\ntherefore, that they may be both legally and equitably resumed by the\nGovernment as public property, and worked for the good of the public\nand of posterity. Compensation to the supposed present owners would be\na matter of favour, _not of right_.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nINSANITARY DWELLINGS AND LIFE-DESTROYING TRADES\n\n\nThe enormous difference between town and country dwellers as regards\nduration of life and the prevalence of zymotic diseases has been known\nstatistically since the era of registration, and a body of Health\nOfficers have been set up to report upon the worst cases. The local\nauthorities have power to compel the owners of unhealthy dwellings to\nput them into a sanitary condition, or even order them to be entirely\nrebuilt. But as many of the members of Corporations and other Local\nBoards are often themselves owners of such property, or have intimate\nfriends who are so, very little has been done to remedy the evil. Again\nand again, in all parts of the country, the Health Officers have duly\nreported, but their reports have been ignored. In some cases where the\nHealth Officer has been too persistent, he has been asked to resign or\nhas been discharged. A few general facts may be here given.\n\nBy the last complete Census returns (1901), there are in England and\nWales 7,036,868 tenements, and of these 3,286,526, or nearly half, have\nfrom one to four rooms only. In London, out of a total of 1,019,646\ntenements, 672,030, or considerably more than half, have from one to\nfour rooms; while there are about 150,000 tenements of only _one room_,\nin which are living 313,298 persons, or about two and a quarter persons\nin each room on the average. There are, however, about 20,000 persons\nliving _five in a room_, and 20,000 more who have _six, seven, or\neight in a room_. As most of these one-roomed tenements are either the\ncellars or attics of houses in the most crowded parts of large towns,\nwhere there is impure air, little light, and scanty water supply,\nthe condition of those who dwell in them may be imagined\u2014or rather\n_cannot_ be imagined, except by those who have explored them.\n\nEqually inhuman, immoral, and even criminal, is the neglect of\nall adequate measures to check the loss of infant life through\nthe overwork, poverty, or starvation of the mother, together with\novercrowded and insanitary dwellings. In the mad race for wealth\nby capitalists and employers most of our towns and cities have\nbeen allowed to develop into veritable death-traps for the poor.\nThis has been known for the greater part of a century, yet nothing\nreally effective has been done, notwithstanding abundant health\nlegislation\u2014again made useless by the dread of diminishing the\nexcessive profits of manufacturers and slum-owners. One of the Labour\nnewspapers calls our attention to the following facts for 1911 as to\nInfant mortality per 1,000 born:\n\n                                PER 1,000\n  Deptford, East Ward (poor)       197\n  Deptford, West Ward (rich)        68\n  Bournville Garden Village         65\n  St. Mary's Ward, Birmingham      331\n\nSuch facts exist all over the kingdom. They have been talked about\nand deplored for the last half-century at least. Who has murdered the\n100,000 children who die annually before they are one year old? Who\nhas robbed the millions that just survive of all that makes childhood\nhappy\u2014pure food, fresh air, play, rest, sleep, and proper nurture\nand teaching? Again we must answer, our Parliament, which occupies\nitself with anything rather than the immediate saving of human life and\nabolishing widespread human misery, the whole of which is remediable.\nAnd all for fear of offending the rich and powerful by some diminution\nof their ever-increasing accumulations of wealth. No thinking man or\nwoman can believe that this state of things is absolutely irremediable;\nand the persistent acquiescence in it while loudly boasting of our\ncivilisation, of our science, of our national prosperity, and of our\nChristianity, is the proof of a hypocritical lack of national morality\nthat has never been surpassed in any former age.\n\nA new set of evils has grown up in the various so-called \"unhealthy\ntrades\"\u2014the lead glaze in the china manufacture, the steel dust in\ncutlery work, and the endless variety of poisonous liquids and vapours\nin the numerous chemical works or processes, by which so many fortunes\nhave been made. These, together, are the cause of a large direct loss\nof life, and a much larger amount of permanent injury, together with a\nterrible reduction in the duration of life of all the workers in such\ntrades. Yet in one case only\u2014that of phosphorus matches\u2014has any such\ninjurious process of manufacture been put an end to. Wealth has been\ndeliberately preferred to human life and happiness.[51:A]\n\n    [51:A] An account of some deadly trades is given in Mr. R. H.\n    Sherard's book, _The White Slaves of England_.\n\nOne of the most deadly of trades seems to have remained unnoticed\ntill it has been brought to light by the new Labour paper, _The Daily\nCitizen_, in a series of articles by Mr. Keighley Snowden, entitled\n_The Broken Women_. Never was a title better deserved, since large\nnumbers of girls and young women are employed at Lye and Cradley Heath,\nin what is commonly named the \"Hollow Ware\" works. This is the tinning,\nor galvanising, as it is usually termed, of buckets and other domestic\nutensils, in which lead is used; and it produces one of the most\nvirulent forms of lead-poisoning. The symptoms are, among other more\npainful ones, the loss of hair and the loosening and ultimate loss of\nteeth, culminating either in chronic illness or death, sometimes in a\nfew months or years. Five years ago there was a Home Office inquiry,\nwhich, after full examination, reported that the process used was\ndangerous to life, that no precautions could render it harmless, and\nthat it should be _totally discontinued_.\n\nAn order was then issued by the Home Office that after a time-limit\n(two years) the process should be no longer used; but that order has\nnot been obeyed (except by a few employers) to this day. The deadly\nnature of this work was accompanied by miserably low wages, as shown\nby the fact that the women workers have at length struck to obtain a\nminimum of 10s. a week! Helped by some humane friends, they have at\nlength succeeded in obtaining this miserable wage, and for the present\nare in a state of comparative happiness! How long it will be before the\nGovernment abolishes this deadly process we cannot tell. The following\nis a brief statement of what these poor women have to suffer, extracted\nfrom _The Daily Citizen_ of November 20th, 1912:\u2014\n\n    \"They had, without power to resist them, suffered repeated and\n    ruthless reductions of wages. They had seen their industry\n    brought down by reckless competition, and the manufacture\n    of shoddy goods, to the point at which men could no longer\n    earn enough to support their families. They had seen their\n    wives and daughters and boys forced by want at home into\n    workshops, where, as official inquiry has shown, health was\n    sucked out of their bodies as though they had been the victims\n    of vampires. They had seen the introduction and growth of\n    the sub-contracting 'stint' system, under which boyhood and\n    girlhood and motherhood were driven as though they had been\n    slaves under the lash, and their earnings cut down to a penny\n    an hour. Meanwhile, they lived in the hovels and holes of a\n    place which can only be fitly described as one of the dirtiest\n    ashpits of a civilisation reckless of dirt where profit is a\n    question.\"\n\nThose who want to know what horrors can exist to-day in England\nshould read Mr. Snowden's series of articles on the subject. They are\nrestrained in language, and state the bare facts from careful personal\nobservation. That such things should still exist in a country claiming\nto be civilised would be incredible, were there not so many others of a\nlike nature and almost as bad.\n\nIn an almost exhaustive volume on _Diseases of Occupation_ by Sir\nThomas Oliver, M.D. (1908), there is only a short reference to the\nhollowware trade of the \"black country\" near Birmingham. But the\ntin plate industry of South Wales is more fully described, with the\nsame pitiable condition of the women workers and the same terrible\nresults to health and life. Yet nothing whatever seems to be done by\nthe manufacturers; and though two Home Office Inspectors have fully\nreported on its horrors from 1888 onwards, no notice appears to have\nbeen taken of them, nor has there been any Government interference with\nconditions of labour which are a disgrace to civilisation.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\nADULTERATION, BRIBERY, AND GAMBLING\n\n\nAfter the terrible national crime of deadly employments it is almost\nan anti-climax to enumerate the vast mass of dishonesty and falsehood\nthat pervades our commercial system in every department. Almost every\nfabric, whether of cotton, linen, wool, or silk, is so widely and\ningeniously adulterated by the intermixture of cheaper materials\nthat the pure article as supplied to our grandparents is hardly to\nbe obtained. Of this one example only must serve. Calicoes have been\nsuccessively dressed with such substances as paste and tallow; then\nwith the still cheaper china clay and size; and in some cases from 50\nto 90 per cent. of these latter materials have been sold as calico\nfor exportation to countries inhabited by what we term savages.\nThese people only found out the deception when the need for washing\nor exposure to tropical rains reduced the material to a flimsy and\nworthless rag, as I have myself witnessed in some parts of the Malay\nArchipelago.[56:A]\n\n    [56:A] These facts are given in the Ninth Edition of the\n    \"Encyclop\u00e6dia Britannica.\" In recent editions the article\n    _Adulteration_ is limited to food and drugs. In \"Chambers'\n    Encyclop\u00e6dia,\" cotton, linen and woollens are included among\n    adulterated fabrics.\n\nEven worse is the adulteration of almost every kind of prepared\nfood\u2014including the showy sweetmeats which tempt our children\u2014with\nvarious chemicals, which are often injurious to health, and sometimes\nfatal; while even the drugs we take in the endeavour to cure our\nvarious ailments are frequently so treated as to be useless or even\nhurtful. Along with this form of dishonesty is what may be termed\nsimple cheating in the description of goods sold, especially as to\nquantity. Threads and fabrics are generally shorter or narrower than\nstated, giving a larger profit when sold in enormous quantities in our\ngreat retail shops.\n\nThen, again, there is a widespread system of bribery of servants\nor other employees in order to obtain more customers or to secure\ncontracts; and though these are all criminal offences, and a great\nhost of inspectors and official analysts are employed to discover and\nconvict the offenders, yet so few people are willing to take the\ntrouble and lose the time and money involved in putting the law into\nmotion, that a very large percentage of these offences go undiscovered\nand unpunished.\n\nYet another and more serious form of plunder of the public is carried\non by means of Joint Stock Companies, of which there are now more\nthan 50,000 in England and Wales. In the year 1911 the number of new\ncompanies was 5,959, while 4,353 ceased to exist, giving an increase\nof 1,606 in the year. The Limited Liability Act was passed in 1855,\nin order that the public might invest their savings in companies, and\nthus share in the profits of our industry and commerce. It was supposed\nto be quite proper that anyone should benefit by the enterprise and\nindustry of others; but to do so is essentially immoral, and has\nresulted in a vast system of swindling and terrible losses to the\ninnocent investors. The promoters, directors, secretaries and bankers\nof these companies always gain; those that take up the shares often\nlose; and the amount of misery and absolute ruin of those who fondly\nhoped to add to their scanty incomes, and have been deluded by the\nnames of well-known public men among the directors, is incalculable.\n\nOur Stock Exchanges, too, are used largely for pure gambling which,\nowing to its vast extent and being carried on under business forms, is\nperhaps more ruinous than any other. But this form of gambling goes\non unchecked, and is generally accepted as quite honest business.\nYet ordinary betting on races and other forms of direct gambling are\nhypocritically condemned as immoral and criminal.\n\nThe vast fabric of our Foreign Trade in food, or the raw materials of\nour manufactures, is also used to support perhaps the greatest system\nof gambling the world has ever seen. The fluctuating prices of corn or\ncotton, of coal or mineral oil, of iron and other metals, in the great\nmarkets of the world, are used in two ways by a large community of\ngamblers, who not only do not require the goods they buy, but who never\nsee nor possess them. The ordinary speculator who buys when prices are\nlow, to sell again at a profit, without himself being able to influence\nthe rise or fall of price, is a pure gambler who thinks he can foresee\nthe changes of the market price in the immediate future. But the great\ncapitalists who, either singly or by means of what are called rings or\ncombines, purchase such vast quantities of the special product as to\ncreate a scarcity in the market, leading to a large rise of price, are\ningenious robbers rather than gamblers, because, by clever dealings\nwith such a monopoly, often aided by false rumours widely circulated\nin newspapers owned or bribed by them, they are able to make enormous\nprofits at the expense of those who are obliged to purchase for actual\nbusiness purposes or for daily use. This is one of the methods by which\nthe great millionaires and multi-millionaires of the world accumulate\ntheir wealth, every penny of which is at the cost of the consuming\npublic.\n\nThis is certainly as immoral as any of the petty forms of swindling\nwith marked cards, loaded dice, or the wilful losing of a race; yet the\npossessors of such wealth are usually held to be clever business men,\nwhose morality is not questioned.\n\nAll these inconsistencies as regards the moral status of various kinds\nof gambling or dishonest speculation arise from our inveterate habit\nof dealing with limited cases, each judged on its supposed merits as\nto consequences, instead of looking to fundamental principles. Why is\ngambling immoral? Not because it is a game of chance, entered into\nfor mere amusement, even when played for small money stakes which are\nof no importance to any of the players. The fundamental wrong arises\nwhenever it is used for obtaining wealth or any part of the player's\nincome; and the reason is, that whatever one wins, someone else loses;\nwhile its evil nature, socially, depends upon the fact that whoever\nacquires wealth by such means contributes nothing useful to the social\norganism of which he forms a part. If it were taught to every child,\nand in every school and college, that it is morally wrong for anyone to\nlive upon the combined labour of his fellow-men without contributing\nan approximately equal amount of useful labour, whether physical or\nmental, in return, all kinds of gambling, as well as many other kinds\nof useless occupation, would be seen to be of the same nature as direct\ndishonesty or fraud, and, therefore, would soon come to be considered\ndisgraceful as well as immoral.\n\nWe see, then, that the whole commercial fabric of our country\u2014our\nimmense mills and factories, our vast exports and imports, our home\ntrade, wholesale and retail, and innumerable transactions in our Stock\nExchanges\u2014is permeated with various forms of dishonesty, gambling, and\ndirect robbery of individuals or of the public. No class is wholly free\nfrom it, and it increases in volume from decade to decade, just as our\nboasted commerce and accumulated wealth increases.\n\nI have here called attention to these various forms of immoral\npractices because they are so often ignored. Yet they are all\nofficially admitted by the enormous mass of the various Royal\nCommissions, Parliamentary and other Reports, as well as by the\nhundreds of \"Acts\" by which successive Parliaments have endeavoured to\ndeal with them, but which have, one and all, proved to be either wholly\nor partially ineffective. The reason of this failure is that in every\ncase symptoms and isolated results only have been considered, while\nthe underlying causes of the whole vast mass of social corruption have\nnever been sought for, or, if known, have never influenced legislation.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\nOUR ADMINISTRATION OF \"JUSTICE\" IS IMMORAL\n\n\nWhen we read about the Turkish or other Eastern law courts, in which\ndirect bribery of every official up to the judge himself is a regular\nfeature, we are horrified, and are apt to proclaim the fact that our\njudges never take bribes. But, practically, it comes to very nearly\nthe same thing in England. No single step can be made for the purpose\nof getting justice without paying fees; while the whole process of\nbringing or defending an action-at-law is so absurdly complex as to\nbe almost incredible. Jeremy Bentham satirised this by supposing a\nfather of a large family to adopt the same method of settling a dispute\nbetween two of his sons. He would not hear either of them himself, but\neach must tell his story to a stranger (a solicitor), who wrote it\ndown and then instructed another stranger (a barrister) to explain it\nto the father (as judge) and twelve neighbours (the jury). Then the\nstranger (barrister) on each side asked questions of all the family who\nknew anything about it; and the barristers, who had only third-hand\nknowledge of the facts, tried to make each witness contradict himself,\nor to acknowledge having done something as bad another time; till the\njury became quite puzzled, and often decided as the cleverest of the\nbarristers told them.\n\nThat is really the system of law courts to this day; and it is grossly\nunfair, because the party who can pay the highest fees for the\nservices of the most experienced counsel is most likely, through the\nlawyer's skill and eloquence, to secure a verdict in his favour. Yet\nthere is no effective protest against this unjust and absurd system,\nwhich absolutely denies all redress of wrongs to the poor man when\noppressed by a rich one. One would think it self-evident that justice\nceases to be justice when it has to be paid for. But the system is\nso time-hallowed, the profession of a barrister so honoured, and its\nrewards so great, that it will never be abolished till there comes\nabout in our social system that fundamental change which will cut at\nthe very root-cause of almost all our existing law-suits, immorality\nand crime.\n\nIn our criminal as well as our civil law and procedure there is equal\ninjustice. When the poor man is accused of the slightest offence\nand brought before a magistrate by the police, he is, even though\nperfectly honest and respectable, treated from the very first as if he\nwere guilty, often refused communication with his friends; and, when\nthe accusation is serious, he is remanded to prison again and again\ntill evidence has been hunted up, or even manufactured, against him.\nExperience shows that the latter is often done and a quite innocent man\nnot infrequently punished. The dictum of the law, that an Englishman\nshould be held to be innocent till he is proved to be guilty, is\nabsolutely reversed, and he is treated as if he were guilty till,\nagainst overwhelming odds, he is able to prove himself innocent. There\nis no possible excuse for this now, and at the very least every man who\nhas a home or a permanent employment should be at once discharged on\nhis own recognizances.\n\nEqually unjust and barbarous is the system of money-fines, often for\nmerely nominal offences, with the alternative of imprisonment. To the\nwell-off, or to the habitual criminal, the fine is a trifle; but to\nthe poor man charged with being drunk, with begging, or with sleeping\nunder a haystack, or any such act which is no real offence, the common\npunishment of 10s. or a week's imprisonment, leaving perhaps wife and\nchildren to starve or be sent to the workhouse, is really far more\nimmoral than the alleged offence.\n\nAgain, our Poor Law itself, as usually administered, is utterly\nimmoral. This is what a competent authority\u2014Mr. Sidney Webb\u2014says of\nit:\n\n    \"Underneath the feet of the whole wage-earning class is the\n    abyss of the Poor Law. I see before me a respectable family\n    applying for relief. What do we do to them? We, the Government\n    of England, break up the family. We strip each individual of\n    what makes life worth living. When the man enters the workhouse\n    he is stripped of his citizenship\u2014branded as too infamous\n    to vote for a member of Parliament. Once in the workhouse,\n    we put him to toil or to loiter under conditions that are so\n    demoralising that we turn him into a wastrel. And we strip\n    the wife of her children. We send her to the wash-tub or\n    the sewing-room, where she associates with prostitutes and\n    imbeciles. The little children, if they are under five, are\n    taken to the workhouse nursery, where they also are tended by\n    prostitutes and imbeciles. There they remain, day after day,\n    without ever going down the workhouse steps until they are old\n    enough to go to the Poor Law school, or until they are taken\n    down in their coffins, owing to the terrible mortality among\n    the workhouse babies.\"\n\nOf course, all workhouses are not so bad as this, but many are, and\nhave been during the three-quarters of a century of their existence.\nCan we, therefore, wonder that week by week some poor and honest\nparents commit suicide rather than see their children starve, or be\nseparated from them in the workhouse! The people we thus drive to death\nare many of them as good as we ourselves are; yet the \"Guardians of the\nPoor\"\u2014well-to-do gentlemen and ladies\u2014go on administering it week\nafter week and year after year without protest or apparent compunction.\nSuch is the deadening effect of long-continued custom.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII\n\nINDICATIONS OF INCREASING MORAL DEGRADATION\n\n\nThere are in the Reports of the Registrar-General a few statistics of\nspecial importance because they clearly point to certain kinds of moral\ndegradation which have been increasing for the last half-century, thus\ncoinciding with our exceptionally rapid increase in wealth; and also,\nas I have shown in preceding chapters, with various forms of national,\neconomic, and social deterioration.\n\nThe first of these is the continuous increase in deaths from\nalcoholism, in proportion to population, since the year 1861. Most\npersons will be amazed to find that this is the case, because the\ndrinking habit has certainly diminished; but when the habit becomes\nso powerful and lasts so long as to be the direct cause of death, we\nare able to see the dimensions of the most exaggerated form of the\ndrink evil. The following figures are taken from the successive Reports\nreferred to:\u2014\n\n                   _Deaths from\n  _Average        Alcoholism per\n  of Years_       Million living_\n  1861-1865            41.6\n  1866-1870            35.4\n  1871-1875            37.6\n  1876-1880            42.4\n  1881-1885            48.2\n  1886-1890            56.0\n  1891-1895            67.8\n  1896-1900            85.8\n  1901-1905            78.4\n  1906-1910            54.6\n\nThere are some irregularities, the ratio being nearly equal for the\nfirst twenty years, after which there is such a continuous large\nincrease that from 1876-80 to 1896-1900 the mortality is doubled, but\nfor the last ten years there has been a decrease, which in the last\nfive years is very marked.\n\nBut a still worse and more disquieting feature is the recent large\nincrease of mortality from alcoholism in women. Figures for the\nseparate sexes were not given till 1876, and the following table shows\nthe comparison up to 1910:\u2014\n\n                  _Deaths from\n  _Average         Alcoholism\n  of Years_       per Million_\n\n                 _Men_   _Women_\n  1876-1880       60.1    24.0\n  1881-1885       66.6    31.0\n  1886-1890       73.6    39.2\n  1891-1895       86.6    50.2\n  1896-1900      106.2    66.6\n  1901-1905       95.0    63.0\n  1906-1910       66.6    43.6\n\nThese figures, however deplorable and startling in themselves, are as\nnothing in comparison with what they imply. Death from drink, more\nthan in the case of any other disease, is the ultimate and rarely\nattained result of the vice of habitual intoxication. Men and women may\ngreatly injure their health, ruin their families, and be disgraceful\ndrunkards, and yet not die of it, or make any near approach to doing\nso. What is the proportion of those who are morally and physically\ninjured by drink to those who kill themselves by it, is, I suppose,\nunknown, but I imagine that one in a thousand is, probably, too high\nan estimate, and that one death among ten thousand moderate drinkers\nwho also occasionally or frequently become intoxicated, would be nearer\nthe mark. This would imply an increase in the consumption of alcoholic\ndrinks, instead of which there has been an actual diminution. The fact\nprobably is that a very large number of moderate drinkers have ceased\nto consume alcohol in any form, and this would account for a much\nlarger reduction in the total than has actually occurred.\n\nOn the other hand, owing to the increase of those who are only casually\nemployed in our great cities, and whose one luxury is the excitement of\ndrink, a larger quantity of cheap, and injuriously adulterated spirits\nand other liquors is consumed, which, combined with a deficiency of\nwholesome food, leads more frequently to a fatal result.\n\n\n_Increase of Suicide_\n\nThe increase has been long known and generally admitted. It is supposed\nto be largely due to the ever-increasing struggle for subsistence in\nour great cities, the consequent increase of unemployment, and the\ndread of the workhouse as the only alternative to starvation. The\nfollowing are the figures for the last forty-five years for which\nofficial data have been published:\u2014\n\n                   _Deaths by\n  _Average         Suicide per\n  of Years_      Million living_\n  1866-1870           66.4\n  1871-1875           66.0\n  1876-1880           73.6\n  1881-1885           73.8\n  1886-1890           79.4\n  1891-1895           88.6\n  1896-1900           89.2\n  1901-1905          100.6\n  1906-1910          102.2\n\nSuch a table as this, occurring in a country which boasts of its\nenormous wealth, of its ever-increasing commercial prosperity, of its\nmarvellous advance in science and the arts, and command of natural\nforces, should, surely, give us pause, and force upon us the conviction\nthat there is something radically wrong in a social system which brings\nabout such terrible evils.\n\nAnd this should be the more certainly seen to be the case because the\nsame increase is taking place in all those countries which approach us\nin their wealth and their commercial prosperity.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThere is a group of diseases which are fatal to infants soon after\nbirth. They have been steadily increasing during the last half-century,\nand call for special notice here, as they seem to indicate physical\ndegeneration as well as personal immorality of a dangerous and perhaps\neven a criminal nature.\n\n  _Five-year        _Proportion of Deaths\n   Average_           to 1,000 Births_\n\n                   _Premature  _Congenital\n                    Births_     Defects_\n  1861-1865          11.19        1.76\n  1866-1870          11.50        1.84\n  1871-1875          12.60        1.85\n  1876-1880          13.38        2.39\n  1881-1885          14.18        3.23\n  1886-1890          16.1         4.2\n  1891-1895          18.4         4.7\n  1896-1900          19.6         4.9\n  1901-1905          20.2         5.9\n  1906-1909          20.0         6.6\n\nThe large increase during the last forty-five years of very early\ninfantile deaths, involving abnormalities of mother or child, seems\nvery significant. The first may be connected with the increasing\ndislike of child-bearing, and unsuccessful attempts to avoid it. The\nsecond indicates some injurious condition of life of the mother, such\nas working at unhealthy or even deadly trades, which has certainly been\nlargely increasing during the same period. Such work for young married\nwomen should be impossible in a civilised community.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nOn the vast subject of prostitution, of which the present movement for\nthe suppression of what is called \"The White Slave Traffic\" is but\none of the aspects, I do not propose to dwell, because I can find no\nstatistics to show whether it has increased or decreased during the\nlast century. But as the conditions have all been favourable for it, I\nhave little doubt that it has increased in proportion to population.\nSuch conditions are, the enormous growth of great cities; an increasing\nnumber of unmarried and wealthy young men; with an enormous number of\ngirls and young women whose wages are insufficient to provide them with\nthe rational enjoyments of life.\n\nThe proceedings of the Divorce Courts show other aspects of the result\nof wealth and leisure; while a friend who had been a good deal in\nLondon Society assured me that both in country houses and in London\nvarious kinds of orgies were occasionally to be met with which could\nhardly have been surpassed in the Rome of the most dissolute emperors.\n\nOf war, too, I need say nothing. It has always been more or less\nchronic since the rise of the Roman Empire, but there is now\nundoubtedly a disinclination for war among all civilised peoples.\nYet the vast burden of armaments, taken together with the most pious\ndeclarations in favour of peace, must be held to show an almost total\nabsence of morality as a guiding principle among the governing classes.\nIn this respect, the increasing power of Labour-parties all over the\nworld seems to afford the only hope of a real moral advance.\n\n\n\n\nPART II.\u2014THEORETICAL\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII\n\nNATURAL SELECTION AMONG ANIMALS\n\n\nWhile writing the present volume I was led to refer to it during some\nof the numerous interviews on the occasion of my recent birthday.\nThis led to some misrepresentation of my views, and showed me how\nfew popular press-writers have any real knowledge of the nature and\nextent of \"natural selection,\" more especially as it affects the human\nrace. There is also the same ignorance as regards \"heredity\"; and this\nlatter has become almost a word to conjure with, and is thought by\nmost writers to explain many things to which it is quite inapplicable,\nand as the present work is a very condensed argument founded to a\nconsiderable extent upon these great natural laws, I propose devoting\ntwo chapters to explaining and demonstrating the effect of natural\nselection in the case of the lower animals and of man respectively.\n\nThat such an explanation is necessary may be seen from the following\nextract from one of our most influential and well-written daily papers,\nthe _Pall Mall Gazette_. After referring to the view of the utter\nrottenness of our present civilisation, it quotes me as saying: \"And\nthe average of mankind will remain the same until natural selection\nsteps in to save it.\" (What I actually said to the interviewer was\n\"until some form of selection improves it.\") The writer then goes on:\n\n    \"These words must have struck the interviewer like the crack of\n    doom. For, stated popularly, the theory of natural selection is\n    the doctrine of 'Devil take the hindmost.' If natural selection\n    had fair play there would be no Children's Care Committees;\n    there would be no Poor Law, no Hospitals; there would be no\n    Old Age Pensions. All the humanitarian effort to care for the\n    weak and to help them along the path of life, every effort to\n    bind up the broken-hearted, every combination of labour to\n    secure equality among the members of a trade, stand condemned\n    as futile or worse by the doctrine which Dr. Russel Wallace\n    thinks can alone raise the average of man. His own remedies\n    for the ills of society\u2014the levelling up which he believes to\n    be impossible without levelling down, the disinheriting of the\n    unborn heir, the 'striking' which he applauds, the universal\n    education which he favours\u2014all these are directly antagonistic\n    to the workings of natural selection.\"\n\nNow, as I am credited by all my scientific friends with having\ndiscovered the theory of natural selection more than fifty years ago,\nand as the whole reading public have had this hammered into them with\nneedless repetition during the whole of that period, it is rather\namusing to be told now that I do not know what natural selection is,\nnor what it implies. It is also a striking proof that the whole subject\nis now held to be so old and commonplace as not to be worth studying by\na popular teacher before writing about it so strongly and dogmatically.\nIf he had done so he would not deliberately assert that I hold opinions\nin regard to the matter which in several of my books I have shown the\nfallacy of.\n\nI propose, therefore, to give here a short account of the essential\nfeatures of the theory of natural selection; how it has operated in\nbringing about the evolution of the almost infinitely varied forms of\nplants and of the lower animals; and also to explain as clearly as I\ncan why, and to what extent, it has acted differently in the case of\nman.\n\n\n_Lamarckism and Darwinism\u2014How they Differ_\n\nThe first great naturalist who put forward a detailed explanation of\nhow he supposed the varied forms of animal life to have been produced\nwas Lamarck, a contemporary of Buffon and Goethe, both of whom believed\nin evolution but offered no explanation of how it could have been\nbrought about. Lamarck, however, suggested that the various organs\nof animals were modified by voluntary effort producing increased\ndevelopment, as when an antelope escapes from a lion by its swiftness,\nwhich swiftness is increased by the straining of its limbs in flight;\nwhile the long neck and fore-limbs of the giraffe were explained by the\ncontinual stretching of these parts of the body to obtain foliage for\nfood during severe droughts. In addition to this other causes are at\nwork, as described in the following passage, translated or paraphrased\nby Sir Charles Lyell in his _Principles of Geology_:\n\n    \"Every considerable alteration in the local conditions under\n    which each race of animals exists causes a change in their\n    wants, and these new wants excite them to new actions and\n    habits. These actions require the more frequent employment of\n    some parts before but slightly exercised, and then greater\n    development follows as a consequence of their more frequent\n    use. Other organs, no longer in use, are impoverished and\n    diminished in size; nay, are sometimes entirely annihilated,\n    while in their place new parts are insensibly produced for the\n    discharge of new functions.\"\n\nAgain, he says:\n\n    \"Thus otters, beavers, water-fowl, turtles, and frogs were\n    not made web-footed in order that they might swim; but their\n    wants having attracted them to the water in search of prey,\n    they stretched out the toes of their feet to strike the water\n    and move rapidly along its surface. By the repeated stretching\n    of their toes the skin which united them at the base acquired\n    a habit of extension, until, in the course of time, the broad\n    membranes which now connect their extremities were formed.\"\n\nIn the case of plants, where no voluntary movements occur, the cause\nof modification was said to be due almost exclusively to the change of\nlocal conditions, as the various kinds of plants became dispersed over\nthe earth's surface. The influence of soil, of temperature, of light\nand shade, are supposed to produce definite changes which are gradually\nincreased; just as plants long cultivated in our gardens have become so\nchanged that the wild progenitors cannot now be recognised.\n\nSir Charles Lyell, who made a careful study of Lamarck's great work,\nnotes especially that the whole of the argument is vague and general,\nand that no cases are given in which is shown how the alleged causes\ncan be supposed to have acted so as to bring about the innumerable\nchanges that must have occurred. What is more important, however, is\nthe failure to explain how the numerous minute adaptations of each\nspecies to its environment could have arisen by the direct action of\nthat environment\u2014in plants, the infinitely varied forms of leaves,\nflowers, and fruits; in animals, the forms and sizes of the teeth of\nmammalia and of the beaks, wings and feet of birds to the food they\nobtain; while the enormous range of colour and marking in most groups\nof animals are such as no amount of desire or exertion on the one\nhand, or direct action of external causes on the other, could possibly\nhave brought about. It is not, therefore, surprising that, although\na vast amount of evidence was adduced to show that changes had taken\nplace leading to the evolution of species from pre-existing species,\nyet causes adequate to bring about the changes, and especially those\nnecessary to produce the marvellous adaptations continually being\ndiscovered, had not been shown to exist.\n\nIt is necessary to point this out, because the difference between the\nalmost universal rejection of Lamarck's attempted solution of the\nproblem of evolution, and the almost immediate and universal acceptance\nof that adduced by Darwin, is otherwise unexplained. The belief in the\ndoctrine of evolution as the only rational explanation of the gradual\ndevelopment of the innumerable forms of living things became more and\nmore general. The great body of arguments in its favour were admirably\nset forth by Robert Chambers in his _Vestiges of Creation_, published\nanonymously in 1844; while Herbert Spencer's masterly exposition of\nthe argument for universal evolution convinced a large number of\nnaturalists and men of science. But still the nature of the laws and\nforces by which the evolution of the organic world in all its variety\nand beauty, could have been brought about remained not only unknown\nbut unimagined, so that even so great a thinker as Sir John Herschel\ntermed it \"the mystery of mysteries.\" I will now state as briefly as\npossible the essential features of Darwin's solution of the mystery in\nhis epoch-making work, _The Origin of Species_.\n\n\n_Natural Selection as the Essential Factor in the Origin of Species_\n\nThere are two great, universal, and very conspicuous characteristics of\nthe whole organic world which, because they are so very common, were\nalmost ignored before Darwin showed their importance. These are (1) the\ngreat _variability_ in all common and widespread species, and (2) their\nenormous powers of _increase_.\n\nThe facts of variability are recorded in every book on Darwinism or\non organic evolution, and it is only necessary here to appeal to\nthe reader's own observation or to state a few illustrative facts.\nEverybody sees that among a hundred or a thousand people he knows or\nfrequently meets no two are alike. This is _variability_. He also\nknows that the amount of the differences between them is often very\nlarge, and always, if you have any two of them side by side, easily\nperceptible and capable of being described. He also knows that they\ndiffer in every part and organ that can be seen: the height, the bulk\nof body; the shape of the hands, feet, head, ears, nose, and mouth; the\nproportions of the legs, arms, and body to each other; the abundance\nand character of the hair\u2014coarse or fine, straight or curly, and\nof all colours between flaxen and intense black. To declare that\nvariability among men and women, even of the same race and in the same\ncountry, is a rare phenomenon, and that in amount it is infinitesimal,\nwould be a ludicrous misstatement of the facts or a wilful perversion\nof the truth. But, as regards animals or plants in a state of nature,\nthis misstatement has been made and has been used as an argument\nagainst the Darwinian theory. It is, however, now well known, as a\nmatter of direct observation and measurement, that when a few scores\nor hundreds of individuals are compared, even in the same district and\nat the same season, they differ in their proportions to about the same\namount, and to some extent in every visible part or organ, as do human\nbeings.\n\nThis, however, was not well known when Darwin collected the materials\nfor his various works, and he even sometimes makes the proviso\u2014\"if\nthey vary, for without variation selection can do nothing\"; and this\nhas been taken as an admission that variation is a rare instead of\nbeing a universal phenomenon. He also often spoke of the accumulation\nof _small_ or _minute_ variations, and this has led to the statement\nthat variations are _infinitesimal_ in amount, and therefore could, at\nfirst, be of no use to the possessor in the struggle for existence.\n\n\n_Rapid Increase of All Organisms_\n\nThis is another fact of Nature which requires to be kept in mind in\nall discussions of the action of natural selection, yet it is often\naltogether ignored by critics of the theory. As an illustrative fact,\na not uncommon European weed of the Crucifer\u00e6 family has been found\nto produce about 700,000 seeds on a single plant, whence it can be\ncalculated that if every seed had room to grow for three successive\nyears their produce would cover a space of about 2,000 times as large\nas the whole land surface of the globe. Some of the minute aquatic\nforms of life which increase by division in a few hours would, if they\nall had the means of living, in the same period occupy a space equal to\nthat of the entire solar system. Even the largest and slowest breeding\nof all known mammals, i.e. the elephant, would, if allowed space to\nlive and breed freely for 750 years, result in no less than nineteen\nmillion animals.\n\nBy far the larger part of the criticisms of Darwinism by popular\nwriters are due to their continually forgetting these two great natural\nfacts: enormous _variability_ about a _mean value_ of every part and\norgan; and such ever-present powers of multiplication that, even in\nthe case of vertebrate animals, of those born every year only a small\nproportion\u2014one-tenth to one-hundredth or thereabouts\u2014live over the\nsecond year. If they all lived their numbers would go on continually\nincreasing, which we know is not the case. Hence arises what has been\ntermed \"the struggle for existence,\" resulting in \"the survival of the\nfittest.\"\n\nThis \"struggle for life\" is either against the forces of inorganic or\nthose of organic nature. Among the former are storms, floods, intense\ncold, long-continued droughts, or violent blizzards, all of which take\ntoll of the weaker or less wary individuals of each species\u2014those that\nare less adapted to survive such conditions. In judging how this would\nact, we must always remember the enormous scale on which Nature works,\nand that although now and then a few of the weaker individuals may live\nand a few of the stronger be killed, yet when we deal with hundreds\nof millions, of which eighty or ninety millions inevitably die every\nyear while about ten or twenty millions only survive, it is impossible\nto believe that those which survive, not one year only but year after\nyear throughout the whole existence of each species, are not on the\naverage better adapted to the complex conditions of their environment\nthan those which succumb to it. It is a mere truism that the _fittest\nsurvive_.\n\nExactly the same thing occurs in the case of the organic environment,\nto which each species must also be well adapted in order to live. The\ntwo great essentials for animal existence are, to obtain abundant\nfood through successive years, and to be able to escape from their\nvarious enemies. When food is scarce the strongest, or those who\ncan feed quickest and digest more rapidly, or those that can detect\nfood at greater distances or reach it more quickly, will have the\nadvantage. Enemies are escaped by strength, by swiftness, by acute\nvision, by wariness, or by colours which conceal the various species\nin their natural surroundings; and those which possess these or any\nother advantages will in the long run survive. The weaker, the less\nwell-defended, and the smaller species often have special protection,\nsuch as nocturnal habits, making burrows in the earth, possessing\npoisonous stings or fangs, being covered with protective armour; while\ngreat numbers are coloured or marked so as exactly to correspond with\ntheir surroundings, and are thus concealed from their chief enemies.\n\n\n_Natural Selection, or Survival of the Fittest_\n\nIt may be here noted that the term \"Natural Selection,\" which has often\nbeen misunderstood, was suggested to Darwin by the way in which almost\nall our varieties of cultivated plants and domestic animals have been\nobtained from wild forms continually improved for many generations. The\nmethod is to breed large quantities, and always preserve or \"select\"\nthe best in each generation to be the parents of the next. This\nmethod, carried on by hundreds of farmers, gardeners, dog, horse or\npoultry breeders, and especially by pigeon-fanciers, has resulted in\nall those useful, beautiful and even wonderful varieties of fruits,\nvegetables and flowers, dray-horses and hunters, greyhounds, spaniels\nand bull-dogs, cows which give large quantities of the richest milk,\nand sheep with the greatest quantity and finest quality of wool. All\nthese were produced gradually for the special purposes of mankind; but\na similar result has been effected by Nature through rapid increase,\ngreat variability, and continual destruction of all the individuals\nless adapted to the conditions of their special environment, so that\nonly the strongest or the swiftest, the best-concealed or the most\nwary, the best armed with teeth, horns, hoofs or claws, those who could\nswim best, or those that protected each other by keeping in flocks or\nherds\u2014lived the longest and tended to improve still further the next\ngeneration. \"Survival of the fittest\" was suggested by Herbert Spencer\nas best describing exactly what happens, and it is a most useful\ndescriptive term which should always be kept in mind when discussing\nor investigating the process by which the infinitely varied and\nbeautiful productions of Nature have been developed. There is really\nnot one single part or organ of any plant or animal that cannot have\nbeen derived by means of the fundamental facts of variability and\nreproduction from some allied plant or animal.\n\nIt is interesting here to note, that the two _essential factors_ of the\nprocess of constant adaptation to the environment by great variability\nand rapid multiplication, formed no part of Lamarck's theory, which\nsome people still think to be as good as Darwin's. Equally suggestive\nis the fact that, while extensive groups of life-phenomena, such as\ncolour, weapons, hair, scales, and feathers, can hardly be conceived as\nhaving been produced or modified by _effort_ or by the direct action of\nthe environment, they are yet, every one of them, perfectly explained\nby the fundamental and necessary processes of variability and survival,\nacting slowly and continuously, but with intermittent periods of\nextreme activity at long intervals, on all living things.\n\nOne of the weakest and most foolish of all the objections to the\nDarwinian theory is, that it does not explain _variation_, and is\ntherefore worthless. We might as well say that Newton's discovery of\nthe laws of gravitation was worthless because its _cause_ was not and\nhas not yet been discovered; or that the undulatory theory of light\nand heat is worthless, because the origin of the ether, the thing\nthat _undulates_, is not known. The _beginnings_ of things can never\nbe known; and, as Darwin well said, it is foolish to waste time in\nspeculation about them. I think I have shown in my _World of Life_\nthat infinite variability is a basic law of Nature, and have suggested\nits probable purpose. That purpose seems to have been the development\nof a life-world culminating in Man\u2014a being capable of studying, and\nenjoying, and to some extent comprehending, the vast universe around\nhim, from the microscopic life in almost every drop of water to the\nwhirling nebul\u00e6 of the glittering star-depths extending to almost\nunimaginable distances around him.\n\nLooking at him thus, man is as much above, and as different from, the\nbeasts that perish as they are above and beyond the inanimate masses of\nmeteoritic matter which, as we now know, occupy the apparently vacant\nspaces of our solar system, and from which comets and stars are in all\nprobability the aggregations due to the action of the various cosmic\nforces which everywhere seem capable of producing variety and order out\nof a more uniform but less orderly chaos.\n\nBut besides this lofty intellect, man is gifted with what we term a\nmoral sense: an insistent perception of justice and injustice, of right\nand wrong, of order and beauty and truth, which as a whole constitute\nhis moral and \u00e6sthetic nature, the origin and progress of which I have\nendeavoured to throw some light upon in the present volume. The long\ncourse of human history leads us to the conclusion that this higher\nnature of man arose at some far distant epoch, and though it has\ndeveloped in various directions, does not seem yet to have elevated the\nwhole race much above its earliest condition, at the time when, by the\ninflux of some portion of the spirit of the Deity, man became \"a living\nsoul.\"\n\nWe will now consider some of the changes which this higher nature of\nman has produced in the action of the laws of variation and natural\nselection. These are very important, and are so little understood that\nalmost all popular writers on the subject of the future of mankind are\nled into stating as scientific conclusions what are wholly opposed to\nthe actual teaching of evolution.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV\n\nSELECTION AS MODIFIED BY MIND\n\n\nThe theory of natural selection as expounded by Darwin was so\ncompletely successful in explaining the origin of the almost infinitely\nvaried forms of the organic world, step by step, during the long\nsuccession of the geological ages, that it was naturally supposed to be\nequally applicable to mankind. This was thought to be almost certain\nwhen, in his later work, _The Descent of Man_, Darwin proved by a\nseries of converging facts and convincing arguments that the physical\nstructure of man was in all its parts and organs so extremely similar\nto that of the anthropoid apes as to demonstrate the descent of both\nfrom some common ancestor.\n\nSo close is this resemblance that every bone and muscle in the human\nbody has its counterpart in that of the apes, the only differences\nbeing slight modifications in their shape and position; yet these\ndifferences lead to external forms, attitudes, and modes of life so\ndivergent that we can hardly recognise the close affinity that really\nexists. This affinity is so real and unmistakable that such a great\nand conservative zoologist as the late Sir Richard Owen declared that\nto discover and define any important differences between them was\nthe anatomist's difficulty. It was in the dimensions, the shape, and\nthe proportions of the brain that Owen found a sufficient amount of\ndistinctive characters to enable him to place Man in a separate order\nof mammals\u2014Bimana, or two-handed\u2014while the remainder of the whole\nmonkey tribe\u2014including the apes, baboons, monkeys, and lemurs\u2014formed\nthe order Quadrumana, or four-handed animals. This classification has\nbeen rejected by most modern biologists, who consider man to form a\ndistinct family only\u2014Hominid\u00e6\u2014of the order Primates, which order\nincludes all four-handed animals as well as man.\n\nBut if we recognise the brain as the organ of the mind, and give due\nweight to the complete distinctness and enormous superiority of the\nmind of man as compared with that of all other mammals, we shall be\ninclined to accept Owen's view as the most natural; and this becomes\nalmost certain when we realise the enormous effect his mind has\nproduced, in modifying and almost neutralising the action of that great\nlaw of natural selection which has held supreme sway in every other\nportion of the organic world.\n\nWe have seen in the preceding chapter how every form of organic life\nduring all the vast extent of geological time has been subject to the\nlaw of natural selection, which has incessantly moulded their bodily\nform and structure, external and internal, in strict adaptation to\nthe successive changes of the world around them; while that world was\nitself hardly, if at all, modified by them. A few isolated cases\u2014such\nas the formation of islands by the coral-forming zoophytes, or the\ndamming of a few rivers by the rude though very remarkable labours of\nthe beaver\u2014can hardly be considered as forming exceptions to this law.\n\nBut so soon as man appeared upon the earth, even in the earliest\nperiods at which we have any proofs of his existence, or in the\nlowest state of barbarism in which we are now able to study him, we\nfind him able to use and act upon the forces of Nature, and to modify\nhis environment, both inorganic and organic, in ways which formed a\ncompletely new departure in the entire organic world.\n\nAmong the very rudest of modern savages the wounded or the sick are\nassisted, at least with food and shelter, and often in other ways,\nso that they recover under circumstances that to most of the higher\nanimals would be fatal. Neither does less robust health or vigour, or\neven the loss of a limb or of eyesight, necessarily entail death. The\nless fit are therefore not eliminated as among all other animals; and\nwe behold, for the first time in the history of the world, the great\nlaw of natural selection by the survival only of \"the fittest\" to some\nextent neutralised.\n\nBut this is only the first and least important of the effects produced\nby the superior faculties of man. In the whole animal world, as we have\nseen, every species is preserved in harmony with the slowly changing\nenvironment by modifications of its own organs or faculties, thus\ngradually leading to the production of new species equally adapted to\nthe new environment as its ancestor was before the change occurred.\n\nIn the case of man, however, such bodily adaptations were unnecessary,\nbecause his greatly superior mind enabled him to meet all such\ndifficulties in a new and different way. As soon as his specially\nhuman faculties were developed (and we have as yet no knowledge of\nhim in any earlier condition), he would cease to be influenced by\nnatural selection in his physical form and structure. Looked at as\na mere animal he would remain almost stationary, the changes in the\nsurrounding universe ceasing to produce in him that powerful modifying\neffect which they exercise over all other members of the entire organic\nworld. In order to protect himself from the larger and fiercer of the\nmammalia he made use of weapons, such as stone-headed clubs, wooden\nspears, bows and arrows, and various kinds of traps and snares, all of\nwhich are exceedingly effective when families or larger groups combine\nin their use. Against the severity of the seasons he protected himself\nwith a clothing of skins, and with some form of shelter or well-built\nhouse, in which he could rest securely at night, free from tempestuous\nrains or the attacks of wild beasts. By the use of fire he was enabled\nto render both roots and flesh more palatable and more digestible, thus\nincreasing the variety and abundance of his food far beyond that of any\nspecies of the lower animals. Yet further, by the simplest forms of\ncultivation, he was able to increase the best of the fruits, the roots,\nthe tubers, as well as the more nutritious of the seeds, such as those\nof rice and maize, of wheat and of barley, thus securing in convenient\nproximity to his dwelling-place an abundance of food to supply all his\nwants and render him almost always secure against scarcity or famine or\ndisastrous droughts.\n\nWe see, then, that with the advent of Man there had come into\nexistence a being in whom that subtle force we term _mind_ became of\nfar more importance than mere bodily structure. Though with a naked\nand unprotected body, _this_ gave him clothing against the varied\ninclemencies of the seasons. Though unable to compete with the deer in\nswiftness or with the wild bull in strength, _this_ gave him weapons\nwith which to capture or overcome both. Though less capable than most\nother animals of living on the herbs and the fruits that unaided Nature\nsupplies, this wonderful faculty taught him to govern and direct Nature\nto his own benefit, and compelled her to produce food for him almost\nwhere and when he pleased. From the moment when the first skin was used\nas a covering, when the first rude spear was formed to assist him in\nthe chase, when fire was first used to cook his food, when the first\nseed was sown or shoot planted, a grand revolution was effected in\nNature\u2014a revolution which in all previous ages of the earth's history\nhad had no parallel. A being had arisen who was no longer subject to\nbodily change with changes of the physical universe\u2014a being who was in\nsome degree superior to Nature, inasmuch as he knew how to control and\nregulate her action, and could keep himself in harmony with her, not\nthrough any change in his body, but by means of his vast superiority in\nmind.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe view above expounded of the transference of the action of natural\nselection from the bodily structure to the mind of early man was my\nfirst original modification of that theory, having been communicated to\nthe _Anthropological Review_ in 1864. It received the approval both of\nDarwin himself and of Herbert Spencer, and I am not aware that anyone\nhas shown any flaw in the reasoning by which it is established. It is\ncertainly of high importance, since if true it renders impossible any\nimportant change in the external form of mankind, while it serves\nas an explanation of the complete identity of specific type of the\nthree great races of man\u2014the Caucasian or white, the Mongolian or\nyellow, and the Negroid or black\u2014in every essential of human form and\nstructure, while in their best examples they approach very nearly to\nthe same ideal of symmetry and of beauty. Yet so little attention has\nbeen given to this view that most popular and even some scientific\nwriters take it for granted that no such difference exists between man\nand the lower animals. They assume that we are destined to have our\nbodies modified in the remote future in some unknown way, and that the\nidea that there is anything approaching final perfection in the human\nform is a mere figment of the imagination.\n\nOthers are so imbued with the universality of natural selection as\na beneficial law of Nature that they object to our interfering with\nits action in, as they urge, the elimination of the unfit by disease\nand death, even when such diseases are caused by the insanitary\nconditions of our modern cities or the misery and destitution due\nto our irrational and immoral social system. Such writers entirely\nignore the undoubted fact that affection, sympathy, compassion form\nas essential a part of human nature as do the higher intellectual and\nmoral faculties; that in the very earliest periods of history and among\nthe very lowest of existing savages they are fully manifested, not\nmerely between the members of the same family, but throughout the whole\ntribe, and also in most cases to every stranger who is not a known or\nimagined enemy. The earliest book of travels I remember hearing read\nby my father was that of Mungo Park, one of the first explorers of the\nNiger. He was once alone and sick there, and some negro women nursed\nhim, fed him, and saved his life; and while lying in their hut he heard\nthem singing about him as the poor white man, of whom they said:\u2014\n\n    \"He has no mother to give him milk,\n     No wife to grind his corn.\"\n\nHospitality is, in fact, one of the most general of all human virtues,\nand in some cases is almost a religion. It is an inherent part of\nwhat constitutes \"human nature,\" and it is directly antagonistic to\nthe rigid law of natural selection which has universally prevailed\nthroughout the lower animal world. Those who advocate our allowing\nnatural selection to have free play among ourselves on the ground that\nwe are interfering with Nature, are totally ignorant of what they are\ntalking about. It is Nature herself, untaught, unsophisticated _human_\nnature, which they are seeking to interfere with. They seek to degrade\nthe higher nature to the level of the lower, to bring down Heaven-born\nhumanity, in its essential characteristics only a little lower than the\nangels, to the infinitely lower level of the beasts that perish.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe conclusion reached in the earlier portion of this volume, that the\nhigher intellectual and moral nature of man has been approximately\nstationary during the whole period of human history, and that the cause\nof the phenomenon has been the absence of any selective agency adequate\nto increase it, renders it necessary to give some further explanation\nas to the probable or possible origin of this higher nature, and also\nof that admirable human body which also appears to have reached a\ncondition of permanent stability.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV\n\nTHE LAWS OF HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT\n\n\nIn dealing with the great problems of organic development there is\nprobably no department in which so much error and misconception\nprevails as on the nature and limitations of Heredity. These\nmisconceptions not only pervade most popular writings on the subject\nof evolution, but even those of men of science and of specialists in\nbiology, and they are the more important and dangerous because their\npromulgators are able to quote Herbert Spencer, and to a less extent\nDarwin, as holding similar views.\n\nThe subject is of special importance here because it involves the\nquestion of whether the effects of the environment, including education\nand training, are in any degree transmitted from the individuals so\nmodified to their progeny\u2014whether they are or are not cumulative.\nIt is, in fact, the much discussed and vitally important problem of\nthe Heredity of Acquired Characters. The effects of use and disuse,\nanother form of the same general phenomenon, were assumed by Lamarck to\nbe inherited, and a large portion of his theory of evolution rested on\nthis assumption; it seemed so probable, and was apparently supported by\nso many facts, that Darwin, like most other naturalists at the time,\naccepted it without any special inquiry, and when he worked out his\ntheory of Pangenesis in order to explain the main facts of heredity,\nhis suppositions were adapted to include such phenomena. Let us then\nfirst explain what is meant by the \"acquired characters\" which it was\nthought that a true theory of heredity must explain.\n\nAs a rule, the great majority of the peculiarities of any species\nof animal or plant are constantly reproduced in its offspring. The\nshort tail of the wren, the much longer tail of the long-tailed tit,\nthe crest of the crested tit and of innumerable other birds, always\nwhen full-grown exhibit the same characters as in their parents.\nThese are said to be _innate_ characters. In rare cases, however,\noffspring are born which differ materially from their parents, as when\na white blackbird or a six-toed kitten appears, but these are equally\n_innate_, and are often strongly inherited. All these are subject\nto variation, and can therefore be modified by selection, whether\nnatural or artificial, and the effects of such selection in the case of\ndomestic animals is often enormous. Such are the pouters and tumblers\namong pigeons, the bull-dog and the greyhound, the numerous breeds of\npoultry, all of which are known to have been produced by artificial\nselections of favourable variations extending over many centuries; and\nthe characters of these varieties are all strongly inherited.\n\nCharacters which are acquired during the life of the individual owing\nto differences in the use of certain organs or of exposure to light,\nheat, drought, wind, moisture, etc., are comparatively very slight,\nand are liable to be so combined with _innate_ characters and with the\neffects of natural or artificial selection, that it is exceedingly\ndifficult to ascertain, without such careful and long-continued\nexperiments as have not yet been made, whether they are in any degree\ntransmissible from parent to offspring, and therefore cumulative.\n\nAlmost every individual case of supposed inheritance of such\ncharacters, when carefully examined, has been found to be explicable\nin other ways; but there is a very large amount of _general_ evidence,\ndemonstrating that even if a certain small amount of such inheritance\nexists, it can certainly not be a factor of any importance in the\nprocess of organic evolution, all the factors of which must be\nuniversally present because the process itself is universal. I will\ntherefore here limit myself to a short enumeration of a few of the\nvery numerous cases in which the continued use of an organ does not\nstrengthen or improve it, but often the reverse; and of others in which\nit cannot be asserted that the action of the environment can have had\nany part whatever in the continuous change or specialisation of the\npart or organ. The number, size, form, position, and composition of\nthe teeth of all the mammalia are extremely varied, and throughout\nthe whole class afford the best characters to distinguish family and\ngeneric groups; they are therefore of great value in determining the\naffinities of extinct forms, because the jaws and teeth, especially\nthe latter, are most frequently preserved. But as the permanent teeth\nare always fully formed while buried in the jawbones and covered by\nthe gums, it is quite certain that the special adaptation of the teeth\nof each species to seize, crush, tear, or grind up its particular food\ncannot possibly have been produced by the act of feeding, the effect\nof which is almost always to grind away the teeth and render them less\nserviceable. Such adaptation could not possibly have been produced\nby _use_ alone, or any other direct action of the environment. Yet,\nas the adaptation is clear, and often very remarkable, some eminent\npal\u00e6ontologists have declared it to be proved that the changes in\nthem were _produced_ by the changes in the environment, and that\nthey constitute very strong evidence of the \"inheritance of acquired\ncharacters\"\u2014a statement unsupported by any direct evidence.\n\nThe same objection applies to most of the special organs of sense.\nThe internal organ of hearing is a highly complex series of bones and\nmembranes, protected by the outer ear; but it cannot be even imagined\nto have been gradually developed by the action of the air waves the\nvibrations of which it conveys to the brain.\n\nThe eye is a still more striking case, as too much use injures or even\ndestroys it; while specialities of vision, as long or short sight, are\nundoubtedly _innate_, and usually persist throughout life.\n\nSo the wonderfully varied bills of birds cannot be conceived as having\nbeen modified by use, and are, in fact, unchangeable when once formed.\nYet, as they vary largely in every species, they are readily modified,\nso as to become adapted to new conditions by the \"survival of the\nfittest.\"\n\nEqually impossible is it to connect any use or disuse, or environmental\naction, in the production, the gradual development, or complete\nadaptation to their conditions of life of the outer coverings of almost\nall living things\u2014the hair of mammalia, the feathers of birds, the\nscales or horny skins or solid shields of reptiles, the solid shells\nof molluscs, wonderfully ribbed or spined, whorled, or turreted, and\ninfinitely varied in surface colour and markings. Even more conclusive\nare the facts presented by the vast hosts of the insect world, from\nthe massive armour of the ever-present beetle tribe, more varied in\nform, structure, ornament, and colour than any other comparable group\nof living things, to the widely different lepidoptera, equalling, or\nperhaps surpassing, the whole class of birds in their marvellous grace\nand beauty, yet all utterly beyond any possible direct action of the\nenvironment or of use and disuse in their development, and their close\nadaptation to that environment.\n\nOrganic nature is indisputably one and indivisible. It has been\ndeveloped throughout by means of the fundamental _forces_ of life,\nof growth and reproduction, and the equally fundamental _laws_ of\nvariation, heredity, and enormous increase, resulting in a perpetual\nadaptation in form, structure, colour, and habits to the slowly\nchanging environment. These forces and laws are _universal_ in their\naction; they are demonstrably adequate to the production of the whole\nof the phenomena we are now discussing. We see, then, that over by\nfar the greater part of the whole world of life any modification\nof external structure, form, or colouring during the life of the\nindividual is impossible; while in the remainder its action, if it\nexists at all, is of very limited range. No adequate _proof_ of the\ninheritance of the slight changes thus caused has ever yet been given,\nand it is therefore wholly unnecessary and illogical to assume its\nexistence and to adduce it as having any part in the ever-active and\nuniversal process of evolution.\n\nThroughout the whole series of the animal world, and especially in the\nhigher groups which approach nearest to ourselves, mental and physical\ncharacters are so inextricably intermixed in their relation to the\nlaws of evolution and heredity, that either of them studied separately\nleads us to the same conclusions. We are not, therefore, surprised to\nfind that breeders of animals of all kinds act upon the principle that\nall the qualities of the various stocks, whether bodily or mental,\nare _innate_ and have been due to selection; while training, though\nnecessary to bring out the good qualities of the individual, has had\nno part in the _production_ of those qualities. When a horse or dog of\ngood pedigree is accidentally injured so that it cannot be regularly\ntrained, it is still used for breeding purposes without any doubt as to\nits conveying to its progeny the highest qualities of its parentage.\n\nIn the case of the human race, however, many writers thoughtlessly\nspeak of the hereditary effects of strength or skill due to any\nmechanical work or special art being continued generation after\ngeneration in the same family, as among the castes of India. But of\nany progressive improvement there is no evidence whatever. Those\nchildren who had a natural aptitude for the work would, of course, form\nthe successors of their parents, and there is no proof of anything\nhereditary except as regards this _innate_ aptitude.\n\nMany people are alarmed at the statement that the effects of education\nand training are _not_ hereditary, and think that if that were really\nthe case there would be no hope of improvement of the race; but closer\nconsideration will show them that if the results of our education in\nthe widest sense, in the home, in the shop, in the nation, and in the\nworld at large, had really been hereditary, even in the slightest\ndegree, then indeed there would be little hope for humanity; and there\nis no clearer proof of this than the fact that we have not _all_ been\nmade much worse\u2014the wonder being that any fragment of morality, or\nhumanity, or the love of truth or justice for their own sakes still\nexists among us.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIf we glance through the past history of mankind we see an almost\nunbroken succession of aggression and combat between the various races,\nnations, and tribes. We can dimly see that this continual struggle did\nlead to a rather severe process of selection, as in the lower animal\nworld. It can hardly be doubted that as a result of these struggles the\nstrongest physically, the most ingenious in the use of weapons, and\nthe best organised for war did survive, and that the weaker and lower\nwere either exterminated or kept as slaves by the conquerors. This\nleads to alternation of success and failure. We see great conquerors\nand great material civilisations as a result of their accumulations\nof wealth and of slaves. Then, for a time, luxury and the arts\nflourished, and with them came rulers who encouraged degradation and\nvice at home, supported by more and more remote conquests. Then new\nconquerors arose, often lower in civilisation\u2014barbarians, as they were\ntermed\u2014but higher in the simple domestic virtues and a more natural\nlife of productive labour. These again, or some portions of them, rose\nto luxury and civilisation, to lives of gross sensuality and the most\ncruel despotism, till outraged humanity raised up new conquerors to go\nover again the old terrible routine.\n\nThe periods of culmination of these old civilisations, founded always\non conquest, massacre, and slavery, are marked out for us by the ruins\nof great cities, temples, and palaces, often of wonderful grandeur, and\nwith indications of arts, science, and literature which still excite\nour admiration in Egypt and India, Greece and Rome; and thence through\nthe Middle Ages down to our own time. But the inhumanities and horrors\nof these periods are inconceivable. A gloomy picture of them is given\nin that powerful book, _The Martyrdom of Man_, by Winwood Reade; and\nthey are summarised in Burns' fine lines:\n\n    \"Man's inhumanity to man\n     Makes countless thousands mourn.\"\n\nThink of the horrors of war in the perpetual wars of those days before\nthe \"Red Cross\" service did anything to alleviate them. Think of the\nold castles, many of which had besides the dungeons a salaried torturer\nand executioner. Think of the systematic tortures of the centuries, of\nthe witchcraft mania and of the Inquisition. Think of the burnings in\nSmithfield and in every great city of Europe. Think of\n\n    \"Truth for ever on the scaffold,\n     Wrong for ever on the throne.\"\n\nFreedom of speech, even of thought, were everywhere crimes: how,\nthen, did the love of truth survive as an ideal of to-day? To escape\nthese horrors, the gentle, the good, the learned, and the peaceful\nhad to seek refuge in monasteries and nunneries, while by means of\nthe celibacy of the clergy the Church, as Galton tells us, \"by a\npolicy singularly unwise and suicidal, brutalised the breed of our\nforefathers.\"\n\nHere was the actual _education_ of the world as man rose from barbarism\nto civilisation, and it was accompanied by a certain amount of\nretrograde selection by the cruel punishments, confinement in dungeons,\nor torture and death of those who opposed the rulers, and by the\nsurvival of the worst tools of the lords and tyrants. Ought we not to\nbe thankful that such education and custom, the varied influences of\nsuch an environment, _were not_ hereditary? And is not the fact that\nthe whole world has _not_ become utterly degraded, and that anything\ngood remains in our cruelly oppressed human nature, an overwhelming\nproof that such influences _are not_ hereditary?\n\nWhen we remember that many of these degrading laws and customs,\noppressions, and punishments have extended down to our own times; that\nthe terrible slave-trade and the equally terrible slavery have only\nbeen abolished within the memory of many of us; and that the system\nof wage-slavery, the distinction of classes, the gross inequality of\nthe law, the overwork of our labouring millions, the immoral luxury\nand idleness of our upper-class thousands, while far more thousands\ndie annually of want of the bare necessaries of life; that millions\nhave their lives shortened by easily preventable causes, while other\nmillions pass their whole lives in continuous and almost inhuman labour\nin order to provide means for the enjoyments and pernicious luxuries of\nthe rich\u2014we must be amazed at the fact that there is nevertheless so\nmuch real goodness, real humanity, among us as certainly exists, in\nspite of all the degrading influences that I have been compelled here\nto enumerate.\n\nTo myself, there seems only one explanation of the very remarkable and\nalmost incredible result just stated. It is, that the Divine nature\nin us\u2014that portion of our higher nature which raises us above the\nbrutes, and the influx of which makes us men\u2014cannot be lost, cannot\neven be permanently deteriorated by conditions however adverse, by\ntraining however senseless and bad. It ever remains in us, the central\nand essential portion of our _human_ nature, ready to respond to every\nfavourable opportunity that arises, to grasp and hold firm every\nfragment of high thought or noble action that has been brought to its\nnotice, to oppose even to the death every falsehood in teaching, every\ntyranny in action. The ethics of Plato and of the great moralists of\nthe Ciceronian epoch, together with those of Jesus and of His disciples\nand followers, kept alive the sacred flame of pure humanity, and their\npreservation constitutes perhaps the greatest service the monastic\nsystem rendered to the human race. This service is finely expressed by\nan almost unknown poet, J. H. Dell, in the prefatory to his volume,\n_The Dawning Grey_. Never has our indebtedness to the classical writers\nbeen more powerfully insisted on than in the following lines:\u2014\n\n    \"Hear ye not the measured footfalls echoing solemn and sublime,\n     From the groves of Academus down the avenues of Time;\n     See'st thou not the giant figures of the Sages of the Past,\n     Through the darken'd long perspective on the living foreground cast;\n     Feel'st thou not the thrilling rhythm of the grand old Grecian line,\n     Pulsing to the march of Progress, cadencing her hymn divine,\n     All the forces of the present by the subtle sparks controlled,\n     Of the quickening Grecian fire, of the mighty Lights of old.\n\n    \"Through the dark and desolation of the centuries between,\n     Still 'The Porch's' glories glimmer, still 'The Garden's' wreaths\n         are green.\n     Still the Zeno, still the Plato, still the Pyrrho points the page,\n     Still the Philip fears the pebble\u2014still Melitus dreads the Sage,\n     Still the Dionysius trembles at the stylus of the age.\n     Still the dauntless ranks of Freedom kindle to Tyrt\u00e6us' song;\n     Still they bear aloft the symbol\u2014bear the glorious torch\n         along.\"[118:A]\n\n        [118:A] See Note on page 124.\n\nIf the Christian Church had done nothing for us but preserve in its\nmonasteries and abbeys the finest examples of classic literature\nthat have come down to us, and given us those glories of Gothic\narchitecture which seem to express in stone the grandeur and sublimity,\nthe peacefulness and the beauty of a pure religion, it would,\nnotwithstanding its many defects, its cruelty and oppression, its\nopposition to the study of nature and to freedom of thought, have fully\njustified its existence as helping us to realise whatever more advanced\nand purer civilisation the immediate future may have in store for us.\n\n\n_Some Light on the Problem of Evil_\n\nBefore passing on to another branch of my subject I feel it necessary\nto make a few suggestions in reply to the objection that will certainly\nand very properly be made, as to why, if our higher human nature\nis in its essence Divine, it has suffered such long and terrible\neclipses\u2014why has the lower so often and for so long prevailed over\nthe higher? This is, of course, one of the many forms of the old\nproblem of the origin of evil, which is no doubt insoluble by us. But\nas it is a fairly well-defined and limited portion of that problem it\nmay be possible to obtain some idea of a possible solution, and as such\nan one has occurred to myself during the composition of the present\nvolume, I will give it as briefly as possible in the hope that it may\ninterest some of my readers.\n\nIn my recent works, _Man's Place in the Universe_ and _The World of\nLife_, the conclusion was forced upon me, that the scheme of the\ndevelopment of the universe of stars and nebul\u00e6 with which we are\nacquainted, and especially of our sun and solar system, was such as to\nfurnish the exact conditions on our earth, and there only, which should\nallow of the origin and evolution of the organic world culminating in\nman. Yet further, that the conditions should be such as to produce the\nmaximum of diversity both of inorganic and organic products useful\nto man, and such as would aid in the development of the greatest\npossible diversity of character and especially of his higher mental\nand moral nature. What I have here termed the Divine influx, which\nat some definite epoch in his evolution at once raised man above the\nrest of the animals, creating as it were a new being with a continuous\nspiritual existence in a world or worlds where eternal progress was\npossible for him. To prepare him for this progress with ever-increasing\ndiversity, faculties of enormous range were required, and these needed\ndevelopment in every direction which earthly conditions rendered\npossible. In order that this extreme diversity of character should\nbe brought about, a great space of time, as measured by successive\ngenerations, was necessary, though utterly insignificant as compared\nwith the preceding duration of organic life on the earth, and still\nmore insignificant as compared with the spirit-life to succeed it. It\nis for this purpose, perhaps, that languages become so rapidly diverse\nand mutually unintelligible after a moderate period of isolation,\nbinding together small or moderate communities in distinct tribes or\nnations, which each develop in their own way under the influence of\nspecial physical surroundings and originate peculiarities of habits,\ncustoms, and modes of thought. Antagonisms soon arise between adjacent\ntribes, leading each to protect itself against others by means of\nchiefs and some quasi-military combinations. This requires organisation\nand foresight, and after a time the most powerful conquers the weaker,\nthey intermingle, and still greater diversity arises. By this constant\nstruggle the less advanced suffer most, and the race as a whole takes a\nstep forward in the march of civilisation.\n\nWe see the best example of this mode of progress by antagonism in the\nsmall States of Ancient Greece, where each little kingdom developed\nits peculiar form of art, of government, and of civilisation, which\nit transferred to all parts of Europe; and after two thousand years\nof degradation by Roman and Turkish conquest, its language still\nremains but little altered, while its ancient literature and art are\nstill unsurpassed. In like manner Rome brought law, literature, and\nmilitary discipline to an equally high level; and it too sank into\na state of ruin and degradation, while its literature and its law\ncontinued to illuminate the civilised world during its long struggle\ntowards freedom. Wherever conditions were favourable to progress in\nart or science, _time_ was needed for its full growth and development;\nwhile perpetual war necessitated organisation and training against\nconquest or destruction. Even the cruelties and massacres by despotic\nrulers excited at last the uprising of the oppressed, and so developed\nthe nobler attributes of patriotism, courage, and love of freedom. In\nthe very worst of times there was an undercurrent of peaceful labour,\nart, and learning, slowly moulding nations towards a higher state of\ncivilisation.\n\nThe point of view now suggested will perhaps be rendered somewhat more\nintelligible if we apply it to the nineteenth century, of which I have\nwritten in such condemnatory terms. The preceding eighteenth century\nwas undoubtedly a somewhat stationary epoch, of a rather commonplace\ncharacter alike in literature, in art, in science, and in social life.\nIts vices also were low, its government bad, its system of punishments\ncruel, and its recognition of slavery degrading. It was a kind of \"dark\nage\" between the literary and national brilliance of the Elizabethan\nage and the wonderful scientific and industrial advance of the\nVictorian age.\n\nBut this latter period was also a period of a great uprising of the\nspecially human virtues of justice, of pity, of the love of freedom,\nand of the importance of education; and though the rapid increase of\nwealth through the utilisation of natural forces led to all the evils\ndue to the unchecked growth of individual riches and power, yet these\nvery evils in all their intensity and horror were perhaps necessary to\nexcite in a sufficient number of minds the determination to get rid of\nthem. Time was also required for the workers to learn their own power,\nand, very gradually, to learn how to use it. The rick-burning and\nmachine-breaking of the early part of the century have been succeeded\nby combination and strikes; step by step political power has been\ngained by the masses; but only now, in the twentieth century, are they\nbeginning to learn how to use their strength in an effective manner.\nThere are, however, indications that the whole march of progress has\nbeen dangerously rapid, and it _might_ have been safer if the great\nincreases of knowledge and the vast accumulations of wealth had been\nspread over two centuries instead of one. In that case our higher\nnature might have been able to keep pace with the growing evils of\nsuperfluous wealth and increasing luxury, and it might have been\npossible to put a check upon them before they had attained the full\npower for evil they now possess.\n\nNevertheless, the omens for the future are good. The great body of the\nmore intelligent workers are determined to have JUSTICE. They\ninsist upon the abolition of monopolies of the forces of nature, and\nupon the gradual admission of all to _equal opportunities_ for labour\nby free access to their native soil. Thus may be initiated the birth of\na new era of peaceful reform and moral advancement.\n\n    NOTE.\u2014As many of my readers may not understand the allusions\n    in the second verse of Mr. Dell's poem (pp. 117-118), I append\n    the explanation:\n\n    \"The Porch,\" the place where the Stoic philosophers taught\u2014The\n    Painted Porch in Athens.\n\n    \"The Garden,\" scene of Plato's and Socrates' teaching.\n\n    Zeno was the founder of the Stoic philosophy.\n\n    Pyrrho was the founder of the Sceptic school.\n\n    Philip of Macedon lost an eye at the siege of Methone by a\n    slinger's pebble.\n\n    Melitus was one of the disputants with Socrates, and was always\n    vanquished by him.\n\n    Dionysius, the Tyrant of Syracuse, was also a Poet and was a\n    candidate for the prize at the Olympic games, but was conquered\n    and therefore feared the more skilful \"stylus\" (pen) of the\n    victors.\n\n    Tyrt\u00e6us, a lame schoolmaster of Athens, inspired the\n    Laced\u00e6monians by his patriotic war-songs, and thus contributed\n    largely to their victories.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI\n\nMORAL PROGRESS THROUGH A NEW FORM OF SELECTION\n\n\nMany readers, and some writers of books on organic evolution, seem\nquite unaware that Darwin established two modes of selection, both\nalike \"natural\" but acting in different ways and producing somewhat\ndifferent results. He termed the second mode \"sexual selection,\" and\nin his _Origin of Species_ he briefly describes it as consisting in\nthe fighting of males for the possession of females, which undoubtedly\noccurs in numbers of the higher vertebrates and also in insects.\n\nBut he also includes under sexual selection another mode of rivalry\nby the display of the special male ornaments of many birds, and the\nchoice of the more ornamental by the females. To this latter phase he\ndevotes nearly half his volume on _The Descent of Man, and on Selection\nin Relation to Sex_. Selection by the fighting of males has led to the\ndevelopment of the stag's antlers, the boar's tusks, and the lion's\nmane serving as a shield. These combats rarely lead to the death of the\nvanquished, but to a larger number of offspring for the victor; and\nthis leads to the improvement of the race by keeping up its strength,\nvigour, and fighting power.\n\nThe other form of selection, by the display of ornaments by male\nbirds and the supposed continuous development of those ornaments by\nthe appreciative choice of the females, I believe to be imaginary.\nI have discussed this subject in many of my books, and my views are\nnow generally adopted by evolutionists. The fact that the colours of\nmale insects, especially butterflies, are almost exactly parallel to\nthose of birds, first led me to this conclusion, because we can hardly\nsuppose insects to be endowed with any \u00e6sthetic sense, even if they\nreally _see_ colour at all, which, in my last book, I have given strong\nreasons for doubting.\n\nBut in the human race the conditions are altogether different;\nfor while, as I have shown in Chapter XIV., the kind of natural\nselection which through all the ages had moulded the infinitely varied\nanimal forms into harmony with their environment, ceased to act\nupon man's body and only for a limited time upon his lower mental\nfaculties, sexual selection tended to act if at all prejudicially,\nthrough polygamy, prostitution, and slavery, though it possesses the\npotentiality of acting in the future so as to ensure Intellectual\nand Moral Progress, and thus elevate the race to whatever degree of\ncivilisation and well-being it is capable of reaching in earth-life.\n\n\n_Eugenics, or Race Improvement through Marriage_\n\nThe total cessation of the action of natural selection as a cause of\nimprovement in our race, either physical or mental, led to the proposal\nof the late Sir F. Galton to establish a new science, which he termed\nEugenics. A society has been formed, and much is being written about\nchecking degeneration and elevating the race to a higher level by its\nmeans. Sir F. Galton's own proposals were limited to giving prizes\nor endowments for the marriage of persons of high character, both\nphysical, mental, and moral, to be determined by some form of inquiry\nor examination. This may, perhaps, not do much harm, but it would\ncertainly do very little good. Its range of action would be extremely\nlimited, and so far as it induced any couples to marry each other for\nthe pecuniary reward, it would be absolutely immoral in its nature, and\nprobably result in no perceptible improvement of the race.\n\nBut there is great danger in such a process of artificial selection\nby experts, who would certainly soon adopt methods very different\nfrom those of the founder. We have already had proposals made for the\n\"segregation of the Feeble-Minded,\" while the \"sterilization of the\nunfit\" and of some classes of criminals is already being discussed.\nThis might soon be extended to the destruction of deformed infants,\nas was actually proposed by the late Grant Allen; while Mr. Hiram M.\nStanley, in a work on _Our Civilisation and the Marriage Problem_,\nproposed more far-reaching measures. He says: \"The drunkard, the\ncriminal, the diseased, the morally weak, should never come into\nsociety. Not reform, but prevention should be the cry.\" And he hints\nat the methods he would adopt, in the following passages: \"In the\ntrue golden age, which lies not behind but before us, the privilege\nof parentage will be esteemed an honour for the comparatively few,\nand no child will be born who is not only sound in body and mind, but\nalso above the average as to natural ability and moral force.\" And he\nconcludes: \"The most important matter in society, the inherent quality\nof the members of which it is composed, should be regulated by trained\nspecialists.\"\n\nOf course, our modern eugenists will disclaim any wish to adopt such\nmeasures as are here hinted at, which are in every way dangerous and\ndetestable. But I protest strenuously against any direct interference\nwith the freedom of marriage, which, as I shall show, is not only\ntotally unnecessary, but would be a much greater source of danger\nto morals and to the well-being of humanity than the mere temporary\nevils it seeks to cure. I trust that all my readers will oppose any\n_legislation_ on this subject by a chance body of elected persons who\nare totally unfitted to deal with far less complex problems than this\none, and as to which they are sure to bungle disastrously.\n\nIt is in the highest degree presumptuous and irrational to attempt to\ndeal by compulsory enactments with the most vital and most sacred of\nall human relations, regardless of the fact that our present phase of\nsocial development is not only extremely imperfect, but, as I have\nalready shown, vicious and rotten at the core. How can it be possible\nto determine by legislation those relations of the sexes which shall be\nbest alike for individuals and for the race, in a society in which a\nlarge proportion of our women are forced to work long hours daily for\nthe barest subsistence, with an almost total absence of the rational\npleasures of life, for the want of which thousands are driven into\nwholly uncongenial marriages in order to secure some amount of personal\nindependence or physical well-being?\n\nLet anyone consider, on the one hand, the lives of the wealthy as\nportrayed in the society newspapers of the day, with their endless\nround of pleasure and luxury, their almost inconceivable wastefulness\nand extravagance, indicated by the cost of female dress and the fact of\na thousand pounds or more being expended on the flowers for a single\nentertainment. On the other hand, let him contemplate the awful lives\nof millions of workers, so miserably paid and with such uncertainty\nof work that many thousands of the women and young girls are driven\non the streets as the only means of breaking the monotony of their\nunceasing labour and obtaining some taste of the enjoyments of life at\nwhatever cost; and then ask himself if the Legislature which cannot\nremedy _this_ state of things should venture to meddle with the great\nproblems of marriage and the sanctities of family life. Is it not a\nhideous mockery that the successive Governments which for forty years\nhave seen the people they profess to govern so driven to despair by\nthe vile conditions of their existence that in an ever larger and\nlarger proportion they seek death by suicide as their only means of\nescape\u2014that Governments which have done nothing to put an end to this\ncontinuous horror of starvation and suicide, should be thought capable\nof remedying some of its more terrible _results_, while leaving its\n_causes_ absolutely untouched?\n\nIt is my firm conviction, for reasons I shall give farther on,\nthat, when we have cleansed the Augean stable of our present social\norganisation, and have made such arrangements that _all_ shall\ncontribute their share either of physical or mental labour, and that\nevery one shall obtain the full and equal reward for their work, the\nfuture progress of the race will be rendered certain by the fuller\ndevelopment of its higher nature acted on by a special form of\nselection which will then come into play.\n\nWhen men and women are, for the first time in the course of\ncivilisation, alike free to follow their best impulses; when idleness\nand vicious or hurtful luxury on the one hand, oppressive labour and\nthe dread of starvation on the other, are alike unknown; when _all_\nreceive the best and broadest education that the state of civilisation\nand knowledge will admit; when the standard of public opinion is set by\nthe wisest and the best among us, and that standard is systematically\ninculcated on the young; then we shall find that a system of _truly\nnatural_ selection will come spontaneously into action which will\nsteadily tend to eliminate the lower, the less developed, or in any way\ndefective types of men, and will thus continuously raise the physical,\nmoral, and intellectual standard of the race. The exact mode in which\nthis selection will operate will now be briefly explained.\n\n\n_Free Selection in Marriage_\n\nIt will be generally admitted that although many women now remain\nunmarried from necessity rather than from choice, there are always\nconsiderable numbers who feel no strong impulse to marriage, and accept\nhusbands to secure subsistence and a home of their own rather than from\npersonal affection or strong sexual emotion. In a state of society in\nwhich all women were economically independent, were all fully occupied\nwith public duties and social or intellectual pleasures, and had\nnothing to gain by marriage as regards material well-being or social\nposition, it is highly probable that the numbers of the unmarried\nfrom choice would increase. It would probably come to be considered a\ndegradation for any woman to marry a man whom she could not love and\nesteem, and this reason would tend at least to delay marriage till a\nworthy and sympathetic partner was encountered.\n\nIn man, on the other hand, the passion of love is more general and\nusually stronger; and in such a society as here postulated there\nwould be no way of gratifying this passion but by marriage. Every\nwoman, therefore, would be likely to receive offers, and a powerful\nselective agency would rest with the female sex. Under the system of\neducation and public opinion here supposed, there can be little doubt\nhow this selection would be exercised. The idle or the utterly selfish\nwould be almost universally rejected; the chronically diseased or the\nweak in intellect would also usually remain unmarried, at least till\nan advanced period of life; while those who showed any tendency to\ninsanity or exhibited any congenital deformity would also be rejected\nby the younger women, because it would be considered an offence\nagainst society to be the means of perpetuating any such diseases or\nimperfections.\n\nWe must also take account of a special factor, hitherto almost\nunnoticed, which would tend to intensify the selection thus exercised.\nIt is a fact well known to statisticians that although females are\nin excess in almost all civilised populations, yet this is not due\nto a law of Nature; for with us, and I believe in all parts of the\nContinent, more males than females are born to an amount of about\n3\u00bd to 4 per cent. But between the ages of five and thirty-five there\nwere, in 1910, 4\u00b7225 deaths of males from accident or violence and only\n1\u00b7300 of females, showing an excess of male deaths of 2\u00b7925 in one\nyear; and for many years the numbers of this class of deaths have not\nvaried much, the excess of preventable deaths of males at those ages\nbeing very nearly 3,000 annually. This excess is no doubt due to boys\nand young men being more exposed, both in play and work, to various\nkinds of accidents than are women, and this brings about the constant\nexcess of females in what may be termed normal civilised populations.\n\nIn 1901 it was about a million; while fifty years earlier, when the\npopulation was about half, it was only 359,000, or considerably less\nthan half the present proportion. This is what we should expect from\nthe constant increase of accidents and of emigration, the effects of\nboth of which fall most upon males.\n\nIt appears, therefore, that the larger number of women in our\npopulation to-day is not a natural phenomenon, but is almost wholly\nthe result of our own man-made social environment. When the lives\nof _all_ our citizens are accounted of equal value to the community,\nirrespective of class or of wealth, a much smaller number will\nbe allowed to suffer from such preventable causes; while, as our\ncolonies fill up with a normal population, and the enormous areas of\nuncultivated or half-cultivated land at home are thrown open to our\nown people on the most favourable terms, the great tide of emigration\nwill be diminished and will then cease to affect the proportion of the\nsexes. The result of these various causes, now all tending to increase\nthe numbers of the female population, will, in a rational and just\nsystem of society, of which we may hope soon to see the commencement,\nact in a contrary direction, and will in a few generations bring the\nsexes first to an equality, and later on to a majority of males.\n\nThere are some, no doubt, who will object that even when women have\na free choice, owing to improved economic conditions, they will not\nchoose wisely so as to advance the race. But no one has the right to\nmake such a statement without adducing very strong evidence in support\nof it. We have for generations degraded women in every possible way;\nbut we now know that such degradation is not hereditary, and therefore\nnot permanent. The great philosopher and seer, Swedenborg, declared\nthat whereas men loved justice, wisdom and power for their own sakes,\nwomen loved them as seen in the characters of men. It is generally\nadmitted that there is truth in this observation; but there is surely\nstill more truth in the converse, that they do not admire those men\nwho are palpably unjust, stupid, or weak, and still less those who\nare distorted, diseased, or grossly vicious, though under present\nconditions they are often driven to marry them. It may be taken as\ncertain, therefore, that when women are economically and socially free\nto choose, numbers of the worst men among all classes who now readily\nobtain wives _will be almost universally rejected_.\n\nNow, this mode of improvement by elimination of the less desirable\nhas many advantages over that of securing early marriages of the more\nadmired; for what we most require is to improve the _average_ of our\npopulation by rejecting its lower types rather than by raising the\nadvanced types a little higher. Great and good men are always produced\nin sufficient numbers and have always been so produced in every phase\nof civilisation. We do not need more of these so much as we want a\ndiminution of the weaker and less advanced types. This weeding-out\nprocess has been the method of _natural selection_, by which the whole\nof the glorious vegetable and animal kingdoms have been developed and\nadvanced. The survival of the fittest is really the extinction of the\nunfit; and it is the one brilliant ray of hope for humanity that, just\nas we advance in the reform of our present cruel and disastrous social\nsystem, we shall set free a power of selection in marriage that will\nsteadily and certainly improve the character, as well as the strength\nand the beauty, of our race.\n\n\n_Social Reform and Over-population_\n\nOne of the most general and apparently the strongest of the objections\nto any thorough schemes of social reform, and especially to those that\nwill abolish want and the constant dread of starvation is that, in\nany society in which this is done early marriages will be much more\nnumerous; there will be no prudential checks to large families; and in\na few generations, as Malthus argued, populations will increase beyond\nthe means of subsistence. Then will commence a continual decrease of\nwell-being, culminating in universal poverty, worse than any that now\nexists, because it will be universal. The following quotation from an\neminent American writer shows that this fear has really been felt:\n\n    \"If it be true that reason must direct the course of human\n    evolution, and if it be also true that selection of the fittest\n    is the only method available for that purpose; then, if we\n    are to have any race-improvement at all, the dreadful law of\n    _destruction of the weak and helpless_ must, with Spartan\n    firmness, be carried out voluntarily and deliberately. Against\n    such a course all that is best in us revolts.\"[139:A]\n\n        [139:A] Professor Joseph Le Conte, in _The Monist_, Vol.\n        I., p. 334.\n\nA more recent writer, Dr. W. M. Flinders Petrie, the well-known\nEgyptian explorer, has put forward similar views in a tentative manner,\nbut clearly showing what he thinks our present state of society\nrequires. Of the compensation to workmen for accident he says:\n\n    \"The immediate effect upon character is to save the careless,\n    thoughtless, and incompetent from the results of their faults;\n    this at once reduces largely the weeding and educational\n    effects of the bad qualities.\"\n\nAnd of old-age pensions his concluding remark is:\n\n    \"Nature knows of no right to maintenance, but only the\n    necessity of getting rid of these who need it by mending or\n    ending them.\"\n\nAgain, as to the huge waste of infant life now going on, which he\nadmits is preventable and might be saved, he remarks:\n\n    \"We must agree that it would be of the lower, or lowest type\n    of careless, thriftless, dirty, and incapable families that\n    the increase would be obtained. Is it worth while to dilute\n    our increase of population by 10 per cent. more of the more\n    inferior kind?\"\n\nAnd he concludes thus:\n\n    \"This movement is doing away with one of the few remains of\n    natural weeding out of the unfit that our civilisation has left\n    us. And it will certainly cause more misery than happiness in\n    the course of a century.\"[140:A]\n\n        [140:A] _Janus in Modern Life._ By W. M. Flinders\n        Petrie, D.C.L., F.R.S.\n\nThe whole book is full of such statements as the above, for which\nneither facts nor arguments are given. It is assumed throughout\nthat the failures in our modern society are so through their own\nfault\u2014they are \"wastrels\"\u2014and deserve neither pity nor help. He knows\nnothing apparently of Dr. Barnardo's work in rescuing these \"wastrel\"\nchildren from the gutter and the workhouse, treating them well and\nkindly, training them in work, and sending many thousands to Canada. A\nrecord of their subsequent life was kept, and it was found that very\nfew failed to do well, while a very large majority became valuable\ncitizens in their new home. On the whole, they were in no way inferior\nto the average of emigrants who go at their own expense, and who are\nadmitted to be among the best of our workers.\n\nNone of the writers of the class here quoted seem to have made\nthemselves acquainted with the researches of Herbert Spencer, Sir F.\nGalton, and others, as to the natural laws which determine the rate of\nincrease of population when those laws are allowed to operate freely\nunder rational and moral social conditions. A short statement of these\nlaws will therefore be given.\n\nIn a remarkable essay, first published in 1852, H. Spencer, with his\nusual philosophical insight, examined the facts of reproduction and\npopulation throughout the whole of the animal kingdom, and showed\nthat the duration of the individual life and the increase of the race\nvaried inversely, those groups which have the simplest organisation\nand the shortest lives producing the greatest number of offspring;\nin other terms, individuation and reproduction are antagonistic.\nBut individuation depends almost entirely on the development and\nspecialisation of the nervous system, through which alone all advance\nin instinct, emotion, and intellect is rendered possible. The actual\nrate of increase in man has been determined by the necessities of the\nsavage state, in which, as in most species of mammals, it is usually\nwhat is just required to maintain a limited average population. But\nwith a true advance in civilisation the average duration of life\nincreases, and the possible increase of population under favourable\nconditions becomes very great, because fertility is greater than is\nneeded under the new conditions. At present, however, no general\nadvance in intellectuality has taken place; but that the facts do\naccord with the theory is indicated by the common observation that\nhighly intellectual parents do not have large families, while the most\nrapid increase occurs in those classes which are engaged in healthy\nmanual labour.\n\nBut a law founded on such a broad physiological basis of observation is\nsure to continue in action, and we may therefore feel certain that as\nthe intellectual level of the whole race is raised by general culture\nand physical health, the law of diminishing fertility will act, and\nwill tend in the remote future to bring about an exact balance between\nthe rate of increase and that of mortality.\n\nA more immediate and effective check to rapid increase of population\nwill, however, be brought about by the social reforms already\nsuggested. When poverty is abolished and neither economic nor social\nadvantages will be gained by early marriage, there can be no doubt it\nwill be generally deferred to a later age. Still more effective will\nbe the extension of the period of education or training for the whole\npopulation for several years longer than at present, together with the\ngrowth of public opinion against all marriages between persons who have\nnot yet begun the serious work of life. It would also be an essential\npart of education to inculcate the delay of marriage till every\nopportunity has been afforded both of the parties concerned of becoming\nthoroughly acquainted with each other before undertaking so serious a\nresponsibility as marriage usually involves.\n\nThe effect of even a few years' delay of marriage on population is\nvery considerable. Sir F. Galton has shown from the best statistics\navailable that if we compare women married at twenty with those at\ntwenty-nine, the comparative fertility is as 8 to 5. But this does not\nrepresent the whole effect on increase of population. When marriage is\ndelayed, the time between successive generations is correspondingly\nincreased; and yet another effect in the same direction is produced\nby the fact that the greater the average age of marriage the fewer\ngenerations are alive at the same time, and it is the combined effect\nof these three factors that determines the actual increase of the\npopulation due to this cause.\n\nSir F. Galton gives a remarkable table showing this combined result\nof these causes. He finds that if one hundred mothers and their\ndaughters in each successive generation marry at twenty, there will\nbe an increase of such mothers in each successive generation of 1\u00b715.\nIf, however, they marry at twenty-nine, each successive generation\nof mothers diminishes in the proportion of 0\u00b785. If this goes on for\n108 years, the hundred mothers who marry at twenty have increased to\n175, and in 216 years to 299; while those who marry at twenty-nine\nwill have decreased to 61 and 38 respectively. It is therefore shown\nthat under present social conditions the age of marriage necessary to\npreserve a stationary population will be somewhere between twenty and\ntwenty-nine. The above figures are, however, founded on special cases,\nand the actual facts are so complicated by the number of childless\nmarriages, the rate of infantile mortality and other causes, that they\nmust be taken only as establishing a _law_ of rather rapid decrease of\nfertility with each year's addition to the average age of marriage of\nthe mother.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI have now, I venture to hope, established two important principles\nin relation to human progress. In the first place, I have shown that\nmodern ideas as to the necessity of dealing _directly_ with some of\nour glaring social evils, such as race degeneration and the various\nforms of sexual immorality, are fundamentally wrong and are doomed\nto failure so long as their fundamental causes\u2014widespread poverty,\ndestitution, and starvation\u2014are not greatly diminished and ultimately\nabolished. I have proved that human nature is _not_ in itself such a\ncomplete failure as our modern eugenists seem to suppose, but that it\nis influenced by fundamental laws which under reasonably just and equal\n_economic conditions_ will automatically abolish all these evils.\n\nIn the second place, I have shown that the dread of over-population\nas the result of the abolition of poverty is wholly and utterly\nfallacious\u2014a mere bugbear created by ignorance of natural laws and of\npresumption in thinking that we can cure social evils while leaving the\nman-made causes which produce them unaltered. The three great natural\nlaws which all our would-be reformers ignore are:\u2014\n\n(1) That a very moderate advance in the average age of marriage\u2014which\nwould certainly result from a truly rational system of education\ncombined with economic equality\u2014necessarily diminishes the rate of\nincrease of the population.\n\n(2) That every approach to educational and economic equality by\neffecting a large saving of the lives of males who now die from\npreventable causes, combined with the fact that male births _exceed_\nthose of females, would so diminish the number of the latter that they\nwould soon become less instead of, as now, more than that of males:\nthat this would give them an _effective choice_ in marriage which they\ndo not now possess, together with the power of delay which for many\nreasons large numbers of them would exercise.\n\n(3) The law of diminishing fertility with increase of brain-work\nthrough education and training would further tend to the diminution of\nfertility.\n\nThese three natural causes all _tend_ in one direction\u2014the equality of\nbirths with deaths; while their action would be so readily modified by\npublic opinion as to obviate all danger of either increase or decrease\nbeyond what was necessary for the well-being of each community, nation,\nor race.\n\n\n_The Future Status of Woman_\n\nThe foregoing statement of the effect of established natural laws, if\nallowed free play under rational conditions of civilisation, clearly\nindicates that the position of woman in the not distant future will be\nfar higher and more important than any which has been claimed for or by\nher in the past.\n\nWhile she will be conceded full political and social rights on an\nequality with man, she will be placed in a position of responsibility\nand power which will render her his superior, since the future moral\nprogress of the race will so largely depend upon her free choice in\nmarriage. As time goes on, and she acquires more and more economic\nindependence, _that_ alone will give her an effective choice which she\nhas never had before. But this choice will be further strengthened by\nthe fact that, with ever-increasing approach to equality of opportunity\nfor every child born in our country, that terrible excess of male\ndeaths, in boyhood and early manhood especially, due to various\npreventable causes, will disappear, and change the present majority of\nwomen to a majority of men. This will lead to a greater rivalry for\nwives, and will give to women the power of rejecting all the lower\ntypes of character among their suitors.\n\nIt will be their special duty so to mould public opinion, through home\ntraining and social influence, as to render the women of the future\nthe regenerators of the entire human race. We hope and believe that\nthey will be fully equal to the high and responsible position which, in\naccordance with natural laws, they will be called upon to fulfil.\n\nThe certainty that this powerful selective agency will come into\nexistence just in proportion as we reform our existing social system\nby the abolition of poverty and the establishment of full equality\nof opportunity in education and economic position, demonstrates that\nNature\u2014or the Universal Mind\u2014has not failed or bungled our world\nso completely as to require the weak and ignorant efforts of the\neugenists to set it right, while leaving the great fundamental causes\nof all existing social evils absolutely untouched. Let them devote all\ntheir energies to purifying this whitened sepulchre of destitution and\nignorance, and the beneficent laws of human nature will themselves\nbring about the physical, intellectual, and moral advancement of our\nrace.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVII\n\nHOW TO INITIATE AN ERA OF MORAL PROGRESS\n\n\nIn Chapters VIII to XII of this volume I have given in briefest outline\na summary of the growth during the nineteenth century of the actual\nsocial environment in the midst of which we live.\n\nWe see a continuous advance of man's power to utilise the forces of\nNature, to an extent which surpasses everything he had been able to do\nduring all the preceding centuries of his recorded history.\n\nWe also see that the result of this vast economic revolution has been\nalmost wholly evil.\n\nWe see that this hundredfold increase of wealth, amply sufficient to\nprovide necessaries, comforts, and all beneficial refinements and\nluxuries for our whole population, has been distributed with such gross\ninjustice that the actual condition of those who produce all this\nwealth has become worse and worse, no efficient arrangements having\nbeen made that from the overflowing abundance produced _all_ should\nreceive the mere essentials of a healthy and happy existence.\n\nWe have seen huge cities grow up, every one of them with their\novercrowded, insanitary slums, where men, women, and children die\nprematurely as surely as though a body of secret poisoners were\nconstantly at work to destroy them.\n\nWe see thousands of girls compelled by starvation to work in such an\nempoisoned environment as to produce horribly painful and disfiguring\ndisease, which is often fatal in early youth, or in what ought to\nhave been, and what might have been, the period of maximum enjoyment\nof their womanhood. And to this very day no efficient steps have been\ntaken to abolish these conditions.\n\nWe see millions still struggling in vain for a sufficiency of the\nbare necessaries of life (which in their misery is all they ask),\noften culminating in actual starvation, or in suicide to which they\nare driven by the dread of starvation. Yet our Governments, selected\nfrom among the most educated, the most talented, the wealthiest of the\ncountry, with absolute power to make what laws and regulations they\nplease, and an overflowing fund of accumulated wealth to draw upon, do\nnothing, although more people die annually of want than are killed in a\ngreat war, and more children than could be slaughtered by many Herods.\n\nAnd while all this goes on in the depths, where\u2014\n\n    \"Pale anguish keeps the heavy gate,\n     And the Warder is Despair\"\u2014\n\na little higher up, among the middle-men distributors of the\nnecessaries and luxuries of life, bribery, adulteration, and various\nforms of petty dishonesty are rampant.\n\nAnd higher yet, among the great Capitalists, the merchant Princes, the\nCaptains of industry, we find hard taskmasters who drive down wages\nbelow the level of bare subsistence, and who support a more gigantic\nand widespread system of gambling than the world has ever seen.\n\nAnd, finally, our administration of what we call \"Justice\" (and of\nwhich we are so proud because our judges cannot be bribed) is utterly\n_unjust_, because it is based on a system of money fees at every\nstep; because it is so cumbrous and full of technicalities as to need\nthe employment of attorneys and counsel at great cost, and because\nall petty offences are punishable by fine _or_ imprisonment, which\nmakes poverty itself a crime while it allows those with money to go\npractically free.\n\n_Taking account of these various groups of undoubted facts, many of\nwhich are so gross, so terrible, that they cannot be overstated, it is\nnot too much to say that our whole system of society is rotten from\ntop to bottom, and the Social Environment as a whole, in relation to\nour possibilities and our claims, is the worst that the world has ever\nseen._\n\nSuch are the evil products of the social environment we have ourselves\ncreated in the course of a single century. We have seen it going from\nbad to worse, and have applied petty remedies here and there during\nthe whole period; but the evils have continued to increase. It has now\nbecome clear to the more intelligent of the workers that if we wish\nto improve it\u2014if we wish to prevent it from getting even worse than\nit is\u2014we must deal with the root-causes of the evil and, so far as\npossible, _reverse the conditions which are so demonstrably bad, such\nhideous failures_. And, fortunately, this is by no means so difficult\nas it may seem to be, because a large body of our thinkers and a\nconsiderable number of our workers see clearly what these root-causes\nare, and, less clearly, how to remedy them. They will, however,\ngive their energetic support to any Government that devotes itself\nto the task of remedying them. The following are my own views as to\nhow the problem must be attacked in order to solve it thoroughly and\npermanently.\n\n\n_The Root-cause and the Remedy_\n\nIf we review with care the long train of social evils which have grown\nup during the nineteenth century, we shall find that every one of them,\nhowever diverse in their nature and results, is due to the same general\ncause, which may be defined or stated in a variety of different ways:\n\n(1) They are due, broadly and generally, to our living under a system\nof universal _competition_ for the means of existence, the remedy for\nwhich is equally universal _co-operation_.\n\n(2) It may be also defined as a system of _economic antagonism_, as of\nenemies, the remedy being a system of _economic brotherhood_, as of a\ngreat family, or of friends.\n\n(3) Our system is also one of _monopoly_ by a few of all the means\nof existence: the land, without access to which no life is possible;\nand capital, or the results of stored-up labour, which is now in the\npossession of a limited number of capitalists and therefore is also a\nmonopoly. The remedy is freedom of access to land and capital for all.\n\n(4) Also, it may be defined as _social injustice_, inasmuch as the\n_few_ in each generation are allowed to inherit the stored-up wealth of\nall preceding generations, while the _many_ inherit nothing. The remedy\nis to adopt the principle of equality of opportunity for all, or of\nuniversal _inheritance by the State in trust for the whole Community_.\n\nThese four statements of the existing _causes_ of all our social evils\ncannot, I believe, be controverted, and the _remedies_ for them may be\ncondensed into one general proposition: that it is the first duty (in\nimportance) of a civilised Government to organise the labour of the\nwhole community for the equal good of all; but it is also their first\nduty (in time) to take immediate steps to abolish _death by starvation\nand by preventable disease_ due to insanitary dwellings and dangerous\nemployments, while carefully elaborating the _permanent_ remedy for\nwant in the midst of wealth.\n\nI myself have pointed out how these two ends may be best achieved,\nand hope to elaborate them. In the meantime, I call attention to Mr.\nStandish O'Grady's letter \"To the Leaders of Labour\" in _The New Age_\nof November 21st, 1912, in which, after referring to the very natural\ndread by the rich of any such radical reorganisation of Society, as\nleading to their own financial ruin (which it certainly need not do),\nhe makes the following suggestive statement, with which I hope all my\nreaders will agree:\n\n    \"But what they fail to perceive is, that, in a world like this,\n    made by infinite goodness and wisdom, Right is always the great\n    stand-by for men and for Nations, and for the rich as well as\n    for the poor; and that Wrong, sooner or later, ends in misery\n    and destruction.\"\n\nThat is sound moral teaching. We have been doing the Wrong for\nthe past century, and we have reaped, and are reaping, \"misery and\ndestruction.\" It is time that we changed our methods, which are all (as\nI think I have sufficiently pointed out) fundamentally Wrong, radically\nUnjust, wholly Immoral.\n\nWe have ourselves created an immoral or unmoral Social Environment. To\nundo its inevitable results we must reverse our course. We must see\nthat _all_ our economic legislation, _all_ our social reforms, are in\nthe very opposite direction to those hitherto adopted, and that they\ntend in the direction of one or other of the four fundamental remedies\nI have suggested. In this way only can we hope to change our existing\nimmoral environment into a moral one, and initiate a new era of Moral\nProgress.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn Chapters XIII to XVI I have shown that the well-established laws of\nEvolution as they really apply to mankind are all favourable to the\nadvance of true Civilisation and of Morality. Our existing competitive\nand antagonistic Social System alone neutralises their beneficent\noperation. That System must therefore be radically changed into one of\nbrotherly co-operation and co-ordination for the equal good of all. To\nsucceed we must make this principle our guide and our pole star in all\nSocial legislation.\n\n\n\n\nIndex\n\n\n  Acquired characters, definition of, 104\n    characters, on the heredity of, 103\n\n  Adaptation, 106\n\n  Adulteration, 55\n\n  Alcoholism, deaths from, 67\n    in women, 68\n    statistics of, 68\n\n  America, Central, architecture of, 34\n\n  Animals, natural selection among, 75\n\n  _Anthropological Review_, 99\n\n  Apes, anthropoid, affinity with man, 93\n\n  Aquatic forms of life, increase of, 85\n\n  Archimedes, 34\n\n  Australian aborigines, character of, 33\n    and Caucasians, 34\n\n\n  Barnardo, Dr., 141\n\n  Beaver, 95\n\n  Bimana, 94\n\n  Brah\u00e9, Tycho, 23\n\n  Brain as organ of the mind, 94\n\n  Bribery, 56\n\n  Browning's, Mrs., _Cry of the Children_, 42\n\n  Buddha, 8\n\n\n  Capitalism, 152\n\n  Caucasians and Australian aborigines, 34\n\n  Causes of economic evils, 154\n\n  Chambers's _Vestiges of Creation_, 81\n\n  Character, definition of, 4\n    difficulty of knowing good from bad, 5\n    mental faculties and, 5\n    morality based upon, 5\n    not cumulative, 37\n    of savage races, 32\n    permanence of, 8\n    public opinion and, 36\n    selective agency to improve, 36\n    subject to variation, 36\n    transmission of, 4, 7, 36\n    variability and, 82\n\n  Characters, acquired, definition of, 104\n    acquired, heredity of, 103\n    innate, 104, 110\n    heredity of, 110\n\n  Chemical trades, evils of, 50\n\n  Child labour, evils of, 41, 43\n\n  Church, the work of the, 118\n\n  Civil law system, 62\n\n  Civilisation during 18th century, 40\n    evolution and, 157\n    of ancient Egypt, 15, 35\n    of ancient India, 8\n    of ancient Mesopotamia, 15\n\n  Civilisations, ancient, 112\n\n  Classical writers, our indebtedness to, 115\n\n  Coal mines, accidents in, 43\n    child labour in, 43\n    female workers in, 43\n    insecurity in, 43\n    who the, belong to, 45\n\n  Commercial system, immorality of our, 55\n\n  Companies, Limited Liability, 56\n\n  Competition, 154\n\n  Conduct, character and, 5\n    environment and, 6\n\n  Confucius, 8\n\n  Cook, Captain, opinion of, on natives of Friendly Isles, 32\n\n  Co-operation, 154, 160\n\n  Criminal law system, 64\n\n  Crucifer\u00e6 family, increase of, 84\n\n  Curr, Mr., opinion of, on Australian aborigines, 33\n\n  Cutlery trade, evils of, 50\n\n\n  _Daily Citizen_ quoted, 51, 52\n\n  Darwin and heredity, 103\n    and natural selection, 87, 93, 125\n    and transference of selection to mind, 99\n    and variability, 82\n    on Tahitians, 32\n\n  Darwin's _Descent of Man_, 93, 125\n    _Origin of Species_, 82\n    theory of Pangenesis, 104\n\n  Darwinism and Lamarckism, 78, 81\n    and variability, 82\n    objections to, 85, 90\n    (_See also_ Evolution, Lamarckism, Natural selection, etc.)\n\n  Deadly trades, 50\n\n  Dell's, J. H., _Dawning Grey_ quoted, 117\n\n  _Descent of Man_, Darwin's, 93, 125\n\n  Divine influx into man, 92, 115, 119\n\n  Divorce, 74\n\n  Dutt, Mr. Romesh, quoted, 9\n\n  Dwellings, insanitary, 47\n\n\n  Economic advance, evils of, 150\n    antagonism, 155\n    brotherhood, 155\n    evils, causes of, 154\n    remedies for, 154\n\n  Education, effects of, not hereditary, 111, 114\n    extension of period of, 143\n    national system of, needed, 146\n    of the world, 111\n\n  Egypt, astronomy in ancient, 18\n    civilisation of ancient, 15, 35\n    intellect in ancient, 16\n\n  Eighteenth century, stationary epoch, 40, 122\n\n  Elephants, increase of, 85\n\n  Environment, laws of heredity and, 103\n    modified by man, 95\n    not always responsible for specialisation, 106\n    remedies, 154\n    social, and conduct, 6\n    social, character of, 153\n    social, during 19th century, 40\n    social, evils of, causes of, 154\n\n  Equality of opportunity, 155\n\n  Erman, Prof. Adolf, quoted, 26\n\n  Euclid, 34\n\n  Eugenics, methods of, 127\n    science of, established by Sir F. Galton, 127\n\n  Eugenists, 149\n\n  Evil, origin of, problem of, 118\n    possible solution of, 119\n\n  Evolution, a rational theory, 81\n    acceptance of, 81\n    and civilisation, 157\n    Lamarckism and, 81\n    Chambers and, 81\n    Darwin and, 81\n    exposition of, by Spencer, 81\n    natural selection and, 77\n    objections to, 81, 90\n    variability of species, 8, 82\n    (_See also_ Darwinism, Lamarckism, Natural selection, etc.)\n\n\n  Factory system, development of, 41\n    evils of, 41\n\n  Fertility, law of diminishing, 144, 147\n\n  Fines _v._ imprisonment, 65\n\n  Friendly Isles, natives of, character of, 32\n\n\n  Galton, Sir Francis, 37\n    eugenic theory of, 127\n    on laws of increase of population, 127\n\n  Galvanising trade, evils of, 51\n\n  Gambling, immorality of, 59\n    in trade, 58\n    inconsistent attitude to, 59\n    Stock Exchange, 59\n\n  Genius, not cumulative, 37\n    not necessarily hereditary, 37;\n      examples, 38\n\n  Gothic architecture, 34\n\n  Greece, 121\n    architecture of ancient, 34\n\n\n  Heredity and genius, 37\n    and \"recession to mediocrity,\" 38\n    beneficence of law of, 115\n    Darwin and, 103\n    importance of subject, 103\n    Lamarck and, 104\n    laws of, and environment, 103\n    misconceptions regarding, 103\n    of innate characters, 110\n\n  Herschel, Sir John, 82\n\n  Homer, 8\n\n  Hominid\u00e6, 94\n\n  Human nature, faculties of, 100\n\n\n  Imprisonment _v._ fines, 65\n\n  India, architecture of ancient, 34\n    intelligence and morality in ancient, 9, 11, 15\n    religious conceptions in ancient, 11\n\n  Individuation, 142\n\n  Infantile mortality, Prof. Petrie on, 140\n    statistics of, 47, 72\n\n  Injustice, social, 155\n\n  Innate characters, 104\n    heredity of, 110\n\n  Insanitary dwellings, 47\n\n  Intellect in ancient India, 9, 11, 15\n    permanence of, 15\n\n  Intellectual advance not general, 142\n\n\n  Jesus Christ, 116\n\n  Justice, administration of, 62\n    immorality of, 66, 152\n\n\n  Lamarck and evolution, 81\n    and heredity, 104\n\n  Lamarckism, 78, 89\n    and Darwinism, 78\n    insufficiency of, as a theory, 80\n\n  Land, access to, 155\n\n  Language, 28\n    diversity of, 120\n    lowest races possess, 31\n\n  Law, civil, system, 62\n    criminal, system, 64\n    partiality of the, 65\n\n  Layard, Sir H., 16\n\n  Le Conte, Prof., quoted, 139\n\n  Lead glaze trade, evils of, 50\n\n  Lead poisoning of workers, 51\n\n  Life-destroying trades, 47\n\n  Lyell's _Principles of Geology_ quoted, 78\n\n\n  Maha-Bharata, Indian epic, quoted, 8\n\n  Malthus, 139\n\n  Mammals, classification of, 94\n\n  Man, affinity of, with anthropoid apes, 93\n    and marriage, 133\n    dignity of, 91\n    Divine influx into, 92, 115, 119\n    external differences between, and apes, 93\n    modifies his environment, 95\n    moral sense in, 91\n    nature of, stationary, 102\n    position of, 91\n    predominance of mind in, 98\n    preparation of, for progress, 120\n    selection transferred to mind in, 99\n    three great races of, 100\n    triumph of, over Nature, 95, 150\n\n  Marriage, 143\n    freedom of, insisted upon, 128\n    man and, 133\n    women and, 133\n\n  Mental faculties in formation of character, 5\n\n  Mesopotamia, civilisation of ancient, 15\n\n  Mind, brain the organ of the, 94\n    predominance of, in man, 98\n    selection transferred to, in man, 99\n\n  Monier-Williams, Sir M., 11\n\n  Monopoly, 155\n\n  Moral degradation, indications of, 67\n    progress, definition of, 1\n    progress, initiating new era of, 150\n    progress through new form of selection, 125\n    sense in man, 91\n\n  Morality amongst the ancients, 8\n    based upon character, 5\n    based upon human nature, 4\n    evolution and, 157\n    in ancient India, 9\n    no definite advance in, 36\n    product of environment, 3\n    savages and, 31\n    standards of, varying, 2\n\n  Morals, definition of, 1\n\n\n  Natural selection, among animals, 75\n    and evolution, 77\n    and origin of species, 82\n    explanation of, 75, 87\n    modification of, by man, 96, 99\n    modified by mind, 93\n    new form of, 125\n    process of, 112\n    two modes of, 125\n\n  Nineteenth century, environment during, 40\n    movements during, 122\n    reaction against forced civilisation during, 41\n\n\n  O'Grady, Mr. S., quoted, 156\n\n  Oliver's, Sir T., _Diseases of Occupation_, 53\n\n  Organic nature, development of, 109\n    indivisibility of, 109\n\n  _Origin of Species_, Darwin's, essential features of, 82\n\n  Origin of species, natural selection essential factor in, 82\n\n  Overcrowding, statistics of, 48\n\n  Owen, Sir Richard, and man's affinity with apes, 94\n\n\n  _Pall Mall Gazette_, reply to, 76\n\n  Pangenesis, theory of, 104\n\n  Park, Mungo, 101\n\n  Petrie, Prof., quoted, 139\n\n  Plato, 8, 116\n\n  Poor Law, immorality of the, 65\n\n  Population, increase of, laws governing, 141\n    social reform and, 138\n\n  Poverty, 130, 143, 151\n\n  Polynesian races, character of, 33\n\n  Preventable deaths, responsibility for, 43\n\n  Primates, 94\n\n  Proctor, Mr. R. A., quoted, 18\n\n  Progress, moral, definition of, 1\n    moral, how to initiate era of, 150\n    moral, through new form of selection, 125\n\n  Prostitution, 73\n\n  Pyramid of Gizeh as observatory, 23\n    purpose of, 17\n    structure of, 19\n\n\n  Quadrumana, 94\n\n\n  Rawlinson, 16\n\n  Reade's, _Martyrdom of Man_, 113\n\n  \"Recession to mediocrity,\" heredity and, 38\n\n  Religious conceptions in ancient India, 11\n\n  Remedies for economic evils, 154\n\n  Reproduction, 142\n\n  Rich, dread of, to social reorganisation, 156\n\n  Rome, 121\n\n\n  Savage races, morality of, 31\n\n  Selection, artificial, 105, 127\n    free, in marriage, 133\n\n  Selection, natural, action of, transferred to mind in man, 99\n    amongst animals, 75\n    and origin of species, 82\n    explanation of, 75, 87\n    modification of, by man, 96, 99\n    modified by mind, 93\n    process of, 112\n    two modes of, 125\n\n  Selection, new form of, 125\n    sexual, 125\n\n  Selective agency to improve character, 36\n\n  Sherard's, Mr. R. H., _White Slaves of England_, 51 (_note_)\n\n  Slavery, 2, 115\n\n  Slums, 47, 151\n\n  Smyth, Piazzi, on Pyramids, 18\n\n  Snowden, Philip, 53\n\n  Social environment and conduct, 6\n    character of, 153\n    during 19th century, 40\n    evils of, causes and remedies of, 154\n    reorganisation, the rich and, 156\n    reform, 143;\n      and over-population, 138\n\n  Socrates, 8\n\n  Species, increase of, 82, 84\n    origin of, natural selection, and, 82\n    variability of, 82\n\n  Speech as proof of intelligence, 28\n    lowest races possess, 31\n    origin and development of, 29\n\n  Spencer, Herbert, 89, 99, 103\n    exposition of evolutionary argument by, 81\n    on laws of increase of population, 141\n\n  Stanley, Hiram M., quoted, 128\n\n  Struggle for existence, 85, 86\n\n  Suicide, statistics of, 70\n\n  Survival of the fittest, 85, 87, 139\n\n  \"Survival value,\" 39\n\n  Swedenborg, 137\n\n\n  Tahitians, character of, 32\n\n  Tinning trade, evils of, 51\n\n\n  Unhealthy trades, 50\n\n  Universe, development and purpose of, 119\n\n\n  Variability, character and, 36\n    basic law of nature, 96\n    explanation of, 82\n    of species, 82\n    purpose of, 90\n\n  Vedas, quoted, 11\n\n\n  War, 74\n\n  Wealth, increase of, 41, 150\n\n  Webb, Mr. Sidney, quoted, 65\n\n  Women and marriage, 133\n    excess in numbers of, 134, 147\n    future status of, 147\n    in trade, 151\n\n  Workmen's compensation, Prof. Petrie on, 139\n\n  Writing as proof of intelligence, 28\n    origin and development of, 29\n\n\n  Zoophytes, 95\n\n  Zymotic diseases 47\n\n\nPRINTED BY CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED, LA BELLE SAUVAGE, LONDON, E.C.\n\n10.613\n\n\n\n\nTRANSCRIBER'S NOTES\n\n\nThe following corrections have been made to the original text:\n\n    Page 26: Nile as a human being, with desires,[comma missing in\n    original]\n\n    Page 113: to luxury and civilisation[original has\n    \"civilisa/tion\" split across a line break without a hyphen]\n\n    Page 161: Le Conte[original has \"Coute\"], Prof., quoted, 139\n\n    [139:A] Professor Joseph Le Conte[original has \"Coute\"], in\n    _The Monist_\n\nIn the Index, entries repeated across page breaks and columns have been\nremoved.","title":"Social Environment and Moral Progress","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":30627}