vival of the fittest," "natural selection," and the like, are on everybody's lips; they are constantly made use of in discussing the moral, political and social problems which so importunately obtrude themselves upon our notice. In considering such questions as those of individualism, socialism, population and national defence, for example, much is said about the theory of evolution and its applicability to human society. It is hardly questionable, indeed, that the general acceptance of Darwinism has induced a view of life, an outlook on affairs, a standpoint which are novel. There has arisen a sort of anti-humanitarian, even a fatalistic, way of regarding the destiny of man. Physical science, it is believed, has given its verdict in favor of violence and brute force; it is idle therefore, so it is argued, to endeavor to promote the finer feelings. Gentleness, humility, the sense of justice are, from this point of view, not so much virtues as symptoms of weakness and degeneracy. Natural selection, it is asserted, will go its passionless way, and, whether we wish it or not, the stronger will survive. Blessed are the strong, for they shall destroy the weak. That the race is only to the swift and the battle to the strong; that man's life and actions are ruled by inexorable laws which it is futile to endeavor to resist -this is the kind of mental attitude which the acceptance of Darwinism has caused very widely to prevail. The holding of such a creed cannot be without its influence upon conduct. Nor do the consequences end here. For the theory has penetrated into the region of high politics. It is, for instance, not too much to say that it has gone far to make popular a conception of the State which Bismarck, not altogether unsuccessfully, tried to realize. Man, it is now fashionable to hold, exists for the State, and not the State for the man. And so the individual withers and the State is more and more. In the competitive struggle between nations, safety, it is asserted, can be secured only by realizing this ideal. Now, it is precisely from this doctrine that the demand for extending the sphere of government interference and regulation is immediately derived; and from it, too, springs the conception of a nation as a self-contained unit-as "a moral, organized, masculine personality," to use the phrase of a German political philosopher. The reaction towards Protection and militarism, the growth of armaments, are among the fruits of this conception of the world as a place of international struggle where only the strongest nation can survive. The various rulers of the world, whatever views in the abstract they may hold, are in practice driven more and more to act upon the theory. The importance of the questions raised can hardly be over-estimated. How far, then, and in what ways, it may be pertinently asked, does the law of natural selection really operate in human society? Now, in the first place, in endeavoring to supply an answer, it cannot be too carefully borne in mind that in trying to extend and apply biological conceptions to the sphere of sociology great caution is required. There lurks considerable danger in a premature attempt to formulate a higher order of facts in the terms of a lower order of facts. Such a proceeding, if hereafter proved to be unwarrantable, can do nothing but impede the advance of scientific knowledge. It is important, therefore, to inquire whether the laws relating to the animal organism hold good also in the social organism; whether, in short, the biological conditions of man considered merely as an animal are also the conditions of groups of human beings acting together in society. That the laws and conditions are the same in both cases seems a plausible conclusion. The analogy between the physical organism and the social organism at first sight seems sufficiently close to warrant such a deduction, though the argument of analogy by itself can never amount to proof. But however that may be, it is unquestionable that it is tacitly assumed by many persons that such a thing as a social organism may exist, living its own life in exactly the same way as any individual animal; and it is in considering the question of the struggle and competition among races, nations, and States that this view is usually most distinctly pushed into the foreground. In the struggle and competition, again, between the individual members of a State the question may be asked: Does the same law of natural selection hold among men which holds apparently throughout the remainder of the organic world? There are many who talk and write as if they thought so, and, as used to be said of Lord Holland, of Holland House fame, look on their fellow-creatures more in the way of a naturalist than of a brother. In a word, there is a widely-prevailing notion that men, whether considered as individual units, or as bound together in society, are, in exactly the same way as all other living organisms, subject to the same evolutionary laws. It will therefore, perhaps, be useful to inquire what ground there is for this belief, and how far it is justified by facts. There are, to begin with, some important distinctions which in discussions of this kind are too often forgotten or allowed to drop out of sight. There is, for instance, the far-reaching difference between the animal organism and the social organism which was pointed out by Spencer: namely, that whereas the animal organism has one sentient centre, in the social organism there are many sentient centres-a difference from which he drew the individualist conclusion that "the units can no longer be regarded as existing for the benefit of the aggregate." Mr. Galton indicated the same thing when he observed that whereas the life of an animal is conscious and the elements upon which that life is based are unconscious, exactly the reverse is true of the corporate life of a body of men in society. And yet this important difference is constantly neglected. Much confusion, moreover, has arisen from the failure to perceive that the struggle for existence among human beings may take place in at least three different ways. There is the struggle between man and the external world, organic and inorganic; there is the struggle between individual persons, and the struggle between corporate societies, whether we call them races, nations or States. Yet these various forms of struggle are frequently confounded; nor is the precise character of the conflict in each case properly apprehended. Take, for instance, the case of the struggle between individual persons for the maintenance of life and for the propagation of the species. It is commonly assumed that such a struggle is of just the same character as that which obtains among the lower animal creation. How profound, however, the difference is between the two cases will become apparent from the following considerations. In the first place the struggle for existence among human beings does not, as a rule, arise from the pressure of population upon the means of subsistence. Malthus thought it did, but subsequent events have shown him to be wrong. It seems nearly certain that the habitable portion of the earth could maintain a very much larger population than it actually does; and there seems to be no reason why, with adequate channels of distribution, the supply of the means of subsistence should not be equal to the demands made upon it. This, broadly speaking, would remain true, even though in particular localities there should be a temporary scarcity. From this point of view the struggle for existence among men cannot be called severe.1 As a matter of fact, indeed, while the human population on the whole increases, the supply of food increases even more. Far otherwise is it in the animal world, if left to itself and unaffected by human interference. Most truly Nature is red in tooth and claw. "One pair in the new generation," says Sir E. Ray Lankester, "only one pair survive for every parental pair. Animal population does not increase. Locally, and from time to time owing to exceptional changes, a species may multiply here and decrease there." But, broadly speaking, an identical number is maintained. The second great distinction between the struggle in the animal world and that of man lies in this evident fact, that whereas human beings can to a very large extent modify their own environment, animals cannot. This difference at once raises man to an entirely different plane. Nay, more, it is not only in his power to change his own surroundings, but he can often modify those of the lower orders of creation at his will, and even mould their species by an artificial process of selection. The stock-breeder takes, so to speak, the work out of Nature's hands, and does it for his own purpose 1 It has been calculated that during the nineteenth century the European population of the world rose from 170,000,000 to 500,000,000; and that by the end of another century this number may rise further to from 1,500,000,000 to 2,000,000,000. During the nineteenth century the Anglo-American population rose from 20,000,000 to 150,000,000. (Kidd's "Principles of Western Civilization.") It was calculated by Mr. Greg that Europe could maintain as many as 500,000,000 persons easily without inconvenience, instead of the actual number of 270,000,000. (Greg's "Enigmas of Life"; Appendix. Edition 1891.) Sir E. Ray Lankester's "The Kingdom of an.' considerably better. Heine, in his jesting way, said that we ought to be very careful how we choose our own parents. What we cannot, however, do for ourselves, we can sometimes do for the lower animals. It needs only to have these distinctions pointed out to recognize their profound and far-reaching importance. But this is not all. It is certain that, whereas the greater number of human beings succumb sooner or later to some form of disease, the end in the animal world comes usually in other ways. Cold, hunger, the assaults of enemies, deal unceasingly their deadly blows. In wild nature the animal is usually cut off in infancy or in its prime, a few only lingering on to what is, relatively speaking. a period of old age. But it is an old age which, again, is different from that of man. For prolonged duration of life is of importance only relatively to the species, and the struggle for existence among the lower creation being intense, old age, so far from being of use to the species, may be positively harmful. The old members may become merely an incumbrance. But in the case of man, the survival of the old not only secures protection for the young over a protracted period, but provides for storing up the accumulations of experience. The mystical lore that comes in the evening of life is made available for use. It is upon the failure to perceive the distinctions which have just been pointed out that a vast structure of inaccurate and confused argumentation has been built up. There is the common idea, for example, that civilized nations-and the British nation in particular-are, so to speak, destroying themselves by interfering with the law of natural selection. It is asserted that, under present conditions, it is not the fittest who are able to survive, but, on the contrary, the least fit; the fact being apparently forgotten that what is meant by "fittest" is not the strongest, but that which is most in harmony with environment. And it may well be that the common conception of what is "fittest" may turn out to be wrong. Again, there is the widely-prevailing belief that in order to maintain the process of selection in a state in vigorous and salutary operation, it is necessary to keep up a high rate of increase of population; or, at any rate, that the decline of the birth-rate is an evil. Lower the rate of increase, it is argued, and you diminish the potentiality of selection. There are, however, good grounds for doubting whether such a result is likely to occur. There is the capital fact, for instance, that lessened fertility tends to accompany increased intellectual capacity. It appears to be well established that the maintenance of the individual life and the propagation of the race vary inversely, or, in other words, that the species with the shortest and most uncertain lives have the greater number of offspring; in a word, that individuation and reproduction are antagonistic. If this be so, it is only natural to anticipate that a diminishing birth-rate is likely to be a constant phenomenon among the more highly-civilized races. Moreover, in popular discussions upon human selection, the moral factor is not given its true value. It was not for nothing, as Darwin long ago pointed out, that mankind was endowed with comparatively small physical strength and means of self-defence. If our ancestors had possessed greater brute force and ferocity, the individual would have been able to defend himself much more easily without assistance, the social habits would have remained undeveloped, and the higher mental and moral qualities would not to the same extent have been acquired. So, in the end, the weak have been enabled to con found the strong. Man's safety, in short, depends upon the intensity of his social instincts; morality is but the developed form of tribal habit, and moral conduct is nothing less than social conduct, just as immoral conduct is directly anti-social. Society, indeed, might be described as morality embodied. Whereas, therefore, amongst inferior creatures the survival of the fittest is the outcome of aggressive competition, among mankind it is rather the outcome of non-aggressive competition. From this limited competition, indeed, the human notion of justice is derived." The struggle for existence, then, among men is not necessarily and solely related to numbers or to the means of subsistence. Whether the decline in the birth-rate-now so marked a feature in many civilized communities-is the evil that it is alleged to be, will of course depend very much upon its causes. But observation goes to show that, as a general rule, such a decline goes hand in hand with high wages and the spread of education. If it be an evil, it must at least be admitted that it is accompanied by mitigating circumstances. It is, moreover, to be anticipated that an improved social organization would be likely to put a still further check upon the growth of population. For, as a result of better social conditions, it is to be expected that the period of marriage will be postponed; that fewer women willas they often now do-marry rather from necessity than choice; and that there will be a diminishing mortality amongst men, thus rectifying the pres 3 It has been calculated that the total income of the people of the United Kingdom amounts to £1,700,000,000, and that of this sum nearly one-half is spent by the rich, who are estimated at about 5,000,000; or, in other words, that about one-eighth of the population spend about half of the produce of the labor of the whole population. If the state of society in this country was one of aggressive competition merely, it seems scarcely likely that seven-eighths of the population would continue to assent to this very unequal distribution. (See Urwick's "Luxury and Waste of Life.") ent disparity in numbers of the sexes. A declining birth-rate may, therefore, be the direct consequence of the fact that a civilized community is fundamentally a moral institution, that it is based upon altruistic motives, and that it increasingly depends for its success upon a high development of intellectual capacity. From considerations such as these, persons who are inclined to take a pessimistic outlook may, perhaps, though not without reluctance, derive some consolation. But, on the other band, they will point to facts and tendencies which they will regard as affording ample grounds for their dejection. They will maintain, for instance, that our humanitarian policy of keeping alive the feeble must tend to check the elimination of the unfit, and so lead to the gradual deterioration of the race. It would be far better, so it is argued, that the feeble should be allowed to perish and die. Reasoners of this type distrust all attempts to place a velvet glove upon the iron hand of Nature. But is there reasonable ground for this distrust? Burke has spoken somewhere of a wise and salutary neglect through which a generous Nature has been suffered to take her own way to perfection. But the neglect of the feeble, the sick and the dependent can scarcely have been that of which the great political philosopher was thinking. So far from increased humanitarianism being likely to cause a deterioration of the race, it may be fairly argued that the probability is quite the other way. The prevention of a high rate of infantile mortality, for instance, can hardly be said to be an unwarrantable interference with the order of Nature; many weaklings require only proper nourishment to be made strong; natural selection, if allowed to go its own way, may carry off the strong together with the feeble; even the physically incapable may be en dowed with some qualites useful to the race. In order to preserve the fit, it is not necessary to destroy the unfit. It is indeed, not too much to say that the community most sensitive to altruistic motives is likely in the long run to prevail. For social evolution is at bottom an ethical process; its end is the survival of those who are ethically the best; its aim not so much the survival of the fittest as the fitting of as many as possible to survive. It is scarcely to be doubted that increased humanity-denounced by some as sickly and sentimental humanitarianism-though it may to some extent be antagonistic to physical improvement, does tend to enlarge morality. And it is hardly less certain that the races which are the most advanced morally have the best chance of surviving in the stress of competition. There is not much reason, therefore, for thinking that the increase of humanitarian feeling need cause ground for pessimism. But, putting this question aside, there are not a few who take alarm at the alleged check on the reproductive fertility of the abler and better educated classes, and the relatively larger increase of the less able and less educated. Professor Ridgeway, for example, at a meeting of the British Association, strongly insisted on the doctrine that it was the duty of the statesman to act something like a stock-breeder, and he declared that this duty was entirely disregarded. This class of thinkers affirm, moreover, that the persistent immigration of the rural population into the towns is gradually bringing about much physical deterioration of the race: "Damnosa quid non imminuit dies? That the first danger is a real one can hardly be denied. It is certain that mankind may by its own acts dis |