courage the multiplication of the best stocks; and that the lower orders of society do at present tend to grow more rapidly than the middle and upper classes is pretty well established. But, on the other hand, it is to be borne in mind that there is a considerable process of absorption of the lower into the middle class constantly going on, and that there is an incalculable spontaneity in the appearance of genius or of extraordinary talent. They are no monopoly of any class or order of society. Whether, again, town life is really so injurious as it is commonly supposed to be, is still a matter of dispute. In any case, the extent of the injury will to a great degree depend upon the answer to the much-debated problem of the inheritance or non-inheritance of acquired characters. For if we are to conclude that such characters are not acquired, then it follows that the evil effects of town life upon individuals will not descend to their posterity. Nor is this all; for it has been contended with some show of reason that a race not merely of town-dwellers, but even of slum-dwellers, who would be immune to the effects of their surroundings, might in course of time be evolved; and that to place individuals to live in too favorable conditions would defeat its own ends by reducing to a minimum the elimination of the unfit. There is, indeed, much to be said for Weismann's view that civilization can never lead to the utter deterioration of mankind, because the moment it begins to be injurious to the individual in the struggle for existence, natural selection will step in and prevent further decay. At the beginning of this article I ventured to assert that the popular acceptance of Darwinism had tended to induce a prevalent feeling of pessimistic fatalism. This feeling, I went on to maintain, was largely due to inaccurate notions about the actual character of the struggle for existence and of natural selection in human society. Pessimistic views, it has been shown, have been based upon observations made with regard to the decline of the birth-rate, increased humanitarianism, the relatively larger growth of the lower classes, and the immigration of the rural population into the towns. That this pessimistic feeling is unwarranted and due to a failure to perceive all the factors, especially the ethical factor, in human evolution, I have endeavored very briefly to point out. My remarks refer, however, only to the struggle between individual persons, and I now pass on to that between the various States and nations. If the struggle for existence among individual persons differs in some important points from that which obtains in the animal creation, much more does it differ from the struggle among civilized States. A social organism, as we have seen, is a totally different thing from a physiological organism. And yet in common talk people speak of international conflict, as if it were a mere phase of the struggle for existence. It is again to the failure to perceive the difference between the two cases that the origin of a whole group of erroneous views must be ascribed. It is argued, for example, that war is necessary for the maintenance of a healthy competition, and in accordance with this view, preparedness for war is made almost the sole test of national efficiency. A certain feeling of apprehension, moreover, is provoked by a widely-spread but unwarrantable belief that a nation's life is like man's, and that it must go through the three periods of youth, middle age and senile decay. A full-grown nation must, it is imagined, sooner or later enter upon the last melancholy stage. All human power, writes Cardinal Newman, for example, has its termination sooner or later; States rise and fall; the very causes which lead to the greatness of civilized communities, at length by continuing become their ruin. The analogy, however, between national and human life is a false one; for bodies politic do not die of senility, but of violence or disease. Decay in their structure is no part of an inevitable order. Yet for want of this perception there has arisen a common idea that the British nation, because it is one of the oldest civilized States, must probably by this time be entering on the inevitable period of decadence; and people fancy that they see around them signs of the beginning of the end. Sir W. Gilbert writes in one of his comic operas of "The idiot, who praises with enthusiastic tone, Every century but this, and every country but his own." Croakers of this kind, indeed, are by no means unknown in England. Yet there is no real ground for thinking that the English nation need ever grow old, much less die. It may be endowed with the gift of perpetual youth. It is not infrequently said that international war is a necessary factor in human progress, and that, if it were abolished, nations would sink into slothfulness, luxury and decay. There, again, there seems to be little ground for this discouraging conclusion. Diminution in national power, whether absolute or relative, is not in itself a sign of decadence; nor is the struggle for existence among nations necessarily concluded in favor of the biggest and the strongest. It is admitted that war is the crudest form of international struggle, and that it has no real equivalence in that simple removal by death of the unfit and the survival and reproduction of the fit, which is the outcome of natural selection. Napoleon, it is said, permanently lowered the stature of the French nation by his decimating wars; and it is quite possible that an exaggerated militarism might lay burdens on society which would end by causing that very deterioration which it is the supposed result of war to prevent. Putting war aside, there is no form of struggle left except that of commercial competition. Yet, properly regarded, international trade is beneficial to all who participate in it, and the prosperity of each reacts to the prosperity of all. There is, therefore, clearly no analogy between the international struggle and the struggle in the animal creation. The question whether a nation is likely to endure or to decline seems to depend rather upon a different class of considerations altogether. Civilization involves a continuous change of environment, or the imposing of new conditions, which may have one of two results. Either it may modify a nation which is pliant enough, or it may destroy it if it be too unyielding. It is quite possible that a nation may grow incapable of keeping pace with the demands which civilization makes upon it. Whether this fate is likely to overtake any particular State must in the last resort depend upon its own nature and the character of its organism. It is here, doubtless, that there lies the explanation of the fact that some primitive races melt away before the breath of civilization. In a word, it is in a kind of innate incapacity to meet the more complex conditions of a changing environment that the cause of national decadence is probably to be found. No one, however, would be bold enough to assert that the British people are, in a greater degree than other nations, showing signs of inability to cope with the stress of civilization. Much of the prevalent pessimism about the future of mankind and of the British people has, I have endeavored to show, arisen from inaccurate and superficial views about the course of evolution in human society. Some of the conclusions arrived at are, to say the least of them, scarcely warranted by the facts. Pope's famous saying that "whatever is, is right,” though it has been roundly denounced, may in a sense be true. For, after all, there is good ground for thinking that The Fortnightly Review. there is a continuously increasing harmony between the tenantry of the earth and their environment. Individuals, even nations, may perish, but the end may be perfection. And so we may say with Browning: "God's in His Heaven, CHAPTER XIII. COLOR-BLIND. BY ALICE PERRIN. Fay Fleetwood, alone in the dining room of "Combe Down," sat by the fire that burned in a very modern grate designed to give the greatest heat with the least possible consumption of fuel. It was the Fleetwoods' second winter in Norbledon, and they had learned that it saved a great deal of coal not to have fires burning in all three sitting rooms from morning till night. Further than this it "saved the servants" that insecure foundation on which rested the family contentment, a foundation that so often gave way, that indeed proved itself a sort of sliding bog. When servants stayed they were usually incompetent; when they knew their work and did it they either had illnesses, or did not like something connected with the situation, and gave notice. They came and went, principally went, as Marion said; and at this moment Fay was studying a cookery book because the cook had departed that morning in a passion, for the reason that "there was too many fiddling things to do in this house." She mentioned various duties she had cheerfully agreed to undertake when engaged by Mrs. Fleetwood a month ago. Mrs. Fleetwood was in London this afternoon "cook-hunting." Meantime a person of the char persuasion was LIVING AGE VOL. LX. 3134 conversing diffusely in the kitchen, and discovering in every hole and corner iniquities that had been perpetrated by the deserter. Marion and Isabel were with friends at Prince's Skating Rink for the afternoon; but Mr. Fleetwood had fled at once to the Club when the kitchen disturbance arose, agreeing, for his own as well as for the household convenience, to spend the day there. "We shall be able to manage dinner all right if I can get Mrs. Hikkup," his wife told him, "but you had better have an extra good luncheon in case of accidents. And don't come home too late, dear," she added anxiously, "your cough seems so bad." She watched him with wistful eyes from the dining-room window as he set out for the station, and noticed, not for the first time, that his shoulders, always a little bent, had now a definite stoop, that his face was thinner, rather weary, though his smile was just as cheerful and his spirits did not seem to flag. But in her heart she knew that the rust of inaction and restraint was wearing into his soul, deadening his mind, telling on his bodily health. At the end of the road he turned and waved to her. Energetically she waved to him again, thankful that he could not see the tears filling her eyes. Later she sent Fay to commandeer Mrs. Hikkup. The name had long since ceased to amuse the family, for the owner's presence in the kitchen at Combe Down was a token of domestic upheaval. Fay offered, while her mother was absent, to confer with Mrs. Hikkup on the subject of dinner that night, and more or less to tell her how to cook it. "I can do anything I am told," Mrs. Hikkup would say with colossal confidence, though the statement was quite untrue. However, thank goodness, there she was,-an honest, goodnatured body, entirely without a sense of method, but able to roast and boil, if she could do nothing else. This afternoon Fay had been helping her to prepare a savoury, had also been tidying cupboards, and noting with despair how much was missing or broken. There seemed so few saucepans, and those that remained were minus their lids. Saucepan lids always disappeared at once, and what became of them was a mystery that quite interested Fay. She imagined there must be some obscure and remote region where saucepan lids retired to die, as in the case of elephants -a place that had never yet been discovered. Milk jugs, too, were scarce -everything in the way of crockery was badly chipped or cracked. A new dinner service was an absolute necessity. Fay sighed as she sat by the diningroom fire and turned over the pages of the cookery book, which, like books on gardening, omitted all details that would be most useful to one ignorant of the art. "Take a cupful of cream— a cupful of breadcrumbs-a cupful of this, that, and the other." What cup? A coffee, breakfast, or tea-cup?-and of what use in a small household were recipes that bade the cook "take" a pound of good puff paste, or a gill of good white sauce as part of some dish?-two things notoriously difficult to achieve. It was not as if you could buy good white sauce and puff paste as you would sugar and flour! She threw down the book, and leaned back in her chair. Outside it was foggy, bitterly cold, dark and raw. People stumped along the pavement as though their feet and boots were made of wood. The opposite houses were barely visible in the gloom, and yet it was only four o'clock! In India now there was brilliant sunshine, everybody was out of doors in the light and air and warmth. In India nobody had to think of sitting in the dining-room to save fires in the other rooms. There were no Mrs. Hikkups, or violent cooks, or unwilling parlormaids. Fay found she was forgetting all unpleasant episodes to rememeber only the joys of life in India; yet, if the situation were reversed, she felt sure the worries of existence in England would remain in her mind to the exclusion of all other recollectionsthere were no nice things to remember, speaking from her own experience! This last year had been a species of nightmare to Fay-the winter so cold, so cheerless, so unsettled. Her mother harassed by housekeeping difficulties that were so new to the poor lady. The ending of Isabel's engagement to Captain Mickleham, who had behaved abominably and married Miss van Bart. Marion snatching at every straw of gaiety that floated within her reach. Their father quiet, resigned, yet no martyr. Fay knew that he was too game to repine. . . . Then the spring, windy and wet and callous, when everybody seemed out of sorts and small ailments were rife-chills, indigestion, liver attacks. At least in India, thought Fay with savage impatience, people were either quite well or dead! The summer had been pleasanter, but even so it was what is called "no summer," constant rain, un seasonable temperature, the hay spoilt, the fruit crop ruined, the harvest a failure, grumbling everywhere. Autumn she enjoyed; they managed to let the house for a month by a lucky chance, and all went away with the Bullens to Cornwall, to a little place where clothes did not matter, and there was deep sea fishing, and a colony of friendly people, who attracted the contempt and derision of Marion and Isabel. Now here was the winter again, the horrible, dark, devastating winter, when misfortunes seemed to collect in clouds and illness was not to be resisted, and one could almost wish to be bedridden in order to secure warmth and peace. Fay rose and went to the window. The dining-room was in the front of the house, and she gazed with disgust at the little patch of garden with iron railings and sodden, empty flower beds, and a few dismal shrubs. How cold the people looked who hurried along the asphalt pavement! The fog was deepening, frost prevented it rising, black, cruel, invisible frost. . . . Shadowy figures passed and repassed, footsteps beat in monotonous repetition, sometimes there was silence for the space of a minute or more, and then stamp, stamp, again at the end of the road, growing louder till it passed the house, echoing away faintly into the fog. Fay found herself counting the paces that were passing now, rather long, leisurely paces that paused once or twice, then to her surprise stopped at the iron gate of Combe Down, a gate that made an excruciating noise when it was opened or shut. The familiar screech set Fay's teeth on edge as usual, and also gave her the disturbing intelligence that a visitor was imminent. The man's figure that passed through the gate was not that of her father; so much was obvious despite the gloom and mist. Two minutes later Captain Somer ton was announced-not, providentially, by Mrs. Hikkup, who had a habit of rushing to the front door whenever the bell sounded, but by the fairly presentable parlormaid just now "obliging" Mrs. Fleetwood. He came into the room, and stood uncertain for a moment. The flickering firelight was rather confusing, and the fog had crept inside, blurring all outlines. He made out a girl's figure standing before him, a slim, serious creature in a black gown, whose grey eyes contrasted curiously with her dark hair and thick black lashes. He hesitated. This was neither of the two Miss Fleetwoods he had known at Pahar Tal? Then, all at once, he realized that she must be the youngest one, grown upgrown up, too, into all she had promised to be when last he saw her with her hair down her back and a babyish white hat on her head, grown up graceful and interesting and undeniably attractive; still a little aloof, but the touch of defensiveness he remembered had developed into a pretty dignity. She held out a small, cool hand, supple and soft. "Oh, how nice to see you! We didn't know you were at home," she said; and added hungrily: "Have you come straight from India?" "Not quite. I had to come home unexpectedly. My brother died. Directly I arrived I went to my sister-inlaw, and I've been there ever since for the last month." She observed then that he wore very dark clothes and a black tie. "I am so sorry!" she murmured. "There was an awful lot to settle up and see to," he went on. "I'm up in London on business now, and I must go back to the country to-morrow till just before I sail again. I could only get three months' leave." She indicated one of the armchairs on either side of the fireplace. "Do sit down. You don't mind being in |