,transcriber's ,notes3 ,variations in spelling and hyphenation remain as in the original4 ,a row of asterisks represents a thought break except in poetry where a row of asterisks indicates an ellipsis4 ,a complete list of corrections follows the text4 ,,social ,,environment ,,and ,,moral ,,progress ,illustration3 ,alfred ,r4 ,wallace ,photo3 ,reginald ,haines ,illustration3 ,alfred ,r4 ,wallace signature ,social ,environment and ,moral ,progress ,,by ,alfred ,russel ,wallace ,o4,m41 ,d4,c4,l4,oxon4 ,f4,r4,s41 c4 ,author of ,the ,malay ,archipelago1 ,darwinism1 ,man's ,place in the ,universe1 ,the ,world of ,life1 c4 c4 ,cassell and ,company1 ,ltd ,london1 ,new ,york1 ,toronto and ,melbourne #aiac ,first ,edition ,march #aiac4 ,reprinted ,april and ,june #aiac4 ,contents ,,part ,i4--,,historical ,,chapter ,,page #a4 ,,introductory #a #b4 ,,morality ,,as ,,based ,,upon ,,character #d #c4 ,,permanence ,,of ,,character #h #d4 ,,permanence ,,of ,,high ,,intellect #ae #e4 ,,speech ,,and ,,writing ,,as ,,proofs ,,of ,,intelligence #bh #f4 ,,savages ,,not ,,morally ,,inferior ,,to ,,civilised ,,races #ca #g4 ,a ,,selective ,,agency ,,needed ,,to ,,improve ,,character #cf #h4 ,,environment ,,during ,,the ,,nineteenth ,,century #dj #i4 ,,insanitary ,,dwellings ,,and ,,life-,,destroying ,,trades #dg #aj4 ,,adulteration1 ,,bribery1 ,,and ,,gambling #ee #aa4 ,,our ,,administration ,,of ,,justice ,,is ,,immoral #fb #ab4 ,,indications ,,of ,,increasing ,,moral ,,degradation #fg ,,part ,,ii4--,,theoretical #ac4 ,,natural ,,selection ,,among ,,animals #ge #ad4 ,,selection ,,as ,,modified ,,by ,,mind #ic #ae4 ,,the ,,laws ,,of ,,heredity ,,and ,,environment #ajc #af4 ,,moral ,,progress ,,through ,a ,,new ,,form ,,of ,,selection #abe #ag4 ,,how ,,to ,,initiate ,,an ,,era ,,of ,,moral ,,progress #aej ,,index #aei ,social ,environment and ,moral ,progress ,,part ,i4--,,historical ,,chapter ,i ,,introductory ,before entering on the question of the relation of morality to our existing social environment1 it will be advisable to inquire what we mean by moral progress1 and what evidence there is that any such progress has occurred in recent times1 or even within the period of well-established history4 ,by morals we mean right conduct1 not only in our immediate social relations1 but also in our dealings with our fellow citizens and with the whole human race4 ,it is based upon the possession of clear ideals as to what actions are right and what are wrong and the determination of our conduct by a constant reference to those ideals4 ,the belief was once prevalent1 and is still held by many persons1 that a knowledge of right and wrong is inherent or instinctive in everyone1 and that the immoral person may be justly punished for such wrongdoing as he commits4 ,but that this cannot be wholly1 if at all1 true is shown by the fact that in different societies and at different periods the standard of right and wrong changes considerably4 ,that which at one time and place is held to be right and proper is1 at another time or place1 considered to be not only wrong1 but one of the greatest of crimes4 ,the most striking example of this change of opinion is that as to slavery1 which was held to be quite justifiable by the most highly civilised people of antiquity1 and hardly less so by ourselves within the memory of persons still living4 ,the owners of sugar estates in ,jamaica cultivated by slaves were not stigmatised as immoral by their relatives in ,england or by the public at large2 and it was the horror excited by the slave-trade in ,africa1 and in the middle passage on the slave ships1 rather than by the slavery itself1 that so excited public opinion as to lead to the abolition first of the one and then of the other4 ,we are obliged to conclude1 therefore1 that what is commonly termed morality is not wholly due to any inherent perception of what is right or wrong conduct1 but that it is to some extent and often very largely a matter of convention1 varying at different times and places in accordance with the degree and kind of social development which has been attained often under different and even divergent conditions of existence4 ,the actual morality of a community is largely a product of the environment1 but it is local and temporary1 not permanently affecting the character4 ,to bring together the evidence in support of this view1 to distinguish between what is permanent and inherited and what is superficial and not inherited1 and to trace out some of the consequences as regards what we term morality is the purpose of the present volume4 ,,chapter ,,ii ,,morality ,,as ,,based ,,upon ,,character ,though much of what we term morality has no absolute sanction in human nature1 yet it is to some extent1 and perhaps very largely1 based upon it4 ,it will be well1 therefore1 to consider briefly the nature and probable origin of what we term character--in individuals1 in societies1 and especially in those more ancient and more fundamental divisions of mankind which we term races4 ,character may be defined as the aggregate of mental faculties and emotions which constitute personal or national individuality4 ,it is very strongly hereditary1 yet it is probably subject to more inherent variation than is the form and structure of the body4 ,the combinations of its constituent elements are so numerous as1 in common language1 to be termed infinite2 and this gives to each person a very distinct individuality1 as manifested in speech1 in emotional expression1 and in action4 ,the mental faculties which go to form the character of each man or woman are very numerous1 a large proportion of them being such as are required for the preservation of the individual and of the race1 while others are pre-eminently social or ethical4 ,these latter1 which impel us to truth1 to justice1 and to benevolence1 when in due proportion to all the other mental faculties1 go to form what we distinguish as a good or moral character1 and will in most cases result in actions which meet with the general approval of that section of society in which we live2 and this approval reacts upon the character so that it often appears to be better than it really is4 ,so great is the effect of this approval of our fellows that it sometimes leads to behaviour quite different from what it would be if this approval were absent4 ,this is especially the case when the approval leads to wealth or positions of dignity or advantage4 ,occasionally1 in cases of this kind the individual cannot resist his natural impulses1 and then acts so as to show his underlying real character4 ,we term such persons hypocrites for making us believe that they were inherently good1 instead of being so in appearance only when the good action was profitable to them4 ,hence in a highly complex state of civilisation it becomes exceedingly difficult correctly to appraise characters as moral or immoral1 good or bad2 while there is no such difficulty as regards the intellectual and emotional aspects of character1 which are less influenced by the general environment1 and which there is less temptation to conceal4 ,all the evidence we possess tends to show that although the actions of most individuals are to a considerable extent determined by their social environment1 that does not imply any alteration in their character4 ,everyone's experience of life1 and especially the example of his friends and associates1 leads him to repress his passions1 regulate his emotions1 and in general to use his judgment before acting1 so as to secure the esteem of his fellows and greater happiness for himself2 and these restraints1 becoming habitual1 may often give the appearance of an actual change of character till some great temptation or violent passion overcomes the usual restraint and exhibits the real nature1 which is usually dormant4 ,now it is this inherent and unchangeable character itself that tends to be transmitted to offspring1 and this being the case1 there can be no progressive improvement in character without some selective agency tending to such improvement4 ,by means of a general discussion of the nature and origin of ,character1 ,i have elsewhere shown that there is no proof of any real advance in it during the whole historical period4#g3;,a ,i show later on what the required selective agency is1 and how it will come into action automatically when1 and not until1 our social system is so reformed as to afford suitable conditions4 7,see ,chapter ,,xvi47 #g3;,a ,see ,character and ,life1 edited by ,p4 ,l4 ,parker1 pp4 #ai-ca4 7,williams and ,norgate2 ,november1 #aiab47 ,,chapter ,,iii ,,permanence ,,of ,,character ,i will now call attention to a few of the facts which lead to the conclusion as to the stationary condition of general character from the earliest periods of human history1 and presumably from the dawn of civilisation4 ,in the earliest records which have come down to us from the past we find ample indications that general ethical conceptions1 the accepted standard of morality1 and the conduct resulting from these1 were in no degree inferior to those which prevail to-day1 though in some respects they differed from ours4 ,as examples of great moral teachers in very early times we have ,socrates and ,plato1 about #djj ,b4,c42 ,confucius and ,buddha1 one or two centuries earlier2 ,homer1 earlier still2 the great ,indian ,epic1 the ,maha-,bharata1 about #aejj ,b4,c4 ,all these afford indications of intellectual and moral character quite equal to our own2 while their lower manifestations1 as shown by their wars and love of gambling1 were no worse than corresponding immoralities to-day4 ,in the beautiful translation by the late ,mr4 ,romesh ,dutt1 of such portions of the ,maha-,bharata as are best fitted to give ,english readers a proper conception of the whole work1 there is a striking episode entitled ,woman's ,love1 in which the heroine1 a princess1 by repeated petitions and reasonings persuades ,yama1 the god of death1 to give back her husband's spirit to the body4 ,it is described in the following verses3 ,and the sable ,king was vanquished1 and he turned on her again1 ,and his words fell on ,savitri like the cooling summer rain3 ',noble woman1 speak thy wishes1 name thy boon and purpose high1 ,what the pious mortal asketh gods in heaven may not deny6' ',thou hast1' so ,savitri answered1 'granted father's realm and might1 ,to his vain and sightless eyeballs hath restored the blessed light2 ,grant him that the line of monarchs may not all untimely end1 ,that his kingdom to ,satyavan and ,savitri's sons descend6' ',have thy wishes1' answered ,yama2 'thy good lord shall live again1 ,he shall live to be a father1 and your children1 too1 shall reign2 ,for a woman's troth endureth longer than the fleeting breath1 ,and a woman's love abideth higher than the doom of death4' ,and when at the end of the epic1 the kings and warriors welcome each other in the spirit world1 we find the following noble conception of the qualities and actions which give them a place there3 ,these and other mighty warriors1 in the earthly battle slain1 ,by their valour and their virtue walk the bright ethereal plain6 ,they have lost their mortal bodies1 crossed the radiant gate of heaven1 ,for to win celestial mansions unto mortals it is given6 ,let them strive by kindly action1 gentle speech1 endurance long1 ,brighter life and holier future unto sons of men belong6 ,mr4 ,dutt informs us that he has not only reproduced1 as nearly as possible1 the metre of the original1 but has aimed at giving us a literal translation4 ,no one can read his beautiful rendering without feeling that the people it describes were our intellectual and moral equals4 ,the wonderful collection of hymns known as the ,vedas is a vast system of religious teaching as pure and lofty as those of the finest portions of the ,hebrew scriptures4 ,a few examples from the translation by ,sir ,monier ,monier-,williams will show that its various writers were fully our equals in their conceptions of the universe1 and of the ,deity1 expressed in the finest poetic language4 ,the following is a portion of a hymn to ,the ,investing ,sky3 ,the mighty ,varuna1 who rules above1 looks down ,upon these worlds1 his kingdom1 as if close at hand4 ,when men imagine they do aught by stealth1 he knows it4 ,no one can stand or walk1 or softly glide along ,or hide in dark recess1 or lurk in secret cell ,but ,varuna detects him and his movements spies4 99 99 99 99 ,this boundless earth is his1 ,his the vast sky1 whose depth no mortal e'er can fathom4 ,both oceans find a place within his body1 yet ,in the small pool he lies contained2 whoe'er should flee ,far1 far beyond the sky would not escape the grasp ,of ,varuna1 the king4 ,his messengers descend ,countless from his abode--for ever traversing ,this world1 and scanning with a thousand eyes its inmates4 ,whate'er exists within this earth1 and all within the sky1 ,yea1 all that is beyond ,king ,varuna perceives4 ,may thy destroying snares cast sevenfold round the wicked1 ,entangle liars1 but the truthful spare1 ,o ,king4 ,the following passage from a ,hymn to ,death1 shows a perfect confidence in that persistence of the human personality after death1 which is still a matter of doubt and discussion to-day3 ,to ,yama1 mighty king1 he gifts and homage paid4 ,he was the first of men that died1 the first to brave ,death's rapid rushing stream1 the first to point the road ,to heaven1 and welcome others to that bright abode4 ,no power can rob us of the home thus won by thee4 ,o king1 we come2 the born must die1 must tread the path ,that thou hast trod--the path by which each race of men1 ,in long succession1 and our fathers too1 have passed4 ,soul of the dead6 depart2 fear not to take the road-- ,the ancient road--by which thy ancestors have gone2 ,ascend to meet the god--to meet thy happy fathers1 ,who dwell in bliss with him4 ,return unto thy home1 ,o soul6 ,thy sin and shame ,leave thou behind on earth2 assume a shining form-- ,thy ancient shape--refined and from all taint set free4 ,in this we find many of the essential teachings of the most advanced religious thinkers--the immediate entrance to a higher life1 the recognition of friends1 the persistence of the human form1 and the shining raiment1 typical of the loss of earthly taint4 ,but besides these special deities1 we find also the recognition of the one supreme ,god1 as in the following hymn3 ,what god shall we adore with sacrifice8 ,him let us praise1 the golden child that rose ,in the beginning1 who was born the ,lord-- ,the one sole lord of all that is--who made ,the earth1 and formed the sky1 who giveth life1 ,who giveth strength1 whose bidding gods revere1 ,whose hiding place is immortality1 ,whose shadow1 death2 who by his might is king ,of all the breathing1 sleeping1 waking world-- ,who governs men and beasts2 whose majesty ,these snowy hills1 this ocean with its rivers1 ,declare2 of whom these spreading regions form ,the arms by which the firmament is strong1 ,earth firmly planted1 and the highest heavens ,supported1 and the clouds that fill the air ,distributed and measured out2 to whom ,both earth and heaven1 established by his will1 ,look up with trembling mind2 in whom revealed ,the rising sun shines forth above the world4 ,if we make allowance for the very limited knowledge of ,nature at this early period1 we must admit that the mind which conceived and expressed in appropriate language1 such ideas as are everywhere apparent in these ,vedic hymns1 could not have been in any way inferior to those of the best of our religious teachers and poets--to our ,miltons and our ,tennysons4 ,,chapter ,,iv ,,permanence ,,of ,,high ,,intellect ,accompanying this fine literature and moral teaching in ,ancient ,india was a civilisation equal to that of early classical races1 in grand temples1 forts and palaces1 weapons and implements1 jewelry and exquisite fabrics4 ,their architecture was highly decorative and peculiar1 and has continued to quite recent times4 ,owing perhaps to the tropical or sub-tropical climate1 with marked wet and dry seasons1 the oldest buildings that have survived1 even as ruins1 are less ancient than those of ,greece or ,rome--but those corresponding in age to the period of our ,gothic cathedrals are immensely numerous1 and show an originality of design1 a wealth of ornament1 and a perfection of workmanship equal to those of any other buildings in the world4 ,two other great civilisations of which we have authentic records are those of ,egypt and ,mesopotamia1 both of which appear to have been much older than those of ,india or ,greece4 ,but whereas ,egypt has left us the most continuous series of tombs1 temples1 and palaces in the world1 abundant works of art in statues and sculptures1 together with characteristic reliefs and wall paintings1 showing the whole public and domestic life of the people1 ,mesopotamia is represented only by vast masses of ruins on the sites of the ancient cities of ,nineveh and ,babylon1 from which have been disinterred many fine statues and reliefs1 exhibiting a very distinct style of art4 ,for more than #b1jjj years the history and remains of this once greatest of civilisations was absolutely unknown1 except by a few doubtful facts and names in ,greek and ,hebrew writings4 ,but during the latter half of the nineteenth century a band of explorers and students1 such as ,layard and ,rawlinson1 made known1 first the works of art1 and1 latterly1 an enormous quantity of small bricks and stone slabs1 thickly covered with a peculiar kind of writing known as the cuneiform inscriptions1 which1 after an enormous amount of labour1 have at length been translated4 ,whole libraries of these brick-books have been discovered1 and as the reading and translating goes on1 we obtain a knowledge of the history1 laws1 customs1 and daily life of this ancient people almost equal to that we now possess of the ancient ,indians and ,egyptians4 ,for our present purpose1 however1 ,egyptian civilisation is the most important1 because it presents us with the most definite proof of the attainment of a high degree of what is specially scientific attainment at the very dawn of historical knowledge4 ,this is well exhibited by that most wonderful work of constructive art--the ,great ,pyramid of ,gizeh--which1 though not quite the earliest1 is the largest and most remarkable of about seventy pyramids in various parts of ,egypt1 and has been more thoroughly explored and studied1 both as to its proportions1 construction and uses1 than any of the others4 ,this pyramid is known historically to have been built by the order of ,king ,cheops 7or ,khufu71 and the date of its design and erection can be pretty accurately fixed as about #cgjj ,b4,c41 or nearly #b1jjj years earlier than that of the civilisation depicted in the ,indian and ,greek epics4 ,the internal structure of this pyramid is its most interesting feature1 because it shows clearly that it was designed to be not only the tomb of the king who built it1 but also a true astronomical observatory during his life4 ,this has been denied by some modern historians4 ,in ,harmsworth's ,history of the ,world 7p4 #bjcd7 it is said3 ,for the pyramids are nothing but tombs4 ,they have no astronomical meaning or intention whatever4 ,and then1 after referring to the ideas of ,piazzi ,smyth and others as vain imaginings1 it is added3 ,there is nothing marvellous about these great tombs1 except their size and the accuracy of their building4 ,an almost exactly similar statement is made in the great ,historian's ,history of the ,world1 and in ,chambers's ,encyclopdia4 ,if the writers of these histories had read ,mr4 ,r4 ,a4 ,proctor's book1 ,the ,great ,pyramid3 ,observatory1 ,tomb and ,temple1 they would have known that this statement is entirely erroneous4 ,the size1 shape1 and angles of the internal passages have been described and measured by many competent students1 among the most careful and exact of whom was ,piazzi ,smyth1 then ,astronomer ,royal of ,scotland4 ,it is true he had many vain imaginings1 but his measurements were among the most trustworthy4 ,the pyramid religion1 which he helped to establish by a series of coincidences in the dimensions of various parts of the pyramid with astronomical dimensions1 of which the pyramid builders could have had no knowledge whatever 7such as the distance of the sun1 the precession of the equinoxes1 etc471 was no doubt a vain imagining1 but he frankly claimed it as a divine inspiration4 ,all these are rejected by ,mr4 ,proctor1 who clearly explains the purpose of the greater part of the internal structure as only an experienced practical astronomer could do4 ,i will now state as briefly as possible what are the well-established facts1 as well as the conclusions at which ,mr4 ,proctor arrives4 ,the ,great ,pyramid and the two smaller ones near it1 forming the pyramids of ,gizeh1 are placed on a small rocky plateau near the apex of the delta of the ,nile4 ,the largest of these is situated so that its northern face rises from the very edge of this plateau4 ,the reason of this seems to have been that the builders wished to place it as nearly as possible on the #cjth parallel of latitude4 ,it is really about a mile and a third south of that parallel1 and it is shown that such an error is a small one for that early period1 and would matter but very little for the purpose required4 ,the next feature is that it is truly oriented2 that is1 the four sides run north and south1 east and west4 ,it is also a true square1 the four sides being of equal length1 and the four corners are on a truly level plane4 ,the first thing the builders had to do was to get a true meridian line1 and they could have done this in two ways--by observations of the sun or of the pole star1 the latter being much the more accurate1 though more laborious and costly4 ,at the time the pyramid was built the pole star was ,alpha ,draconis1 which was farther from the pole than our pole star and revolved around the true pole in a circle of #g #bd in diameter4 ,in order to observe the direction of this star at its lowest point1 the builders excavated in the solid rock a tunnel about #d feet in diameter1 so as to keep this star visible each day at the lowest point of its circuit4 ,this tunnel extended #cej feet through the rock to a point nearly under the centre of the pyramid1 where1 by a small vertical boring1 a plumb-line could have been dropped so as to obtain the exact line of the meridian on the surface1 and afterwards on each successive step of the pyramid as it was built up4 ,while the building went on the sloping tunnel was continued backwards to its northern face2 and a tunnel ascending to the south was formed of the same size and making the same angle with the horizon4 ,this had puzzled all previous explorers of the pyramid till ,mr4 ,proctor showed that1 by stopping up the downward passage at the angle and filling the hollow with water the pole star could be observed by reflexion and thus give the exact direction of the meridian on the upper surface of the pyramid with extreme accuracy1 as it was built up slowly year by year4 ,but at a distance of #abg feet a new feature appears4 ,the ascending tunnel is changed into what is called the ,great ,gallery1 which1 while continuing exactly the same floor line as the tunnel1 is suddenly raised to a height of #bh feet1 with a width of #g feet on the floor and #c feet at the top4 ,along each side there is a ledge or seat1 #bj inches broad and #ba inches high4 ,the sides do not slope inwards1 but are formed of seven courses of stone1 each one overlapping the one below by about #c inches4 ,the whole of this gallery1 or inclined corridor1 is formed of limestone beautifully smooth1 or even polished4 ,the length of this gallery is #aef feet1 and its floor terminated at the platform of the pyramid1 upon the central line from east to west1 when it had reached two-thirds of its total height4 ,this is on the level of the ,king's ,chamber2 and it was probably only after the king was dead and his body embalmed and placed in his sarcophagus that the pyramid was completed1 the openings of the passages carefully closed up1 and the whole exterior covered with a smooth casing of stone1 very small portions of which now remain4 ,there are two other features of this gallery which have puzzled the merely antiquarian explorers4 ,these are square holes cut in the sloping benches close to the side walls1 and about #e feet apart1 there being eighteen on each side exactly opposite each other4 ,on each side of the gallery1 about half-way up1 is a longitudinal groove1 which would serve to carry transverse screens which could be slid up or down1 and easily wedged in position in order to mark exactly the central line1 like the cross hairs in an astronomical telescope4 ,the holes on the benches would serve to carry cross seats on which the observer could be firmly and comfortably seated while observing a transit of sun1 star1 or planet4 ,being open to the south1 the ,great ,gallery would give a magnificent view of the southern sky1 and enable observers to determine the altitudes and azimuths of many stars1 and of the superior planets ,mars1 ,jupiter and ,saturn4 ,the star ,alpha ,centauri1 which was at that period of the first magnitude though now much diminished in brightness1 would1 when crossing the meridian1 have been situated about the centre of the field of view as seen from this remarkable feature of the pyramid which1 ,mr4 ,proctor considers1 was the finest transit-instrument ever constructed for naked-eye observations4 ,tycho ,brah1 with his celebrated ,quadrant at ,uranienburg1 did not attain such a degree of accuracy as did these ,eastern astronomers nearly #f1jjj years ago4 ,one great superiority of the subterranean observatory over any open-air observations that can be made without telescopes is1 that by closing up the end1 except for the small aperture required to see the object1 the brighter stars could be well observed in the daytime4 ,when we remember that the ,great ,pyramid covers #ac acres of ground1 that it is truly square and on a truly horizontal base1 that each side is accurately directed to a point of the compass1 that the angle of its slope is such that the area of each of the four triangular faces is equal to that of a square whose sides are equal to the height of the pyramid2 and1 further1 that the slope of the long descending tunnel is precisely such as to point accurately to the pole star of the epoch at the lowest part of its circuit round the true pole2 and1 lastly1 that all this could only be done1 as accurately as it has been done1 by the system of subterranean tunnels and galleries that actually exists1 while almost all the details of their construction are shown to be adapted for astronomical observations of the nature required1 the conclusion becomes irresistible that they were designed and used for such observations1 and that by no other means could the same amount of accuracy have been attained4 ,i have given a rather full account of what the ,pyramid builders really did1 because it forms a very important part of the argument ,i am developing as to the stationary condition of the human intellect during the historical period4 ,the great majority of educated persons hold the opinion that our wonderful discoveries and inventions in every department of art and science prove that we are really more intellectual and wiser than the men of past ages--that our mental faculties have increased in power4 ,but this idea is totally unfounded4 ,we are the inheritors of the accumulated knowledge of all the ages2 and it is quite possible and even probable1 that the earliest steps taken in the accumulation of this vast mental treasury required even more thought and a higher intellectual power than any of those taken in our own era4 ,we can perhaps best understand this by supposing any one of our great men of science to have been born and educated in one of the earliest of the civilisations4 ,if ,newton had been born in ,egypt in the era of the ,pyramid builders1 when there were no such sciences as mathematics1 perhaps even no decimal notation which makes arithmetic so easy to us1 he could probably have done nothing more than they have actually done4 ,in building up the sciences each of the early steps was the work of a genius4 ,but now that there has been nearly a hundred centuries of discovery and specialisation by thousands or even millions of workers1 that by means of writing and of the printing press every discovery is quickly made known1 and that ever larger and larger numbers devote their lives to study1 the rate of progress becomes quicker and quicker1 till the total result is amazingly great4 ,but that does not prove any superiority of the later over the earlier discoveries4 ,there is1 therefore1 no proof of continuously increasing intellectual power4 ,but we have now evidence of another kind1 which adds to the force of this argument4 ,quite recently1 papyri have been discovered which give us information as to the ideas1 the beliefs1 and the aspirations of a period even earlier than that of the ,great ,pyramid4 ,the result of the study of these and other records of early ,egypt is thus stated by ,professor ,adolf ,erman in ,the ,historian's ,history of the ,world3 ,but when one considers the ancient resident of the valley of the ,nile as a human being1 with desires1 emotions1 and aspirations almost precisely like our own2 a man struggling to solve the same problems of practical ,socialism that we are struggling for to-day--then1 and then only1 can the lessons of ancient ,egyptian history be brought home to us in their true meaning1 and with their true significance4 ,and clearest of all will that significance be1 perhaps1 if we constantly bear in mind the possibility that the whole sweep of ,egyptian history1 during the three or four thousand years that separated the ,pyramid builders from the contemporaries of ,alexander1 was a time of national decay--a dark age1 if you will--in ,egyptian history4 ,that a great historian1 from a study of the ideas and social aspirations of the earliest known civilisations1 should have arrived at similar views as to the identity of their mental capacity with our own as ,i have deduced from their scientific attainments1 must be held to be a very strong argument in support of the accuracy of our independent conclusions4 ,,chapter ,v ,,speech ,,and ,,writing ,,as ,,proofs ,,of ,,intelligence ,there is yet another proof that the faculties of mankind at a very early epoch were fully equal to those of our own time4 ,there is perhaps nothing more difficult in its nature1 more utterly beyond the mere lower animal1 than the faculty of articulate speech possessed by every race of mankind4 ,we cannot but believe that its acquisition was an extremely slow process1 and that it is rendered possible by special cerebral developments giving the necessary mental power for its acquirement4 ,how long a process this would be1 it is impossible to say1 but it would certainly have had to reach a high degree of perfection before the equally difficult process of inventing a mode of writing could have been brought to such perfection as to facilitate the further development of the higher faculties through poetry on the one hand and the preservation of facts and discoveries1 as well as trains of reasoning1 on the other4 ,now1 ,i wish to call attention to the very important fact that the origin and development of speech1 and later1 of writing1 were apparently almost simultaneous1 and certainly quite independent of each other1 in countries not very distant apart4 ,this is shown by the radical diversity of the different groups of languages in ,europe1 ,eastern ,asia and ,north ,africa1 and the equal diversity of ,egyptian1 ,assyrian1 and ,chinese writing4 ,all other written characters are believed to be derived from one or other of these1 and it is known that the forms and peculiarities of alphabetic characters have been greatly modified by the various materials employed1 such as wood and stone slabs1 clay1 or wax2 papyrus1 paper or parchment2 and whether engraved1 impressed or painted1 whether written with a reed or quill pen1 or with a small brush4 ,but if intellectual man as a species of mammal had developed by the preservation of variations of survival-value1 we should expect to find such an important faculty as speech to have originated in one centre and to have spread rapidly over the world with only slight modifications in isolated communities4 ,the fundamental diversities we find seem to accord better with the conception that when1 as a mere animal1 his material organism had reached the required degree of perfection1 there occurred the spiritual influx which alone enabled him to begin that course of intellectual and moral development1 and that marvellous power over the forces of ,nature1 in which speech and writing1 followed by printing1 have been such important factors4 ,in order for man to develop speech he must have possessed a brain and an intellect far above that of the brutes4 ,as in the more fundamental problem of the origin of life1 it is admitted that organisation is a product of life--not life of organisation--so we must believe that speech was a product of a brain and an intellect sufficient for their development4 ,but such brain and intellect were not necessary for the lower animals1 which have reached their highest lines of development in the dog1 horse1 elephant1 and ape without making any definite approach to the acquirement of such higher faculties4 ,,chapter ,,vi ,,savages ,,not ,,morally ,,inferior ,,to ,,civilised ,,races ,if the facts and arguments set forth in the preceding chapters are correct we should not expect to find any living examples of the unspiritualised man1 since the assumption is that the whole race received the influx which started them on their course of purely human development within a strictly limited period1 perhaps of a very few generations or even one generation4 ,the ancestral form--the supposed missing link--would then have become extinct4 ,if this were not so we should expect to find some isolated groups of speechless man1 and of this there is no example2 but1 on the contrary1 the very lowest of existing races are found to possess languages which are often of extreme complexity in grammatical structure and in no way suggestive of the primitive man-animal of which they are supposed to be surviving relics4 ,so long as we got our knowledge respecting them from the low-class ,europeans who captured them for slaves or shot them down as wild beasts1 we could not possibly acquire any real knowledge of them as human beings4 ,but now that we have more trustworthy accounts of them by intelligent travellers or missionaries1 we find ample evidence that when by kindness and sympathy we penetrate to their inner nature1 we discover that they possess human qualities of the same kind as our own4 ,a few examples of what unprejudiced witnesses say of them will be very instructive4 ,darwin1 after attending a meeting between ,captain ,fitzroy and the chief of a small island near ,tahiti to settle a question of compensation for injury to an ,english ship1 says3 ,i cannot sufficiently express our surprise at the extreme good sense1 the reasoning powers1 moderation1 candour1 and prompt resolution which were displayed on all sides4 ,captain ,cook himself1 who saw them in their primitive condition1 speaks of the natives of the ,friendly ,isles as being liberal1 brave1 open and candid1 without either suspicion or treachery1 cruelty1 or revenge2 and a century later ,admiral ,erskine remarks that they carry their habits of cleanliness and decency to a higher point than the most civilised nations2 while all the ,polynesian races are kind and attentive to the sick and aged1 and unlimited hospitality is everywhere practised by them4 ,even the ,australian aborigines1 who are often said to be one of the lowest of human races1 are found to possess many good qualities by those who know them best4 ,mr4 ,curr1 who was for forty years protector of the aborigines in ,victoria1 says3 ,socially1 the black is polite1 gay1 fond of laughter1 and has much bonhomie in his composition4 4 4 4 ,the natives are very strict in obeying their laws and customs1 even under great temptation4 ,the horror of marrying a woman within the prohibited degrees of relationship1 the extreme grief they manifest at the death of children or relatives1 and sometimes even for white men1 as illustrated by the native boy who was the sole companion of the unfortunate ,kennedy when he was murdered1 are sufficient to indicate that they possess affections and a sense of right and wrong not very different from our own4 ,the fact that the physical characteristics of the ,australians are substantially those of the ,caucasian race in its lowest types has led me to conclude that these interesting people may have been descended from much more civilised remote ancestors1 and are thus an example of degradation rather than of survival4#cd3;,a #cd3;,a ,see my ,australia and ,new ,zealand1 ,chap4 ,v41 ,the ,australian ,aborigines1 where this view was first set forth4 7,stanford1 #ahic47 ,for cases of morality among savages see my ,natural ,selection and ,tropical ,nature1 pp4 #aii-bja4 ,many other illustrations of both intelligence and morality are met with among savage races in all parts of the world2 and these1 taken as a whole1 show a substantial identity of human character1 both moral and emotional1 with no marked superiority in any race or country4 ,in intellect1 where the greatest advance is supposed to have occurred1 this may be wholly due to the cumulative effect of successive acquisitions of knowledge handed down from age to age4 ,euclid and ,archimedes were probably the equals of any of our greatest mathematicians of to-day1 while the architecture of ,greece1 of ,india1 and of ,central ,america is little inferior to medival ,gothic4 ,but none of these1 though so different in style1 can be said to prove any real advance in intellectual power from that of the builders of the much more ancient temples and pyramids of ,egypt4 ,this latter country1 too1 in its high material civilisation and its remarkable religious system1 shows itself the equal of any that has succeeded it4 ,,chapter ,,vii ,a ,,selective ,,agency ,,needed ,,to ,,improve ,,character ,the general result of the facts and arguments now set forth in the merest outline leads us to conclude that there has been no definite advance of morality from age to age1 and that even the lowest races1 at each period1 possessed the same intellectual and moral nature as the higher4 ,the manifestations of this essentially human nature in habits and conduct were often very diverse1 in accordance with diversities of the social and moral environment4 ,this is quite in accordance with the now well-established doctrine that the essential character of man1 intellectual1 emotional1 and moral1 is inherent in him from birth2 that it is subject to great variation from individual to individual2 and that its manifestations in conduct can be modified in a very high degree by the influence of public opinion and systematic teaching4 ,these latter changes1 however1 are not hereditary1 and it follows that no definite advance in morals can occur in any race unless there is some selective or segregative agency at work4 ,as there is a great amount of misconception on this subject some explanation may be advisable4 ,many well-educated and intelligent persons seem to think that whatever characters or faculties are hereditary are also necessarily cumulative4 ,they hear that mental as well as physical characteristics are hereditary2 their own observation tells them that there are musical families as well as tall families4 ,they hear that the late ,sir ,francis ,galton wrote a book on ,hereditary ,genius1 and perhaps they have read it2 but they do not observe that neither he nor anyone else has proved that genius of any kind is cumulative1 that is that a man or woman of genius will have1 on the average1 some one or more children with a greater amount of that special power or faculty than their own4 ,the very contrary of this is really the case4 ,the more a person's talent or mental power is above the average the less chance there is that any of his or her children will have still more of that power than he has4 ,a really great poet1 or painter1 or musician1 appears suddenly in a family of mediocre ability or of no ability at all in that special direction4 ,a few examples may be instructive4 ,sir ,william ,herschell was the son of a ,german musician1 and was himself a musician by profession2 but he became an astronomical genius1 one of the greatest of his age4 ,his son1 ,sir ,john ,herschell1 was a very clever man1 with advantages of education and position4 ,he followed his father as an astronomer1 and was a great mathematician1 but is never considered to be equal to his father4 ,darwin's most eminent son was a mathematician1 not a naturalist4 ,the reason of this is that heredity follows the law of recession to mediocrity4 ,this is1 that all groups of living things vary around an average or mean as regards each of their characters2 and those near the average are always numerous1 while as we approach the extremes in either direction the numbers become less and less4 ,families follow the same law4 ,if you take a family for three or four generations1 including perhaps some hundreds of persons1 some will be short1 some tall2 but the majority will be near the mean1 and the tallest of all will be less likely to have taller descendants than themselves than those nearer the average4 ,but the children of the tallest1 though generally shorter than their parents1 will still tend to be above the average height4 ,when a character is so useful to its possessor in the struggle for existence as to be of what is termed survival value1 then those that vary most above the average will be preserved or selected generation after generation as long as the increase is useful4 ,it is because the higher intellectual or moral powers are so rarely of life-preserving value1 and are not unfrequently the reverse1 that they are not cumulative1 though they are hereditary4 99 99 99 99 99 ,with this explanation we will now proceed to examine somewhat closely our moral position as a nation2 what is the nature of our social environment2 how it came to be what it is1 and what lessons we may learn from it4 ,,chapter ,,viii ,,environment ,,during ,,the ,,nineteenth ,,century ,during the eighteenth century our material civilisation1 which had long been almost stationary1 began to advance with the growth of the physical sciences1 but at first with extreme slowness4 ,the earliest steps were made by the application of machinery to some of the domestic arts4 ,some refinements were made in the manners and customs of our daily life2 but there were few1 if any1 indications of permanent or widespread change1 either for better or worse1 in our intellectual or moral nature4 ,the nineteenth century1 however1 saw the initiation of a great change in the economic environment due to the rapid invention of labour-saving machinery2 which1 with the equally rapid application of steam power1 led to an increase of wealth production such as had never been known on the earth before4 ,during the same period new modes of locomotion were brought into daily use1 the facilities for inter-communication were increased a hundred-fold1 scientific discoveries opened up to us new and unthought-of mysteries of the universe1 and the whole earth was ransacked for its treasures1 both vegetable and mineral1 to an extent that surpassed all that had been accomplished since the dawn of civilisation4 ,but this rapid growth of wealth1 and increase of our power over ,nature1 put too great a strain upon our crude civilisation and our superficial ,christianity1 and it was accompanied by various forms of social immorality1 almost as amazing and unprecedented4 ,some of these may be here briefly referred to4 ,our vast textile factory system may be said to have commenced with the nineteenth century1 and the profits were at first so large and so dependent on the supply of labour that the mill-owners hired children from the workhouses of the great cities by hundreds and even thousands4 ,these children1 from the age of five or six upwards1 were taken as apprentices for seven years1 and they really became the slaves of the manufacturers1 whose managers made them work from #f a4m4 to #g p4m41 or sometimes longer2 and1 in order to keep them awake in the close atmosphere of the factories it was found necessary to whip them at frequent intervals4 ,it was not till #ahai that the age of children employed in factories was raised to nine years1 while in #ahbe the working hours were limited to seventy-two a week6 ,from that time onward1 during the whole of the nineteenth century1 there was a continued succession of ,factory ,acts1 each aiming at abolishing or ameliorating the worst results of child labour--its inhumanity1 its cruelty1 and its immorality4 ,these legislative efforts were always opposed by the employers1 who usually succeeded in so mutilating them in ,committee of the ,house of ,commons as to render them almost useless4 ,mrs4 ,e4 ,b4 ,browning's noble verses1 ,the ,cry of the ,children1 show that after nearly fifty years of struggle the condition of the child-workers was still1 in a high degree1 cruel1 degrading1 and therefore immoral2 while that of the half-timers who succeeded them was almost as injurious4 ,as the century wore on1 other evils of a similar nature were gradually brought to light4 ,children and women were found to be working underground in coal mines1 under equally vile conditions as regards health and morality2 and an enormous loss of life was caused by inadequate ventilation1 insecure roof-propping1 imperfect winding machinery1 and other causes1 all due to want of proper precautions by the owners of the mines4 ,as a matter of simple justice1 such owners should be held responsible to the injured person not only to the full extent of his wages and for medical attendance1 but should also pay a liberal compensation for the pain suffered1 and for the extra labour1 expense and anxiety to his family4 ,but all such things are ignored in the case of poor workers1 so that even the money compensation is reduced to the smallest amount possible4 ,it is one of the great defects of our law that deaths due to preventable causes in any profit-making business are not criminal offences4 ,till they are made so1 it will be impossible to save the hundreds1 or even thousands1 of lives now lost owing to neglect of proper precautions in all kinds of dangerous or unhealthy trades4 ,however costly such precautions may be1 expense should not be considered when human life is risked2 and the present state of the law is therefore immoral4 ,notwithstanding ,acts of ,parliament and numerous ,inspectors 7whose salaries should be paid by the mine owners71 explosions and other accidents underground continue to increase1 the year #aiaj being a record year1 with its #a1gge deaths2 and even the number in proportion to the workers employed is the highest for the last twenty years4 ,yet no one is punished1 or even held responsible for these deaths4 ,surely1 this shows a deplorable absence of moral feeling1 both in the general public and in ,parliament4 ,the responsibility of ,parliament is really criminal1 since it always allows its legislation to be made ineffective by the fear of diminishing the employers' profits1 thus deliberately placing money-making above human life and human well-being4 ,in the case of mines and quarries1 ,parliament is especially responsible1 because the possession of the mineral wealth of our country by private individuals is itself a gross usurpation of public rights1 and should have been long ago declared illegal4 ,whatever arguments--and they are very strong--show us that the land itself should not be private property1 are ten times stronger in the case of the minerals within its bowels4 ,the value of land increases with its proper use1 but in the case of minerals1 the value is absolutely destroyed4 ,surely1 it is a crime against posterity to allow the strictly limited mineral wealth of our country to be made private property1 and very largely sold to foreigners1 solely to increase the wealth of individuals and to the absolute impoverishment of ourselves and our children4#de3;,a #de3;,a ,i pointed this out forty years ago in an article entitled ,coal a ,national ,trust1 which ,i republished twelve years ago in my ,studies1 ,scientific and ,social 7,vol4 ,,ii41 ,chap4 ,,viii474 ,i will here add one other argument which goes to the root of the matter by showing that the alleged owners of minerals have not even a legal title to them4 ,it is1 ,i believe1 a maxim of law that public rights cannot be lost by disuse4 ,landed estates were1 in our country1 created by the ,norman ,conqueror to be held subject to the performance of feudal duties4 ,deep-seated minerals were then not known to exist1 and were not 7,i believe7 specifically included in the original grants4 ,except1 therefore1 where they have since been made private property by ,act of ,parliament1 they still remain public property4 ,i submit1 therefore1 that they may be both legally and equitably resumed by the ,government as public property1 and worked for the good of the public and of posterity4 ,compensation to the supposed present owners would be a matter of favour1 not of right4 ,,chapter ,,ix ,,insanitary ,,dwellings ,,and ,,life-,,destroying ,,trades ,the enormous difference between town and country dwellers as regards duration of life and the prevalence of zymotic diseases has been known statistically since the era of registration1 and a body of ,health ,officers have been set up to report upon the worst cases4 ,the local authorities have power to compel the owners of unhealthy dwellings to put them into a sanitary condition1 or even order them to be entirely rebuilt4 ,but as many of the members of ,corporations and other ,local ,boards are often themselves owners of such property1 or have intimate friends who are so1 very little has been done to remedy the evil4 ,again and again1 in all parts of the country1 the ,health ,officers have duly reported1 but their reports have been ignored4 ,in some cases where the ,health ,officer has been too persistent1 he has been asked to resign or has been discharged4 ,a few general facts may be here given4 ,by the last complete ,census returns 7#aija71 there are in ,england and ,wales #g1jcf1hfh tenements1 and of these #c1bhf1ebf1 or nearly half1 have from one to four rooms only4 ,in ,london1 out of a total of #a1jai1fdf tenements1 #fgb1jcj1 or considerably more than half1 have from one to four rooms2 while there are about #aej1jjj tenements of only one room1 in which are living #cac1bih persons1 or about two and a quarter persons in each room on the average4 ,there are1 however1 about #bj1jjj persons living five in a room1 and #bj1jjj more who have six1 seven1 or eight in a room4 ,as most of these one-roomed tenements are either the cellars or attics of houses in the most crowded parts of large towns1 where there is impure air1 little light1 and scanty water supply1 the condition of those who dwell in them may be imagined--or rather cannot be imagined1 except by those who have explored them4 ,equally inhuman1 immoral1 and even criminal1 is the neglect of all adequate measures to check the loss of infant life through the overwork1 poverty1 or starvation of the mother1 together with overcrowded and insanitary dwellings4 ,in the mad race for wealth by capitalists and employers most of our towns and cities have been allowed to develop into veritable death-traps for the poor4 ,this has been known for the greater part of a century1 yet nothing really effective has been done1 notwithstanding abundant health legislation--again made useless by the dread of diminishing the excessive profits of manufacturers and slum-owners4 ,one of the ,labour newspapers calls our attention to the following facts for #aiaa as to ,infant mortality per #a1jjj born3 ,,per #a1jjj ,deptford1 ,east ,ward 7poor7 #aig ,deptford1 ,west ,ward 7rich7 #fh ,bournville ,garden ,village #fe ,st4 ,mary's ,ward1 ,birmingham #cca ,such facts exist all over the kingdom4 ,they have been talked about and deplored for the last half-century at least4 ,who has murdered the #ajj1jjj children who die annually before they are one year old8 ,who has robbed the millions that just survive of all that makes childhood happy--pure food1 fresh air1 play1 rest1 sleep1 and proper nurture and teaching8 ,again we must answer1 our ,parliament1 which occupies itself with anything rather than the immediate saving of human life and abolishing widespread human misery1 the whole of which is remediable4 ,and all for fear of offending the rich and powerful by some diminution of their ever-increasing accumulations of wealth4 ,no thinking man or woman can believe that this state of things is absolutely irremediable2 and the persistent acquiescence in it while loudly boasting of our civilisation1 of our science1 of our national prosperity1 and of our ,christianity1 is the proof of a hypocritical lack of national morality that has never been surpassed in any former age4 ,a new set of evils has grown up in the various so-called unhealthy trades--the lead glaze in the china manufacture1 the steel dust in cutlery work1 and the endless variety of poisonous liquids and vapours in the numerous chemical works or processes1 by which so many fortunes have been made4 ,these1 together1 are the cause of a large direct loss of life1 and a much larger amount of permanent injury1 together with a terrible reduction in the duration of life of all the workers in such trades4 ,yet in one case only--that of phosphorus matches--has any such injurious process of manufacture been put an end to4 ,wealth has been deliberately preferred to human life and happiness4#ea3;,a #ea3;,a ,an account of some deadly trades is given in ,mr4 ,r4 ,h4 ,sherard's book1 ,the ,white ,slaves of ,england4 ,one of the most deadly of trades seems to have remained unnoticed till it has been brought to light by the new ,labour paper1 ,the ,daily ,citizen1 in a series of articles by ,mr4 ,keighley ,snowden1 entitled ,the ,broken ,women4 ,never was a title better deserved1 since large numbers of girls and young women are employed at ,lye and ,cradley ,heath1 in what is commonly named the ,hollow ,ware works4 ,this is the tinning1 or galvanising1 as it is usually termed1 of buckets and other domestic utensils1 in which lead is used2 and it produces one of the most virulent forms of lead-poisoning4 ,the symptoms are1 among other more painful ones1 the loss of hair and the loosening and ultimate loss of teeth1 culminating either in chronic illness or death1 sometimes in a few months or years4 ,five years ago there was a ,home ,office inquiry1 which1 after full examination1 reported that the process used was dangerous to life1 that no precautions could render it harmless1 and that it should be totally discontinued4 ,an order was then issued by the ,home ,office that after a time-limit 7two years7 the process should be no longer used2 but that order has not been obeyed 7except by a few employers7 to this day4 ,the deadly nature of this work was accompanied by miserably low wages1 as shown by the fact that the women workers have at length struck to obtain a minimum of #ajs4 a week6 ,helped by some humane friends1 they have at length succeeded in obtaining this miserable wage1 and for the present are in a state of comparative happiness6 ,how long it will be before the ,government abolishes this deadly process we cannot tell4 ,the following is a brief statement of what these poor women have to suffer1 extracted from ,the ,daily ,citizen of ,november #bjth1 #aiab3-- ,they had1 without power to resist them1 suffered repeated and ruthless reductions of wages4 ,they had seen their industry brought down by reckless competition1 and the manufacture of shoddy goods1 to the point at which men could no longer earn enough to support their families4 ,they had seen their wives and daughters and boys forced by want at home into workshops1 where1 as official inquiry has shown1 health was sucked out of their bodies as though they had been the victims of vampires4 ,they had seen the introduction and growth of the sub-contracting 'stint' system1 under which boyhood and girlhood and motherhood were driven as though they had been slaves under the lash1 and their earnings cut down to a penny an hour4 ,meanwhile1 they lived in the hovels and holes of a place which can only be fitly described as one of the dirtiest ashpits of a civilisation reckless of dirt where profit is a question4 ,those who want to know what horrors can exist to-day in ,england should read ,mr4 ,snowden's series of articles on the subject4 ,they are restrained in language1 and state the bare facts from careful personal observation4 ,that such things should still exist in a country claiming to be civilised would be incredible1 were there not so many others of a like nature and almost as bad4 ,in an almost exhaustive volume on ,diseases of ,occupation by ,sir ,thomas ,oliver1 ,m4,d4 7#aijh71 there is only a short reference to the hollowware trade of the black country near ,birmingham4 ,but the tin plate industry of ,south ,wales is more fully described1 with the same pitiable condition of the women workers and the same terrible results to health and life4 ,yet nothing whatever seems to be done by the manufacturers2 and though two ,home ,office ,inspectors have fully reported on its horrors from #ahhh onwards1 no notice appears to have been taken of them1 nor has there been any ,government interference with conditions of labour which are a disgrace to civilisation4 ,,chapter ,x ,,adulteration1 ,,bribery1 ,,and ,,gambling ,after the terrible national crime of deadly employments it is almost an anti-climax to enumerate the vast mass of dishonesty and falsehood that pervades our commercial system in every department4 ,almost every fabric1 whether of cotton1 linen1 wool1 or silk1 is so widely and ingeniously adulterated by the intermixture of cheaper materials that the pure article as supplied to our grandparents is hardly to be obtained4 ,of this one example only must serve4 ,calicoes have been successively dressed with such substances as paste and tallow2 then with the still cheaper china clay and size2 and in some cases from #ej to #ij per cent4 of these latter materials have been sold as calico for exportation to countries inhabited by what we term savages4 ,these people only found out the deception when the need for washing or exposure to tropical rains reduced the material to a flimsy and worthless rag1 as ,i have myself witnessed in some parts of the ,malay ,archipelago4#ef3;,a #ef3;,a ,these facts are given in the ,ninth ,edition of the ,encyclopdia ,britannica4 ,in recent editions the article ,adulteration is limited to food and drugs4 ,in ,chambers' ,encyclopdia1 cotton1 linen and woollens are included among adulterated fabrics4 ,even worse is the adulteration of almost every kind of prepared food--including the showy sweetmeats which tempt our children--with various chemicals1 which are often injurious to health1 and sometimes fatal2 while even the drugs we take in the endeavour to cure our various ailments are frequently so treated as to be useless or even hurtful4 ,along with this form of dishonesty is what may be termed simple cheating in the description of goods sold1 especially as to quantity4 ,threads and fabrics are generally shorter or narrower than stated1 giving a larger profit when sold in enormous quantities in our great retail shops4 ,then1 again1 there is a widespread system of bribery of servants or other employees in order to obtain more customers or to secure contracts2 and though these are all criminal offences1 and a great host of inspectors and official analysts are employed to discover and convict the offenders1 yet so few people are willing to take the trouble and lose the time and money involved in putting the law into motion1 that a very large percentage of these offences go undiscovered and unpunished4 ,yet another and more serious form of plunder of the public is carried on by means of ,joint ,stock ,companies1 of which there are now more than #ej1jjj in ,england and ,wales4 ,in the year #aiaa the number of new companies was #e1iei1 while #d1cec ceased to exist1 giving an increase of #a1fjf in the year4 ,the ,limited ,liability ,act was passed in #ahee1 in order that the public might invest their savings in companies1 and thus share in the profits of our industry and commerce4 ,it was supposed to be quite proper that anyone should benefit by the enterprise and industry of others2 but to do so is essentially immoral1 and has resulted in a vast system of swindling and terrible losses to the innocent investors4 ,the promoters1 directors1 secretaries and bankers of these companies always gain2 those that take up the shares often lose2 and the amount of misery and absolute ruin of those who fondly hoped to add to their scanty incomes1 and have been deluded by the names of well-known public men among the directors1 is incalculable4 ,our ,stock ,exchanges1 too1 are used largely for pure gambling which1 owing to its vast extent and being carried on under business forms1 is perhaps more ruinous than any other4 ,but this form of gambling goes on unchecked1 and is generally accepted as quite honest business4 ,yet ordinary betting on races and other forms of direct gambling are hypocritically condemned as immoral and criminal4 ,the vast fabric of our ,foreign ,trade in food1 or the raw materials of our manufactures1 is also used to support perhaps the greatest system of gambling the world has ever seen4 ,the fluctuating prices of corn or cotton1 of coal or mineral oil1 of iron and other metals1 in the great markets of the world1 are used in two ways by a large community of gamblers1 who not only do not require the goods they buy1 but who never see nor possess them4 ,the ordinary speculator who buys when prices are low1 to sell again at a profit1 without himself being able to influence the rise or fall of price1 is a pure gambler who thinks he can foresee the changes of the market price in the immediate future4 ,but the great capitalists who1 either singly or by means of what are called rings or combines1 purchase such vast quantities of the special product as to create a scarcity in the market1 leading to a large rise of price1 are ingenious robbers rather than gamblers1 because1 by clever dealings with such a monopoly1 often aided by false rumours widely circulated in newspapers owned or bribed by them1 they are able to make enormous profits at the expense of those who are obliged to purchase for actual business purposes or for daily use4 ,this is one of the methods by which the great millionaires and multi-millionaires of the world accumulate their wealth1 every penny of which is at the cost of the consuming public4 ,this is certainly as immoral as any of the petty forms of swindling with marked cards1 loaded dice1 or the wilful losing of a race2 yet the possessors of such wealth are usually held to be clever business men1 whose morality is not questioned4 ,all these inconsistencies as regards the moral status of various kinds of gambling or dishonest speculation arise from our inveterate habit of dealing with limited cases1 each judged on its supposed merits as to consequences1 instead of looking to fundamental principles4 ,why is gambling immoral8 ,not because it is a game of chance1 entered into for mere amusement1 even when played for small money stakes which are of no importance to any of the players4 ,the fundamental wrong arises whenever it is used for obtaining wealth or any part of the player's income2 and the reason is1 that whatever one wins1 someone else loses2 while its evil nature1 socially1 depends upon the fact that whoever acquires wealth by such means contributes nothing useful to the social organism of which he forms a part4 ,if it were taught to every child1 and in every school and college1 that it is morally wrong for anyone to live upon the combined labour of his fellow-men without contributing an approximately equal amount of useful labour1 whether physical or mental1 in return1 all kinds of gambling1 as well as many other kinds of useless occupation1 would be seen to be of the same nature as direct dishonesty or fraud1 and1 therefore1 would soon come to be considered disgraceful as well as immoral4 ,we see1 then1 that the whole commercial fabric of our country--our immense mills and factories1 our vast exports and imports1 our home trade1 wholesale and retail1 and innumerable transactions in our ,stock ,exchanges--is permeated with various forms of dishonesty1 gambling1 and direct robbery of individuals or of the public4 ,no class is wholly free from it1 and it increases in volume from decade to decade1 just as our boasted commerce and accumulated wealth increases4 ,i have here called attention to these various forms of immoral practices because they are so often ignored4 ,yet they are all officially admitted by the enormous mass of the various ,royal ,commissions1 ,parliamentary and other ,reports1 as well as by the hundreds of ,acts by which successive ,parliaments have endeavoured to deal with them1 but which have1 one and all1 proved to be either wholly or partially ineffective4 ,the reason of this failure is that in every case symptoms and isolated results only have been considered1 while the underlying causes of the whole vast mass of social corruption have never been sought for1 or1 if known1 have never influenced legislation4 ,,chapter ,,xi ,,our ,,administration ,,of ,,justice ,,is ,,immoral ,when we read about the ,turkish or other ,eastern law courts1 in which direct bribery of every official up to the judge himself is a regular feature1 we are horrified1 and are apt to proclaim the fact that our judges never take bribes4 ,but1 practically1 it comes to very nearly the same thing in ,england4 ,no single step can be made for the purpose of getting justice without paying fees2 while the whole process of bringing or defending an action-at-law is so absurdly complex as to be almost incredible4 ,jeremy ,bentham satirised this by supposing a father of a large family to adopt the same method of settling a dispute between two of his sons4 ,he would not hear either of them himself1 but each must tell his story to a stranger 7a solicitor71 who wrote it down and then instructed another stranger 7a barrister7 to explain it to the father 7as judge7 and twelve neighbours 7the jury74 ,then the stranger 7barrister7 on each side asked questions of all the family who knew anything about it2 and the barristers1 who had only third-hand knowledge of the facts1 tried to make each witness contradict himself1 or to acknowledge having done something as bad another time2 till the jury became quite puzzled1 and often decided as the cleverest of the barristers told them4 ,that is really the system of law courts to this day2 and it is grossly unfair1 because the party who can pay the highest fees for the services of the most experienced counsel is most likely1 through the lawyer's skill and eloquence1 to secure a verdict in his favour4 ,yet there is no effective protest against this unjust and absurd system1 which absolutely denies all redress of wrongs to the poor man when oppressed by a rich one4 ,one would think it self-evident that justice ceases to be justice when it has to be paid for4 ,but the system is so time-hallowed1 the profession of a barrister so honoured1 and its rewards so great1 that it will never be abolished till there comes about in our social system that fundamental change which will cut at the very root-cause of almost all our existing law-suits1 immorality and crime4 ,in our criminal as well as our civil law and procedure there is equal injustice4 ,when the poor man is accused of the slightest offence and brought before a magistrate by the police1 he is1 even though perfectly honest and respectable1 treated from the very first as if he were guilty1 often refused communication with his friends2 and1 when the accusation is serious1 he is remanded to prison again and again till evidence has been hunted up1 or even manufactured1 against him4 ,experience shows that the latter is often done and a quite innocent man not infrequently punished4 ,the dictum of the law1 that an ,englishman should be held to be innocent till he is proved to be guilty1 is absolutely reversed1 and he is treated as if he were guilty till1 against overwhelming odds1 he is able to prove himself innocent4 ,there is no possible excuse for this now1 and at the very least every man who has a home or a permanent employment should be at once discharged on his own recognizances4 ,equally unjust and barbarous is the system of money-fines1 often for merely nominal offences1 with the alternative of imprisonment4 ,to the well-off1 or to the habitual criminal1 the fine is a trifle2 but to the poor man charged with being drunk1 with begging1 or with sleeping under a haystack1 or any such act which is no real offence1 the common punishment of #ajs4 or a week's imprisonment1 leaving perhaps wife and children to starve or be sent to the workhouse1 is really far more immoral than the alleged offence4 ,again1 our ,poor ,law itself1 as usually administered1 is utterly immoral4 ,this is what a competent authority--,mr4 ,sidney ,webb--says of it3 ,underneath the feet of the whole wage-earning class is the abyss of the ,poor ,law4 ,i see before me a respectable family applying for relief4 ,what do we do to them8 ,we1 the ,government of ,england1 break up the family4 ,we strip each individual of what makes life worth living4 ,when the man enters the workhouse he is stripped of his citizenship--branded as too infamous to vote for a member of ,parliament4 ,once in the workhouse1 we put him to toil or to loiter under conditions that are so demoralising that we turn him into a wastrel4 ,and we strip the wife of her children4 ,we send her to the wash-tub or the sewing-room1 where she associates with prostitutes and imbeciles4 ,the little children1 if they are under five1 are taken to the workhouse nursery1 where they also are tended by prostitutes and imbeciles4 ,there they remain1 day after day1 without ever going down the workhouse steps until they are old enough to go to the ,poor ,law school1 or until they are taken down in their coffins1 owing to the terrible mortality among the workhouse babies4 ,of course1 all workhouses are not so bad as this1 but many are1 and have been during the three-quarters of a century of their existence4 ,can we1 therefore1 wonder that week by week some poor and honest parents commit suicide rather than see their children starve1 or be separated from them in the workhouse6 ,the people we thus drive to death are many of them as good as we ourselves are2 yet the ,guardians of the ,poor--well-to-do gentlemen and ladies--go on administering it week after week and year after year without protest or apparent compunction4 ,such is the deadening effect of long-continued custom4 ,,chapter ,,xii ,,indications ,,of ,,increasing ,,moral ,,degradation ,there are in the ,reports of the ,registrar-,general a few statistics of special importance because they clearly point to certain kinds of moral degradation which have been increasing for the last half-century1 thus coinciding with our exceptionally rapid increase in wealth2 and also1 as ,i have shown in preceding chapters1 with various forms of national1 economic1 and social deterioration4 ,the first of these is the continuous increase in deaths from alcoholism1 in proportion to population1 since the year #ahfa4 ,most persons will be amazed to find that this is the case1 because the drinking habit has certainly diminished2 but when the habit becomes so powerful and lasts so long as to be the direct cause of death1 we are able to see the dimensions of the most exaggerated form of the drink evil4 ,the following figures are taken from the successive ,reports referred to3-- ,deaths from ,average ,alcoholism per of ,years ,million living #ahfa-ahfe #da4f #ahff-ahgj #ce4d #ahga-ahge #cg4f #ahgf-ahhj #db4d #ahha-ahhe #dh4b #ahhf-ahij #ef4j #ahia-ahie #fg4h #ahif-aijj #he4h #aija-aije #gh4d #aijf-aiaj #ed4f ,there are some irregularities1 the ratio being nearly equal for the first twenty years1 after which there is such a continuous large increase that from #ahgf-hj to #ahif-aijj the mortality is doubled1 but for the last ten years there has been a decrease1 which in the last five years is very marked4 ,but a still worse and more disquieting feature is the recent large increase of mortality from alcoholism in women4 ,figures for the separate sexes were not given till #ahgf1 and the following table shows the comparison up to #aiaj3-- ,deaths from ,average ,alcoholism of ,years per ,million ,men ,women #ahgf-ahhj #fj4a #bd4j #ahha-ahhe #ff4f #ca4j #ahhf-ahij #gc4f #ci4b #ahia-ahie #hf4f #ej4b #ahif-aijj #ajf4b #ff4f #aija-aije #ie4j #fc4j #aijf-aiaj #ff4f #dc4f ,these figures1 however deplorable and startling in themselves1 are as nothing in comparison with what they imply4 ,death from drink1 more than in the case of any other disease1 is the ultimate and rarely attained result of the vice of habitual intoxication4 ,men and women may greatly injure their health1 ruin their families1 and be disgraceful drunkards1 and yet not die of it1 or make any near approach to doing so4 ,what is the proportion of those who are morally and physically injured by drink to those who kill themselves by it1 is1 ,i suppose1 unknown1 but ,i imagine that one in a thousand is1 probably1 too high an estimate1 and that one death among ten thousand moderate drinkers who also occasionally or frequently become intoxicated1 would be nearer the mark4 ,this would imply an increase in the consumption of alcoholic drinks1 instead of which there has been an actual diminution4 ,the fact probably is that a very large number of moderate drinkers have ceased to consume alcohol in any form1 and this would account for a much larger reduction in the total than has actually occurred4 ,on the other hand1 owing to the increase of those who are only casually employed in our great cities1 and whose one luxury is the excitement of drink1 a larger quantity of cheap1 and injuriously adulterated spirits and other liquors is consumed1 which1 combined with a deficiency of wholesome food1 leads more frequently to a fatal result4 ,increase of ,suicide ,the increase has been long known and generally admitted4 ,it is supposed to be largely due to the ever-increasing struggle for subsistence in our great cities1 the consequent increase of unemployment1 and the dread of the workhouse as the only alternative to starvation4 ,the following are the figures for the last forty-five years for which official data have been published3-- ,deaths by ,average ,suicide per of ,years ,million living #ahff-ahgj #ff4d #ahga-ahge #ff4j #ahgf-ahhj #gc4f #ahha-ahhe #gc4h #ahhf-ahij #gi4d #ahia-ahie #hh4f #ahif-aijj #hi4b #aija-aije #ajj4f #aijf-aiaj #ajb4b ,such a table as this1 occurring in a country which boasts of its enormous wealth1 of its ever-increasing commercial prosperity1 of its marvellous advance in science and the arts1 and command of natural forces1 should1 surely1 give us pause1 and force upon us the conviction that there is something radically wrong in a social system which brings about such terrible evils4 ,and this should be the more certainly seen to be the case because the same increase is taking place in all those countries which approach us in their wealth and their commercial prosperity4 99 99 99 99 99 ,there is a group of diseases which are fatal to infants soon after birth4 ,they have been steadily increasing during the last half-century1 and call for special notice here1 as they seem to indicate physical degeneration as well as personal immorality of a dangerous and perhaps even a criminal nature4 ,five-year ,proportion of ,deaths ,average to #a1jjj ,births ,premature ,congenital ,births ,defects #ahfa-ahfe #aa4ai #a4gf #ahff-ahgj #aa4ej #a4hd #ahga-ahge #ab4fj #a4he #ahgf-ahhj #ac4ch #b4ci #ahha-ahhe #ad4ah #c4bc #ahhf-ahij #af4a #d4b #ahia-ahie #ah4d #d4g #ahif-aijj #ai4f #d4i #aija-aije #bj4b #e4i #aijf-aiji #bj4j #f4f ,the large increase during the last forty-five years of very early infantile deaths1 involving abnormalities of mother or child1 seems very significant4 ,the first may be connected with the increasing dislike of child-bearing1 and unsuccessful attempts to avoid it4 ,the second indicates some injurious condition of life of the mother1 such as working at unhealthy or even deadly trades1 which has certainly been largely increasing during the same period4 ,such work for young married women should be impossible in a civilised community4 99 99 99 99 99 ,on the vast subject of prostitution1 of which the present movement for the suppression of what is called ,the ,white ,slave ,traffic is but one of the aspects1 ,i do not propose to dwell1 because ,i can find no statistics to show whether it has increased or decreased during the last century4 ,but as the conditions have all been favourable for it1 ,i have little doubt that it has increased in proportion to population4 ,such conditions are1 the enormous growth of great cities2 an increasing number of unmarried and wealthy young men2 with an enormous number of girls and young women whose wages are insufficient to provide them with the rational enjoyments of life4 ,the proceedings of the ,divorce ,courts show other aspects of the result of wealth and leisure2 while a friend who had been a good deal in ,london ,society assured me that both in country houses and in ,london various kinds of orgies were occasionally to be met with which could hardly have been surpassed in the ,rome of the most dissolute emperors4 ,of war1 too1 ,i need say nothing4 ,it has always been more or less chronic since the rise of the ,roman ,empire1 but there is now undoubtedly a disinclination for war among all civilised peoples4 ,yet the vast burden of armaments1 taken together with the most pious declarations in favour of peace1 must be held to show an almost total absence of morality as a guiding principle among the governing classes4 ,in this respect1 the increasing power of ,labour-parties all over the world seems to afford the only hope of a real moral advance4 ,,part ,,ii4--,,theoretical ,,chapter ,,xiii ,,natural ,,selection ,,among ,,animals ,while writing the present volume ,i was led to refer to it during some of the numerous interviews on the occasion of my recent birthday4 ,this led to some misrepresentation of my views1 and showed me how few popular press-writers have any real knowledge of the nature and extent of natural selection1 more especially as it affects the human race4 ,there is also the same ignorance as regards heredity2 and this latter has become almost a word to conjure with1 and is thought by most writers to explain many things to which it is quite inapplicable1 and as the present work is a very condensed argument founded to a considerable extent upon these great natural laws1 ,i propose devoting two chapters to explaining and demonstrating the effect of natural selection in the case of the lower animals and of man respectively4 ,that such an explanation is necessary may be seen from the following extract from one of our most influential and well-written daily papers1 the ,pall ,mall ,gazette4 ,after referring to the view of the utter rottenness of our present civilisation1 it quotes me as saying3 ,and the average of mankind will remain the same until natural selection steps in to save it4 7,what ,i actually said to the interviewer was until some form of selection improves it47 ,the writer then goes on3 ,these words must have struck the interviewer like the crack of doom4 ,for1 stated popularly1 the theory of natural selection is the doctrine of ',devil take the hindmost4' ,if natural selection had fair play there would be no ,children's ,care ,committees2 there would be no ,poor ,law1 no ,hospitals2 there would be no ,old ,age ,pensions4 ,all the humanitarian effort to care for the weak and to help them along the path of life1 every effort to bind up the broken-hearted1 every combination of labour to secure equality among the members of a trade1 stand condemned as futile or worse by the doctrine which ,dr4 ,russel ,wallace thinks can alone raise the average of man4 ,his own remedies for the ills of society--the levelling up which he believes to be impossible without levelling down1 the disinheriting of the unborn heir1 the 'striking' which he applauds1 the universal education which he favours--all these are directly antagonistic to the workings of natural selection4 ,now1 as ,i am credited by all my scientific friends with having discovered the theory of natural selection more than fifty years ago1 and as the whole reading public have had this hammered into them with needless repetition during the whole of that period1 it is rather amusing to be told now that ,i do not know what natural selection is1 nor what it implies4 ,it is also a striking proof that the whole subject is now held to be so old and commonplace as not to be worth studying by a popular teacher before writing about it so strongly and dogmatically4 ,if he had done so he would not deliberately assert that ,i hold opinions in regard to the matter which in several of my books ,i have shown the fallacy of4 ,i propose1 therefore1 to give here a short account of the essential features of the theory of natural selection2 how it has operated in bringing about the evolution of the almost infinitely varied forms of plants and of the lower animals2 and also to explain as clearly as ,i can why1 and to what extent1 it has acted differently in the case of man4 ,lamarckism and ,darwinism--,how they ,differ ,the first great naturalist who put forward a detailed explanation of how he supposed the varied forms of animal life to have been produced was ,lamarck1 a contemporary of ,buffon and ,goethe1 both of whom believed in evolution but offered no explanation of how it could have been brought about4 ,lamarck1 however1 suggested that the various organs of animals were modified by voluntary effort producing increased development1 as when an antelope escapes from a lion by its swiftness1 which swiftness is increased by the straining of its limbs in flight2 while the long neck and fore-limbs of the giraffe were explained by the continual stretching of these parts of the body to obtain foliage for food during severe droughts4 ,in addition to this other causes are at work1 as described in the following passage1 translated or paraphrased by ,sir ,charles ,lyell in his ,principles of ,geology3 ,every considerable alteration in the local conditions under which each race of animals exists causes a change in their wants1 and these new wants excite them to new actions and habits4 ,these actions require the more frequent employment of some parts before but slightly exercised1 and then greater development follows as a consequence of their more frequent use4 ,other organs1 no longer in use1 are impoverished and diminished in size2 nay1 are sometimes entirely annihilated1 while in their place new parts are insensibly produced for the discharge of new functions4 ,again1 he says3 ,thus otters1 beavers1 water-fowl1 turtles1 and frogs were not made web-footed in order that they might swim2 but their wants having attracted them to the water in search of prey1 they stretched out the toes of their feet to strike the water and move rapidly along its surface4 ,by the repeated stretching of their toes the skin which united them at the base acquired a habit of extension1 until1 in the course of time1 the broad membranes which now connect their extremities were formed4 ,in the case of plants1 where no voluntary movements occur1 the cause of modification was said to be due almost exclusively to the change of local conditions1 as the various kinds of plants became dispersed over the earth's surface4 ,the influence of soil1 of temperature1 of light and shade1 are supposed to produce definite changes which are gradually increased2 just as plants long cultivated in our gardens have become so changed that the wild progenitors cannot now be recognised4 ,sir ,charles ,lyell1 who made a careful study of ,lamarck's great work1 notes especially that the whole of the argument is vague and general1 and that no cases are given in which is shown how the alleged causes can be supposed to have acted so as to bring about the innumerable changes that must have occurred4 ,what is more important1 however1 is the failure to explain how the numerous minute adaptations of each species to its environment could have arisen by the direct action of that environment--in plants1 the infinitely varied forms of leaves1 flowers1 and fruits2 in animals1 the forms and sizes of the teeth of mammalia and of the beaks1 wings and feet of birds to the food they obtain2 while the enormous range of colour and marking in most groups of animals are such as no amount of desire or exertion on the one hand1 or direct action of external causes on the other1 could possibly have brought about4 ,it is not1 therefore1 surprising that1 although a vast amount of evidence was adduced to show that changes had taken place leading to the evolution of species from pre-existing species1 yet causes adequate to bring about the changes1 and especially those necessary to produce the marvellous adaptations continually being discovered1 had not been shown to exist4 ,it is necessary to point this out1 because the difference between the almost universal rejection of ,lamarck's attempted solution of the problem of evolution1 and the almost immediate and universal acceptance of that adduced by ,darwin1 is otherwise unexplained4 ,the belief in the doctrine of evolution as the only rational explanation of the gradual development of the innumerable forms of living things became more and more general4 ,the great body of arguments in its favour were admirably set forth by ,robert ,chambers in his ,vestiges of ,creation1 published anonymously in #ahdd2 while ,herbert ,spencer's masterly exposition of the argument for universal evolution convinced a large number of naturalists and men of science4 ,but still the nature of the laws and forces by which the evolution of the organic world in all its variety and beauty1 could have been brought about remained not only unknown but unimagined1 so that even so great a thinker as ,sir ,john ,herschel termed it the mystery of mysteries4 ,i will now state as briefly as possible the essential features of ,darwin's solution of the mystery in his epoch-making work1 ,the ,origin of ,species4 ,natural ,selection as the ,essential ,factor in the ,origin of ,species ,there are two great1 universal1 and very conspicuous characteristics of the whole organic world which1 because they are so very common1 were almost ignored before ,darwin showed their importance4 ,these are 7#a7 the great variability in all common and widespread species1 and 7#b7 their enormous powers of increase4 ,the facts of variability are recorded in every book on ,darwinism or on organic evolution1 and it is only necessary here to appeal to the reader's own observation or to state a few illustrative facts4 ,everybody sees that among a hundred or a thousand people he knows or frequently meets no two are alike4 ,this is variability4 ,he also knows that the amount of the differences between them is often very large1 and always1 if you have any two of them side by side1 easily perceptible and capable of being described4 ,he also knows that they differ in every part and organ that can be seen3 the height1 the bulk of body2 the shape of the hands1 feet1 head1 ears1 nose1 and mouth2 the proportions of the legs1 arms1 and body to each other2 the abundance and character of the hair--coarse or fine1 straight or curly1 and of all colours between flaxen and intense black4 ,to declare that variability among men and women1 even of the same race and in the same country1 is a rare phenomenon1 and that in amount it is infinitesimal1 would be a ludicrous misstatement of the facts or a wilful perversion of the truth4 ,but1 as regards animals or plants in a state of nature1 this misstatement has been made and has been used as an argument against the ,darwinian theory4 ,it is1 however1 now well known1 as a matter of direct observation and measurement1 that when a few scores or hundreds of individuals are compared1 even in the same district and at the same season1 they differ in their proportions to about the same amount1 and to some extent in every visible part or organ1 as do human beings4 ,this1 however1 was not well known when ,darwin collected the materials for his various works1 and he even sometimes makes the proviso--if they vary1 for without variation selection can do nothing2 and this has been taken as an admission that variation is a rare instead of being a universal phenomenon4 ,he also often spoke of the accumulation of small or minute variations1 and this has led to the statement that variations are infinitesimal in amount1 and therefore could1 at first1 be of no use to the possessor in the struggle for existence4 ,rapid ,increase of ,all ,organisms ,this is another fact of ,nature which requires to be kept in mind in all discussions of the action of natural selection1 yet it is often altogether ignored by critics of the theory4 ,as an illustrative fact1 a not uncommon ,european weed of the ,crucifer family has been found to produce about #gjj1jjj seeds on a single plant1 whence it can be calculated that if every seed had room to grow for three successive years their produce would cover a space of about #b1jjj times as large as the whole land surface of the globe4 ,some of the minute aquatic forms of life which increase by division in a few hours would1 if they all had the means of living1 in the same period occupy a space equal to that of the entire solar system4 ,even the largest and slowest breeding of all known mammals1 i4e4 the elephant1 would1 if allowed space to live and breed freely for #gej years1 result in no less than nineteen million animals4 ,by far the larger part of the criticisms of ,darwinism by popular writers are due to their continually forgetting these two great natural facts3 enormous variability about a mean value of every part and organ2 and such ever-present powers of multiplication that1 even in the case of vertebrate animals1 of those born every year only a small proportion--one-tenth to one-hundredth or thereabouts--live over the second year4 ,if they all lived their numbers would go on continually increasing1 which we know is not the case4 ,hence arises what has been termed the struggle for existence1 resulting in the survival of the fittest4 ,this struggle for life is either against the forces of inorganic or those of organic nature4 ,among the former are storms1 floods1 intense cold1 long-continued droughts1 or violent blizzards1 all of which take toll of the weaker or less wary individuals of each species--those that are less adapted to survive such conditions4 ,in judging how this would act1 we must always remember the enormous scale on which ,nature works1 and that although now and then a few of the weaker individuals may live and a few of the stronger be killed1 yet when we deal with hundreds of millions1 of which eighty or ninety millions inevitably die every year while about ten or twenty millions only survive1 it is impossible to believe that those which survive1 not one year only but year after year throughout the whole existence of each species1 are not on the average better adapted to the complex conditions of their environment than those which succumb to it4 ,it is a mere truism that the fittest survive4 ,exactly the same thing occurs in the case of the organic environment1 to which each species must also be well adapted in order to live4 ,the two great essentials for animal existence are1 to obtain abundant food through successive years1 and to be able to escape from their various enemies4 ,when food is scarce the strongest1 or those who can feed quickest and digest more rapidly1 or those that can detect food at greater distances or reach it more quickly1 will have the advantage4 ,enemies are escaped by strength1 by swiftness1 by acute vision1 by wariness1 or by colours which conceal the various species in their natural surroundings2 and those which possess these or any other advantages will in the long run survive4 ,the weaker1 the less well-defended1 and the smaller species often have special protection1 such as nocturnal habits1 making burrows in the earth1 possessing poisonous stings or fangs1 being covered with protective armour2 while great numbers are coloured or marked so as exactly to correspond with their surroundings1 and are thus concealed from their chief enemies4 ,natural ,selection1 or ,survival of the ,fittest ,it may be here noted that the term ,natural ,selection1 which has often been misunderstood1 was suggested to ,darwin by the way in which almost all our varieties of cultivated plants and domestic animals have been obtained from wild forms continually improved for many generations4 ,the method is to breed large quantities1 and always preserve or select the best in each generation to be the parents of the next4 ,this method1 carried on by hundreds of farmers1 gardeners1 dog1 horse or poultry breeders1 and especially by pigeon-fanciers1 has resulted in all those useful1 beautiful and even wonderful varieties of fruits1 vegetables and flowers1 dray-horses and hunters1 greyhounds1 spaniels and bull-dogs1 cows which give large quantities of the richest milk1 and sheep with the greatest quantity and finest quality of wool4 ,all these were produced gradually for the special purposes of mankind2 but a similar result has been effected by ,nature through rapid increase1 great variability1 and continual destruction of all the individuals less adapted to the conditions of their special environment1 so that only the strongest or the swiftest1 the best-concealed or the most wary1 the best armed with teeth1 horns1 hoofs or claws1 those who could swim best1 or those that protected each other by keeping in flocks or herds--lived the longest and tended to improve still further the next generation4 ,survival of the fittest was suggested by ,herbert ,spencer as best describing exactly what happens1 and it is a most useful descriptive term which should always be kept in mind when discussing or investigating the process by which the infinitely varied and beautiful productions of ,nature have been developed4 ,there is really not one single part or organ of any plant or animal that cannot have been derived by means of the fundamental facts of variability and reproduction from some allied plant or animal4 ,it is interesting here to note1 that the two essential factors of the process of constant adaptation to the environment by great variability and rapid multiplication1 formed no part of ,lamarck's theory1 which some people still think to be as good as ,darwin's4 ,equally suggestive is the fact that1 while extensive groups of life-phenomena1 such as colour1 weapons1 hair1 scales1 and feathers1 can hardly be conceived as having been produced or modified by effort or by the direct action of the environment1 they are yet1 every one of them1 perfectly explained by the fundamental and necessary processes of variability and survival1 acting slowly and continuously1 but with intermittent periods of extreme activity at long intervals1 on all living things4 ,one of the weakest and most foolish of all the objections to the ,darwinian theory is1 that it does not explain variation1 and is therefore worthless4 ,we might as well say that ,newton's discovery of the laws of gravitation was worthless because its cause was not and has not yet been discovered2 or that the undulatory theory of light and heat is worthless1 because the origin of the ether1 the thing that undulates1 is not known4 ,the beginnings of things can never be known2 and1 as ,darwin well said1 it is foolish to waste time in speculation about them4 ,i think ,i have shown in my ,world of ,life that infinite variability is a basic law of ,nature1 and have suggested its probable purpose4 ,that purpose seems to have been the development of a life-world culminating in ,man--a being capable of studying1 and enjoying1 and to some extent comprehending1 the vast universe around him1 from the microscopic life in almost every drop of water to the whirling nebul of the glittering star-depths extending to almost unimaginable distances around him4 ,looking at him thus1 man is as much above1 and as different from1 the beasts that perish as they are above and beyond the inanimate masses of meteoritic matter which1 as we now know1 occupy the apparently vacant spaces of our solar system1 and from which comets and stars are in all probability the aggregations due to the action of the various cosmic forces which everywhere seem capable of producing variety and order out of a more uniform but less orderly chaos4 ,but besides this lofty intellect1 man is gifted with what we term a moral sense3 an insistent perception of justice and injustice1 of right and wrong1 of order and beauty and truth1 which as a whole constitute his moral and sthetic nature1 the origin and progress of which ,i have endeavoured to throw some light upon in the present volume4 ,the long course of human history leads us to the conclusion that this higher nature of man arose at some far distant epoch1 and though it has developed in various directions1 does not seem yet to have elevated the whole race much above its earliest condition1 at the time when1 by the influx of some portion of the spirit of the ,deity1 man became a living soul4 ,we will now consider some of the changes which this higher nature of man has produced in the action of the laws of variation and natural selection4 ,these are very important1 and are so little understood that almost all popular writers on the subject of the future of mankind are led into stating as scientific conclusions what are wholly opposed to the actual teaching of evolution4 ,,chapter ,,xiv ,,selection ,,as ,,modified ,,by ,,mind ,the theory of natural selection as expounded by ,darwin was so completely successful in explaining the origin of the almost infinitely varied forms of the organic world1 step by step1 during the long succession of the geological ages1 that it was naturally supposed to be equally applicable to mankind4 ,this was thought to be almost certain when1 in his later work1 ,the ,descent of ,man1 ,darwin proved by a series of converging facts and convincing arguments that the physical structure of man was in all its parts and organs so extremely similar to that of the anthropoid apes as to demonstrate the descent of both from some common ancestor4 ,so close is this resemblance that every bone and muscle in the human body has its counterpart in that of the apes1 the only differences being slight modifications in their shape and position2 yet these differences lead to external forms1 attitudes1 and modes of life so divergent that we can hardly recognise the close affinity that really exists4 ,this affinity is so real and unmistakable that such a great and conservative zoologist as the late ,sir ,richard ,owen declared that to discover and define any important differences between them was the anatomist's difficulty4 ,it was in the dimensions1 the shape1 and the proportions of the brain that ,owen found a sufficient amount of distinctive characters to enable him to place ,man in a separate order of mammals--,bimana1 or two-handed--while the remainder of the whole monkey tribe--including the apes1 baboons1 monkeys1 and lemurs--formed the order ,quadrumana1 or four-handed animals4 ,this classification has been rejected by most modern biologists1 who consider man to form a distinct family only--,hominid--of the order ,primates1 which order includes all four-handed animals as well as man4 ,but if we recognise the brain as the organ of the mind1 and give due weight to the complete distinctness and enormous superiority of the mind of man as compared with that of all other mammals1 we shall be inclined to accept ,owen's view as the most natural2 and this becomes almost certain when we realise the enormous effect his mind has produced1 in modifying and almost neutralising the action of that great law of natural selection which has held supreme sway in every other portion of the organic world4 ,we have seen in the preceding chapter how every form of organic life during all the vast extent of geological time has been subject to the law of natural selection1 which has incessantly moulded their bodily form and structure1 external and internal1 in strict adaptation to the successive changes of the world around them2 while that world was itself hardly1 if at all1 modified by them4 ,a few isolated cases--such as the formation of islands by the coral-forming zoophytes1 or the damming of a few rivers by the rude though very remarkable labours of the beaver--can hardly be considered as forming exceptions to this law4 ,but so soon as man appeared upon the earth1 even in the earliest periods at which we have any proofs of his existence1 or in the lowest state of barbarism in which we are now able to study him1 we find him able to use and act upon the forces of ,nature1 and to modify his environment1 both inorganic and organic1 in ways which formed a completely new departure in the entire organic world4 ,among the very rudest of modern savages the wounded or the sick are assisted1 at least with food and shelter1 and often in other ways1 so that they recover under circumstances that to most of the higher animals would be fatal4 ,neither does less robust health or vigour1 or even the loss of a limb or of eyesight1 necessarily entail death4 ,the less fit are therefore not eliminated as among all other animals2 and we behold1 for the first time in the history of the world1 the great law of natural selection by the survival only of the fittest to some extent neutralised4 ,but this is only the first and least important of the effects produced by the superior faculties of man4 ,in the whole animal world1 as we have seen1 every species is preserved in harmony with the slowly changing environment by modifications of its own organs or faculties1 thus gradually leading to the production of new species equally adapted to the new environment as its ancestor was before the change occurred4 ,in the case of man1 however1 such bodily adaptations were unnecessary1 because his greatly superior mind enabled him to meet all such difficulties in a new and different way4 ,as soon as his specially human faculties were developed 7and we have as yet no knowledge of him in any earlier condition71 he would cease to be influenced by natural selection in his physical form and structure4 ,looked at as a mere animal he would remain almost stationary1 the changes in the surrounding universe ceasing to produce in him that powerful modifying effect which they exercise over all other members of the entire organic world4 ,in order to protect himself from the larger and fiercer of the mammalia he made use of weapons1 such as stone-headed clubs1 wooden spears1 bows and arrows1 and various kinds of traps and snares1 all of which are exceedingly effective when families or larger groups combine in their use4 ,against the severity of the seasons he protected himself with a clothing of skins1 and with some form of shelter or well-built house1 in which he could rest securely at night1 free from tempestuous rains or the attacks of wild beasts4 ,by the use of fire he was enabled to render both roots and flesh more palatable and more digestible1 thus increasing the variety and abundance of his food far beyond that of any species of the lower animals4 ,yet further1 by the simplest forms of cultivation1 he was able to increase the best of the fruits1 the roots1 the tubers1 as well as the more nutritious of the seeds1 such as those of rice and maize1 of wheat and of barley1 thus securing in convenient proximity to his dwelling-place an abundance of food to supply all his wants and render him almost always secure against scarcity or famine or disastrous droughts4 ,we see1 then1 that with the advent of ,man there had come into existence a being in whom that subtle force we term mind became of far more importance than mere bodily structure4 ,though with a naked and unprotected body1 this gave him clothing against the varied inclemencies of the seasons4 ,though unable to compete with the deer in swiftness or with the wild bull in strength1 this gave him weapons with which to capture or overcome both4 ,though less capable than most other animals of living on the herbs and the fruits that unaided ,nature supplies1 this wonderful faculty taught him to govern and direct ,nature to his own benefit1 and compelled her to produce food for him almost where and when he pleased4 ,from the moment when the first skin was used as a covering1 when the first rude spear was formed to assist him in the chase1 when fire was first used to cook his food1 when the first seed was sown or shoot planted1 a grand revolution was effected in ,nature--a revolution which in all previous ages of the earth's history had had no parallel4 ,a being had arisen who was no longer subject to bodily change with changes of the physical universe--a being who was in some degree superior to ,nature1 inasmuch as he knew how to control and regulate her action1 and could keep himself in harmony with her1 not through any change in his body1 but by means of his vast superiority in mind4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the view above expounded of the transference of the action of natural selection from the bodily structure to the mind of early man was my first original modification of that theory1 having been communicated to the ,anthropological ,review in #ahfd4 ,it received the approval both of ,darwin himself and of ,herbert ,spencer1 and ,i am not aware that anyone has shown any flaw in the reasoning by which it is established4 ,it is certainly of high importance1 since if true it renders impossible any important change in the external form of mankind1 while it serves as an explanation of the complete identity of specific type of the three great races of man--the ,caucasian or white1 the ,mongolian or yellow1 and the ,negroid or black--in every essential of human form and structure1 while in their best examples they approach very nearly to the same ideal of symmetry and of beauty4 ,yet so little attention has been given to this view that most popular and even some scientific writers take it for granted that no such difference exists between man and the lower animals4 ,they assume that we are destined to have our bodies modified in the remote future in some unknown way1 and that the idea that there is anything approaching final perfection in the human form is a mere figment of the imagination4 ,others are so imbued with the universality of natural selection as a beneficial law of ,nature that they object to our interfering with its action in1 as they urge1 the elimination of the unfit by disease and death1 even when such diseases are caused by the insanitary conditions of our modern cities or the misery and destitution due to our irrational and immoral social system4 ,such writers entirely ignore the undoubted fact that affection1 sympathy1 compassion form as essential a part of human nature as do the higher intellectual and moral faculties2 that in the very earliest periods of history and among the very lowest of existing savages they are fully manifested1 not merely between the members of the same family1 but throughout the whole tribe1 and also in most cases to every stranger who is not a known or imagined enemy4 ,the earliest book of travels ,i remember hearing read by my father was that of ,mungo ,park1 one of the first explorers of the ,niger4 ,he was once alone and sick there1 and some negro women nursed him1 fed him1 and saved his life2 and while lying in their hut he heard them singing about him as the poor white man1 of whom they said3-- ,he has no mother to give him milk1 ,no wife to grind his corn4 ,hospitality is1 in fact1 one of the most general of all human virtues1 and in some cases is almost a religion4 ,it is an inherent part of what constitutes human nature1 and it is directly antagonistic to the rigid law of natural selection which has universally prevailed throughout the lower animal world4 ,those who advocate our allowing natural selection to have free play among ourselves on the ground that we are interfering with ,nature1 are totally ignorant of what they are talking about4 ,it is ,nature herself1 untaught1 unsophisticated human nature1 which they are seeking to interfere with4 ,they seek to degrade the higher nature to the level of the lower1 to bring down ,heaven-born humanity1 in its essential characteristics only a little lower than the angels1 to the infinitely lower level of the beasts that perish4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the conclusion reached in the earlier portion of this volume1 that the higher intellectual and moral nature of man has been approximately stationary during the whole period of human history1 and that the cause of the phenomenon has been the absence of any selective agency adequate to increase it1 renders it necessary to give some further explanation as to the probable or possible origin of this higher nature1 and also of that admirable human body which also appears to have reached a condition of permanent stability4 ,,chapter ,,xv ,,the ,,laws ,,of ,,heredity ,,and ,,environment ,in dealing with the great problems of organic development there is probably no department in which so much error and misconception prevails as on the nature and limitations of ,heredity4 ,these misconceptions not only pervade most popular writings on the subject of evolution1 but even those of men of science and of specialists in biology1 and they are the more important and dangerous because their promulgators are able to quote ,herbert ,spencer1 and to a less extent ,darwin1 as holding similar views4 ,the subject is of special importance here because it involves the question of whether the effects of the environment1 including education and training1 are in any degree transmitted from the individuals so modified to their progeny--whether they are or are not cumulative4 ,it is1 in fact1 the much discussed and vitally important problem of the ,heredity of ,acquired ,characters4 ,the effects of use and disuse1 another form of the same general phenomenon1 were assumed by ,lamarck to be inherited1 and a large portion of his theory of evolution rested on this assumption2 it seemed so probable1 and was apparently supported by so many facts1 that ,darwin1 like most other naturalists at the time1 accepted it without any special inquiry1 and when he worked out his theory of ,pangenesis in order to explain the main facts of heredity1 his suppositions were adapted to include such phenomena4 ,let us then first explain what is meant by the acquired characters which it was thought that a true theory of heredity must explain4 ,as a rule1 the great majority of the peculiarities of any species of animal or plant are constantly reproduced in its offspring4 ,the short tail of the wren1 the much longer tail of the long-tailed tit1 the crest of the crested tit and of innumerable other birds1 always when full-grown exhibit the same characters as in their parents4 ,these are said to be innate characters4 ,in rare cases1 however1 offspring are born which differ materially from their parents1 as when a white blackbird or a six-toed kitten appears1 but these are equally innate1 and are often strongly inherited4 ,all these are subject to variation1 and can therefore be modified by selection1 whether natural or artificial1 and the effects of such selection in the case of domestic animals is often enormous4 ,such are the pouters and tumblers among pigeons1 the bull-dog and the greyhound1 the numerous breeds of poultry1 all of which are known to have been produced by artificial selections of favourable variations extending over many centuries2 and the characters of these varieties are all strongly inherited4 ,characters which are acquired during the life of the individual owing to differences in the use of certain organs or of exposure to light1 heat1 drought1 wind1 moisture1 etc41 are comparatively very slight1 and are liable to be so combined with innate characters and with the effects of natural or artificial selection1 that it is exceedingly difficult to ascertain1 without such careful and long-continued experiments as have not yet been made1 whether they are in any degree transmissible from parent to offspring1 and therefore cumulative4 ,almost every individual case of supposed inheritance of such characters1 when carefully examined1 has been found to be explicable in other ways2 but there is a very large amount of general evidence1 demonstrating that even if a certain small amount of such inheritance exists1 it can certainly not be a factor of any importance in the process of organic evolution1 all the factors of which must be universally present because the process itself is universal4 ,i will therefore here limit myself to a short enumeration of a few of the very numerous cases in which the continued use of an organ does not strengthen or improve it1 but often the reverse2 and of others in which it cannot be asserted that the action of the environment can have had any part whatever in the continuous change or specialisation of the part or organ4 ,the number1 size1 form1 position1 and composition of the teeth of all the mammalia are extremely varied1 and throughout the whole class afford the best characters to distinguish family and generic groups2 they are therefore of great value in determining the affinities of extinct forms1 because the jaws and teeth1 especially the latter1 are most frequently preserved4 ,but as the permanent teeth are always fully formed while buried in the jawbones and covered by the gums1 it is quite certain that the special adaptation of the teeth of each species to seize1 crush1 tear1 or grind up its particular food cannot possibly have been produced by the act of feeding1 the effect of which is almost always to grind away the teeth and render them less serviceable4 ,such adaptation could not possibly have been produced by use alone1 or any other direct action of the environment4 ,yet1 as the adaptation is clear1 and often very remarkable1 some eminent palontologists have declared it to be proved that the changes in them were produced by the changes in the environment1 and that they constitute very strong evidence of the inheritance of acquired characters--a statement unsupported by any direct evidence4 ,the same objection applies to most of the special organs of sense4 ,the internal organ of hearing is a highly complex series of bones and membranes1 protected by the outer ear2 but it cannot be even imagined to have been gradually developed by the action of the air waves the vibrations of which it conveys to the brain4 ,the eye is a still more striking case1 as too much use injures or even destroys it2 while specialities of vision1 as long or short sight1 are undoubtedly innate1 and usually persist throughout life4 ,so the wonderfully varied bills of birds cannot be conceived as having been modified by use1 and are1 in fact1 unchangeable when once formed4 ,yet1 as they vary largely in every species1 they are readily modified1 so as to become adapted to new conditions by the survival of the fittest4 ,equally impossible is it to connect any use or disuse1 or environmental action1 in the production1 the gradual development1 or complete adaptation to their conditions of life of the outer coverings of almost all living things--the hair of mammalia1 the feathers of birds1 the scales or horny skins or solid shields of reptiles1 the solid shells of molluscs1 wonderfully ribbed or spined1 whorled1 or turreted1 and infinitely varied in surface colour and markings4 ,even more conclusive are the facts presented by the vast hosts of the insect world1 from the massive armour of the ever-present beetle tribe1 more varied in form1 structure1 ornament1 and colour than any other comparable group of living things1 to the widely different lepidoptera1 equalling1 or perhaps surpassing1 the whole class of birds in their marvellous grace and beauty1 yet all utterly beyond any possible direct action of the environment or of use and disuse in their development1 and their close adaptation to that environment4 ,organic nature is indisputably one and indivisible4 ,it has been developed throughout by means of the fundamental forces of life1 of growth and reproduction1 and the equally fundamental laws of variation1 heredity1 and enormous increase1 resulting in a perpetual adaptation in form1 structure1 colour1 and habits to the slowly changing environment4 ,these forces and laws are universal in their action2 they are demonstrably adequate to the production of the whole of the phenomena we are now discussing4 ,we see1 then1 that over by far the greater part of the whole world of life any modification of external structure1 form1 or colouring during the life of the individual is impossible2 while in the remainder its action1 if it exists at all1 is of very limited range4 ,no adequate proof of the inheritance of the slight changes thus caused has ever yet been given1 and it is therefore wholly unnecessary and illogical to assume its existence and to adduce it as having any part in the ever-active and universal process of evolution4 ,throughout the whole series of the animal world1 and especially in the higher groups which approach nearest to ourselves1 mental and physical characters are so inextricably intermixed in their relation to the laws of evolution and heredity1 that either of them studied separately leads us to the same conclusions4 ,we are not1 therefore1 surprised to find that breeders of animals of all kinds act upon the principle that all the qualities of the various stocks1 whether bodily or mental1 are innate and have been due to selection2 while training1 though necessary to bring out the good qualities of the individual1 has had no part in the production of those qualities4 ,when a horse or dog of good pedigree is accidentally injured so that it cannot be regularly trained1 it is still used for breeding purposes without any doubt as to its conveying to its progeny the highest qualities of its parentage4 ,in the case of the human race1 however1 many writers thoughtlessly speak of the hereditary effects of strength or skill due to any mechanical work or special art being continued generation after generation in the same family1 as among the castes of ,india4 ,but of any progressive improvement there is no evidence whatever4 ,those children who had a natural aptitude for the work would1 of course1 form the successors of their parents1 and there is no proof of anything hereditary except as regards this innate aptitude4 ,many people are alarmed at the statement that the effects of education and training are not hereditary1 and think that if that were really the case there would be no hope of improvement of the race2 but closer consideration will show them that if the results of our education in the widest sense1 in the home1 in the shop1 in the nation1 and in the world at large1 had really been hereditary1 even in the slightest degree1 then indeed there would be little hope for humanity2 and there is no clearer proof of this than the fact that we have not all been made much worse--the wonder being that any fragment of morality1 or humanity1 or the love of truth or justice for their own sakes still exists among us4 99 99 99 99 99 ,if we glance through the past history of mankind we see an almost unbroken succession of aggression and combat between the various races1 nations1 and tribes4 ,we can dimly see that this continual struggle did lead to a rather severe process of selection1 as in the lower animal world4 ,it can hardly be doubted that as a result of these struggles the strongest physically1 the most ingenious in the use of weapons1 and the best organised for war did survive1 and that the weaker and lower were either exterminated or kept as slaves by the conquerors4 ,this leads to alternation of success and failure4 ,we see great conquerors and great material civilisations as a result of their accumulations of wealth and of slaves4 ,then1 for a time1 luxury and the arts flourished1 and with them came rulers who encouraged degradation and vice at home1 supported by more and more remote conquests4 ,then new conquerors arose1 often lower in civilisation--barbarians1 as they were termed--but higher in the simple domestic virtues and a more natural life of productive labour4 ,these again1 or some portions of them1 rose to luxury and civilisation1 to lives of gross sensuality and the most cruel despotism1 till outraged humanity raised up new conquerors to go over again the old terrible routine4 ,the periods of culmination of these old civilisations1 founded always on conquest1 massacre1 and slavery1 are marked out for us by the ruins of great cities1 temples1 and palaces1 often of wonderful grandeur1 and with indications of arts1 science1 and literature which still excite our admiration in ,egypt and ,india1 ,greece and ,rome2 and thence through the ,middle ,ages down to our own time4 ,but the inhumanities and horrors of these periods are inconceivable4 ,a gloomy picture of them is given in that powerful book1 ,the ,martyrdom of ,man1 by ,winwood ,reade2 and they are summarised in ,burns' fine lines3 ,man's inhumanity to man ,makes countless thousands mourn4 ,think of the horrors of war in the perpetual wars of those days before the ,red ,cross service did anything to alleviate them4 ,think of the old castles1 many of which had besides the dungeons a salaried torturer and executioner4 ,think of the systematic tortures of the centuries1 of the witchcraft mania and of the ,inquisition4 ,think of the burnings in ,smithfield and in every great city of ,europe4 ,think of ,truth for ever on the scaffold1 ,wrong for ever on the throne4 ,freedom of speech1 even of thought1 were everywhere crimes3 how1 then1 did the love of truth survive as an ideal of to-day8 ,to escape these horrors1 the gentle1 the good1 the learned1 and the peaceful had to seek refuge in monasteries and nunneries1 while by means of the celibacy of the clergy the ,church1 as ,galton tells us1 by a policy singularly unwise and suicidal1 brutalised the breed of our forefathers4 ,here was the actual education of the world as man rose from barbarism to civilisation1 and it was accompanied by a certain amount of retrograde selection by the cruel punishments1 confinement in dungeons1 or torture and death of those who opposed the rulers1 and by the survival of the worst tools of the lords and tyrants4 ,ought we not to be thankful that such education and custom1 the varied influences of such an environment1 were not hereditary8 ,and is not the fact that the whole world has not become utterly degraded1 and that anything good remains in our cruelly oppressed human nature1 an overwhelming proof that such influences are not hereditary8 ,when we remember that many of these degrading laws and customs1 oppressions1 and punishments have extended down to our own times2 that the terrible slave-trade and the equally terrible slavery have only been abolished within the memory of many of us2 and that the system of wage-slavery1 the distinction of classes1 the gross inequality of the law1 the overwork of our labouring millions1 the immoral luxury and idleness of our upper-class thousands1 while far more thousands die annually of want of the bare necessaries of life2 that millions have their lives shortened by easily preventable causes1 while other millions pass their whole lives in continuous and almost inhuman labour in order to provide means for the enjoyments and pernicious luxuries of the rich--we must be amazed at the fact that there is nevertheless so much real goodness1 real humanity1 among us as certainly exists1 in spite of all the degrading influences that ,i have been compelled here to enumerate4 ,to myself1 there seems only one explanation of the very remarkable and almost incredible result just stated4 ,it is1 that the ,divine nature in us--that portion of our higher nature which raises us above the brutes1 and the influx of which makes us men--cannot be lost1 cannot even be permanently deteriorated by conditions however adverse1 by training however senseless and bad4 ,it ever remains in us1 the central and essential portion of our human nature1 ready to respond to every favourable opportunity that arises1 to grasp and hold firm every fragment of high thought or noble action that has been brought to its notice1 to oppose even to the death every falsehood in teaching1 every tyranny in action4 ,the ethics of ,plato and of the great moralists of the ,ciceronian epoch1 together with those of ,jesus and of ,his disciples and followers1 kept alive the sacred flame of pure humanity1 and their preservation constitutes perhaps the greatest service the monastic system rendered to the human race4 ,this service is finely expressed by an almost unknown poet1 ,j4 ,h4 ,dell1 in the prefatory to his volume1 ,the ,dawning ,grey4 ,never has our indebtedness to the classical writers been more powerfully insisted on than in the following lines3-- ,hear ye not the measured footfalls echoing solemn and sublime1 ,from the groves of ,academus down the avenues of ,time2 ,see'st thou not the giant figures of the ,sages of the ,past1 ,through the darken'd long perspective on the living foreground cast2 ,feel'st thou not the thrilling rhythm of the grand old ,grecian line1 ,pulsing to the march of ,progress1 cadencing her hymn divine1 ,all the forces of the present by the subtle sparks controlled1 ,of the quickening ,grecian fire1 of the mighty ,lights of old4 ,through the dark and desolation of the centuries between1 ,still ',the ,porch's' glories glimmer1 still ',the ,garden's' wreaths are green4 ,still the ,zeno1 still the ,plato1 still the ,pyrrho points the page1 ,still the ,philip fears the pebble--still ,melitus dreads the ,sage1 ,still the ,dionysius trembles at the stylus of the age4 ,still the dauntless ranks of ,freedom kindle to ,tyrtus' song2 ,still they bear aloft the symbol--bear the glorious torch along4#aah3;,a #aah3;,a ,see ,note on page #abd4 ,if the ,christian ,church had done nothing for us but preserve in its monasteries and abbeys the finest examples of classic literature that have come down to us1 and given us those glories of ,gothic architecture which seem to express in stone the grandeur and sublimity1 the peacefulness and the beauty of a pure religion1 it would1 notwithstanding its many defects1 its cruelty and oppression1 its opposition to the study of nature and to freedom of thought1 have fully justified its existence as helping us to realise whatever more advanced and purer civilisation the immediate future may have in store for us4 ,some ,light on the ,problem of ,evil ,before passing on to another branch of my subject ,i feel it necessary to make a few suggestions in reply to the objection that will certainly and very properly be made1 as to why1 if our higher human nature is in its essence ,divine1 it has suffered such long and terrible eclipses--why has the lower so often and for so long prevailed over the higher8 ,this is1 of course1 one of the many forms of the old problem of the origin of evil1 which is no doubt insoluble by us4 ,but as it is a fairly well-defined and limited portion of that problem it may be possible to obtain some idea of a possible solution1 and as such an one has occurred to myself during the composition of the present volume1 ,i will give it as briefly as possible in the hope that it may interest some of my readers4 ,in my recent works1 ,man's ,place in the ,universe and ,the ,world of ,life1 the conclusion was forced upon me1 that the scheme of the development of the universe of stars and nebul with which we are acquainted1 and especially of our sun and solar system1 was such as to furnish the exact conditions on our earth1 and there only1 which should allow of the origin and evolution of the organic world culminating in man4 ,yet further1 that the conditions should be such as to produce the maximum of diversity both of inorganic and organic products useful to man1 and such as would aid in the development of the greatest possible diversity of character and especially of his higher mental and moral nature4 ,what ,i have here termed the ,divine influx1 which at some definite epoch in his evolution at once raised man above the rest of the animals1 creating as it were a new being with a continuous spiritual existence in a world or worlds where eternal progress was possible for him4 ,to prepare him for this progress with ever-increasing diversity1 faculties of enormous range were required1 and these needed development in every direction which earthly conditions rendered possible4 ,in order that this extreme diversity of character should be brought about1 a great space of time1 as measured by successive generations1 was necessary1 though utterly insignificant as compared with the preceding duration of organic life on the earth1 and still more insignificant as compared with the spirit-life to succeed it4 ,it is for this purpose1 perhaps1 that languages become so rapidly diverse and mutually unintelligible after a moderate period of isolation1 binding together small or moderate communities in distinct tribes or nations1 which each develop in their own way under the influence of special physical surroundings and originate peculiarities of habits1 customs1 and modes of thought4 ,antagonisms soon arise between adjacent tribes1 leading each to protect itself against others by means of chiefs and some quasi-military combinations4 ,this requires organisation and foresight1 and after a time the most powerful conquers the weaker1 they intermingle1 and still greater diversity arises4 ,by this constant struggle the less advanced suffer most1 and the race as a whole takes a step forward in the march of civilisation4 ,we see the best example of this mode of progress by antagonism in the small ,states of ,ancient ,greece1 where each little kingdom developed its peculiar form of art1 of government1 and of civilisation1 which it transferred to all parts of ,europe2 and after two thousand years of degradation by ,roman and ,turkish conquest1 its language still remains but little altered1 while its ancient literature and art are still unsurpassed4 ,in like manner ,rome brought law1 literature1 and military discipline to an equally high level2 and it too sank into a state of ruin and degradation1 while its literature and its law continued to illuminate the civilised world during its long struggle towards freedom4 ,wherever conditions were favourable to progress in art or science1 time was needed for its full growth and development2 while perpetual war necessitated organisation and training against conquest or destruction4 ,even the cruelties and massacres by despotic rulers excited at last the uprising of the oppressed1 and so developed the nobler attributes of patriotism1 courage1 and love of freedom4 ,in the very worst of times there was an undercurrent of peaceful labour1 art1 and learning1 slowly moulding nations towards a higher state of civilisation4 ,the point of view now suggested will perhaps be rendered somewhat more intelligible if we apply it to the nineteenth century1 of which ,i have written in such condemnatory terms4 ,the preceding eighteenth century was undoubtedly a somewhat stationary epoch1 of a rather commonplace character alike in literature1 in art1 in science1 and in social life4 ,its vices also were low1 its government bad1 its system of punishments cruel1 and its recognition of slavery degrading4 ,it was a kind of dark age between the literary and national brilliance of the ,elizabethan age and the wonderful scientific and industrial advance of the ,victorian age4 ,but this latter period was also a period of a great uprising of the specially human virtues of justice1 of pity1 of the love of freedom1 and of the importance of education2 and though the rapid increase of wealth through the utilisation of natural forces led to all the evils due to the unchecked growth of individual riches and power1 yet these very evils in all their intensity and horror were perhaps necessary to excite in a sufficient number of minds the determination to get rid of them4 ,time was also required for the workers to learn their own power1 and1 very gradually1 to learn how to use it4 ,the rick-burning and machine-breaking of the early part of the century have been succeeded by combination and strikes2 step by step political power has been gained by the masses2 but only now1 in the twentieth century1 are they beginning to learn how to use their strength in an effective manner4 ,there are1 however1 indications that the whole march of progress has been dangerously rapid1 and it might have been safer if the great increases of knowledge and the vast accumulations of wealth had been spread over two centuries instead of one4 ,in that case our higher nature might have been able to keep pace with the growing evils of superfluous wealth and increasing luxury1 and it might have been possible to put a check upon them before they had attained the full power for evil they now possess4 ,nevertheless1 the omens for the future are good4 ,the great body of the more intelligent workers are determined to have ,,justice4 ,they insist upon the abolition of monopolies of the forces of nature1 and upon the gradual admission of all to equal opportunities for labour by free access to their native soil4 ,thus may be initiated the birth of a new era of peaceful reform and moral advancement4 ,,note4--,as many of my readers may not understand the allusions in the second verse of ,mr4 ,dell's poem 7pp4 #aag-aah71 ,i append the explanation3 ,the ,porch1 the place where the ,stoic philosophers taught--,the ,painted ,porch in ,athens4 ,the ,garden1 scene of ,plato's and ,socrates' teaching4 ,zeno was the founder of the ,stoic philosophy4 ,pyrrho was the founder of the ,sceptic school4 ,philip of ,macedon lost an eye at the siege of ,methone by a slinger's pebble4 ,melitus was one of the disputants with ,socrates1 and was always vanquished by him4 ,dionysius1 the ,tyrant of ,syracuse1 was also a ,poet and was a candidate for the prize at the ,olympic games1 but was conquered and therefore feared the more skilful stylus 7pen7 of the victors4 ,tyrtus1 a lame schoolmaster of ,athens1 inspired the ,lacedmonians by his patriotic war-songs1 and thus contributed largely to their victories4 ,,chapter ,,xvi ,,moral ,,progress ,,through ,a ,,new ,,form ,,of ,,selection ,many readers1 and some writers of books on organic evolution1 seem quite unaware that ,darwin established two modes of selection1 both alike natural but acting in different ways and producing somewhat different results4 ,he termed the second mode sexual selection1 and in his ,origin of ,species he briefly describes it as consisting in the fighting of males for the possession of females1 which undoubtedly occurs in numbers of the higher vertebrates and also in insects4 ,but he also includes under sexual selection another mode of rivalry by the display of the special male ornaments of many birds1 and the choice of the more ornamental by the females4 ,to this latter phase he devotes nearly half his volume on ,the ,descent of ,man1 and on ,selection in ,relation to ,sex4 ,selection by the fighting of males has led to the development of the stag's antlers1 the boar's tusks1 and the lion's mane serving as a shield4 ,these combats rarely lead to the death of the vanquished1 but to a larger number of offspring for the victor2 and this leads to the improvement of the race by keeping up its strength1 vigour1 and fighting power4 ,the other form of selection1 by the display of ornaments by male birds and the supposed continuous development of those ornaments by the appreciative choice of the females1 ,i believe to be imaginary4 ,i have discussed this subject in many of my books1 and my views are now generally adopted by evolutionists4 ,the fact that the colours of male insects1 especially butterflies1 are almost exactly parallel to those of birds1 first led me to this conclusion1 because we can hardly suppose insects to be endowed with any sthetic sense1 even if they really see colour at all1 which1 in my last book1 ,i have given strong reasons for doubting4 ,but in the human race the conditions are altogether different2 for while1 as ,i have shown in ,chapter ,,xiv41 the kind of natural selection which through all the ages had moulded the infinitely varied animal forms into harmony with their environment1 ceased to act upon man's body and only for a limited time upon his lower mental faculties1 sexual selection tended to act if at all prejudicially1 through polygamy1 prostitution1 and slavery1 though it possesses the potentiality of acting in the future so as to ensure ,intellectual and ,moral ,progress1 and thus elevate the race to whatever degree of civilisation and well-being it is capable of reaching in earth-life4 ,eugenics1 or ,race ,improvement through ,marriage ,the total cessation of the action of natural selection as a cause of improvement in our race1 either physical or mental1 led to the proposal of the late ,sir ,f4 ,galton to establish a new science1 which he termed ,eugenics4 ,a society has been formed1 and much is being written about checking degeneration and elevating the race to a higher level by its means4 ,sir ,f4 ,galton's own proposals were limited to giving prizes or endowments for the marriage of persons of high character1 both physical1 mental1 and moral1 to be determined by some form of inquiry or examination4 ,this may1 perhaps1 not do much harm1 but it would certainly do very little good4 ,its range of action would be extremely limited1 and so far as it induced any couples to marry each other for the pecuniary reward1 it would be absolutely immoral in its nature1 and probably result in no perceptible improvement of the race4 ,but there is great danger in such a process of artificial selection by experts1 who would certainly soon adopt methods very different from those of the founder4 ,we have already had proposals made for the segregation of the ,feeble-,minded1 while the sterilization of the unfit and of some classes of criminals is already being discussed4 ,this might soon be extended to the destruction of deformed infants1 as was actually proposed by the late ,grant ,allen2 while ,mr4 ,hiram ,m4 ,stanley1 in a work on ,our ,civilisation and the ,marriage ,problem1 proposed more far-reaching measures4 ,he says3 ,the drunkard1 the criminal1 the diseased1 the morally weak1 should never come into society4 ,not reform1 but prevention should be the cry4 ,and he hints at the methods he would adopt1 in the following passages3 ,in the true golden age1 which lies not behind but before us1 the privilege of parentage will be esteemed an honour for the comparatively few1 and no child will be born who is not only sound in body and mind1 but also above the average as to natural ability and moral force4 ,and he concludes3 ,the most important matter in society1 the inherent quality of the members of which it is composed1 should be regulated by trained specialists4 ,of course1 our modern eugenists will disclaim any wish to adopt such measures as are here hinted at1 which are in every way dangerous and detestable4 ,but ,i protest strenuously against any direct interference with the freedom of marriage1 which1 as ,i shall show1 is not only totally unnecessary1 but would be a much greater source of danger to morals and to the well-being of humanity than the mere temporary evils it seeks to cure4 ,i trust that all my readers will oppose any legislation on this subject by a chance body of elected persons who are totally unfitted to deal with far less complex problems than this one1 and as to which they are sure to bungle disastrously4 ,it is in the highest degree presumptuous and irrational to attempt to deal by compulsory enactments with the most vital and most sacred of all human relations1 regardless of the fact that our present phase of social development is not only extremely imperfect1 but1 as ,i have already shown1 vicious and rotten at the core4 ,how can it be possible to determine by legislation those relations of the sexes which shall be best alike for individuals and for the race1 in a society in which a large proportion of our women are forced to work long hours daily for the barest subsistence1 with an almost total absence of the rational pleasures of life1 for the want of which thousands are driven into wholly uncongenial marriages in order to secure some amount of personal independence or physical well-being8 ,let anyone consider1 on the one hand1 the lives of the wealthy as portrayed in the society newspapers of the day1 with their endless round of pleasure and luxury1 their almost inconceivable wastefulness and extravagance1 indicated by the cost of female dress and the fact of a thousand pounds or more being expended on the flowers for a single entertainment4 ,on the other hand1 let him contemplate the awful lives of millions of workers1 so miserably paid and with such uncertainty of work that many thousands of the women and young girls are driven on the streets as the only means of breaking the monotony of their unceasing labour and obtaining some taste of the enjoyments of life at whatever cost2 and then ask himself if the ,legislature which cannot remedy this state of things should venture to meddle with the great problems of marriage and the sanctities of family life4 ,is it not a hideous mockery that the successive ,governments which for forty years have seen the people they profess to govern so driven to despair by the vile conditions of their existence that in an ever larger and larger proportion they seek death by suicide as their only means of escape--that ,governments which have done nothing to put an end to this continuous horror of starvation and suicide1 should be thought capable of remedying some of its more terrible results1 while leaving its causes absolutely untouched8 ,it is my firm conviction1 for reasons ,i shall give farther on1 that1 when we have cleansed the ,augean stable of our present social organisation1 and have made such arrangements that all shall contribute their share either of physical or mental labour1 and that every one shall obtain the full and equal reward for their work1 the future progress of the race will be rendered certain by the fuller development of its higher nature acted on by a special form of selection which will then come into play4 ,when men and women are1 for the first time in the course of civilisation1 alike free to follow their best impulses2 when idleness and vicious or hurtful luxury on the one hand1 oppressive labour and the dread of starvation on the other1 are alike unknown2 when all receive the best and broadest education that the state of civilisation and knowledge will admit2 when the standard of public opinion is set by the wisest and the best among us1 and that standard is systematically inculcated on the young2 then we shall find that a system of truly natural selection will come spontaneously into action which will steadily tend to eliminate the lower1 the less developed1 or in any way defective types of men1 and will thus continuously raise the physical1 moral1 and intellectual standard of the race4 ,the exact mode in which this selection will operate will now be briefly explained4 ,free ,selection in ,marriage ,it will be generally admitted that although many women now remain unmarried from necessity rather than from choice1 there are always considerable numbers who feel no strong impulse to marriage1 and accept husbands to secure subsistence and a home of their own rather than from personal affection or strong sexual emotion4 ,in a state of society in which all women were economically independent1 were all fully occupied with public duties and social or intellectual pleasures1 and had nothing to gain by marriage as regards material well-being or social position1 it is highly probable that the numbers of the unmarried from choice would increase4 ,it would probably come to be considered a degradation for any woman to marry a man whom she could not love and esteem1 and this reason would tend at least to delay marriage till a worthy and sympathetic partner was encountered4 ,in man1 on the other hand1 the passion of love is more general and usually stronger2 and in such a society as here postulated there would be no way of gratifying this passion but by marriage4 ,every woman1 therefore1 would be likely to receive offers1 and a powerful selective agency would rest with the female sex4 ,under the system of education and public opinion here supposed1 there can be little doubt how this selection would be exercised4 ,the idle or the utterly selfish would be almost universally rejected2 the chronically diseased or the weak in intellect would also usually remain unmarried1 at least till an advanced period of life2 while those who showed any tendency to insanity or exhibited any congenital deformity would also be rejected by the younger women1 because it would be considered an offence against society to be the means of perpetuating any such diseases or imperfections4 ,we must also take account of a special factor1 hitherto almost unnoticed1 which would tend to intensify the selection thus exercised4 ,it is a fact well known to statisticians that although females are in excess in almost all civilised populations1 yet this is not due to a law of ,nature2 for with us1 and ,i believe in all parts of the ,continent1 more males than females are born to an amount of about #c to #d per cent4 ,but between the ages of five and thirty-five there were1 in #aiaj1 #dbbe deaths of males from accident or violence and only #acjj of females1 showing an excess of male deaths of #bibe in one year2 and for many years the numbers of this class of deaths have not varied much1 the excess of preventable deaths of males at those ages being very nearly #c1jjj annually4 ,this excess is no doubt due to boys and young men being more exposed1 both in play and work1 to various kinds of accidents than are women1 and this brings about the constant excess of females in what may be termed normal civilised populations4 ,in #aija it was about a million2 while fifty years earlier1 when the population was about half1 it was only #cei1jjj1 or considerably less than half the present proportion4 ,this is what we should expect from the constant increase of accidents and of emigration1 the effects of both of which fall most upon males4 ,it appears1 therefore1 that the larger number of women in our population to-day is not a natural phenomenon1 but is almost wholly the result of our own man-made social environment4 ,when the lives of all our citizens are accounted of equal value to the community1 irrespective of class or of wealth1 a much smaller number will be allowed to suffer from such preventable causes2 while1 as our colonies fill up with a normal population1 and the enormous areas of uncultivated or half-cultivated land at home are thrown open to our own people on the most favourable terms1 the great tide of emigration will be diminished and will then cease to affect the proportion of the sexes4 ,the result of these various causes1 now all tending to increase the numbers of the female population1 will1 in a rational and just system of society1 of which we may hope soon to see the commencement1 act in a contrary direction1 and will in a few generations bring the sexes first to an equality1 and later on to a majority of males4 ,there are some1 no doubt1 who will object that even when women have a free choice1 owing to improved economic conditions1 they will not choose wisely so as to advance the race4 ,but no one has the right to make such a statement without adducing very strong evidence in support of it4 ,we have for generations degraded women in every possible way2 but we now know that such degradation is not hereditary1 and therefore not permanent4 ,the great philosopher and seer1 ,swedenborg1 declared that whereas men loved justice1 wisdom and power for their own sakes1 women loved them as seen in the characters of men4 ,it is generally admitted that there is truth in this observation2 but there is surely still more truth in the converse1 that they do not admire those men who are palpably unjust1 stupid1 or weak1 and still less those who are distorted1 diseased1 or grossly vicious1 though under present conditions they are often driven to marry them4 ,it may be taken as certain1 therefore1 that when women are economically and socially free to choose1 numbers of the worst men among all classes who now readily obtain wives will be almost universally rejected4 ,now1 this mode of improvement by elimination of the less desirable has many advantages over that of securing early marriages of the more admired2 for what we most require is to improve the average of our population by rejecting its lower types rather than by raising the advanced types a little higher4 ,great and good men are always produced in sufficient numbers and have always been so produced in every phase of civilisation4 ,we do not need more of these so much as we want a diminution of the weaker and less advanced types4 ,this weeding-out process has been the method of natural selection1 by which the whole of the glorious vegetable and animal kingdoms have been developed and advanced4 ,the survival of the fittest is really the extinction of the unfit2 and it is the one brilliant ray of hope for humanity that1 just as we advance in the reform of our present cruel and disastrous social system1 we shall set free a power of selection in marriage that will steadily and certainly improve the character1 as well as the strength and the beauty1 of our race4 ,social ,reform and ,over-population ,one of the most general and apparently the strongest of the objections to any thorough schemes of social reform1 and especially to those that will abolish want and the constant dread of starvation is that1 in any society in which this is done early marriages will be much more numerous2 there will be no prudential checks to large families2 and in a few generations1 as ,malthus argued1 populations will increase beyond the means of subsistence4 ,then will commence a continual decrease of well-being1 culminating in universal poverty1 worse than any that now exists1 because it will be universal4 ,the following quotation from an eminent ,american writer shows that this fear has really been felt3 ,if it be true that reason must direct the course of human evolution1 and if it be also true that selection of the fittest is the only method available for that purpose2 then1 if we are to have any race-improvement at all1 the dreadful law of destruction of the weak and helpless must1 with ,spartan firmness1 be carried out voluntarily and deliberately4 ,against such a course all that is best in us revolts4#aci3;,a #aci3;,a ,professor ,joseph ,le ,conte1 in ,the ,monist1 ,vol4 ,i41 p4 #ccd4 ,a more recent writer1 ,dr4 ,w4 ,m4 ,flinders ,petrie1 the well-known ,egyptian explorer1 has put forward similar views in a tentative manner1 but clearly showing what he thinks our present state of society requires4 ,of the compensation to workmen for accident he says3 ,the immediate effect upon character is to save the careless1 thoughtless1 and incompetent from the results of their faults2 this at once reduces largely the weeding and educational effects of the bad qualities4 ,and of old-age pensions his concluding remark is3 ,nature knows of no right to maintenance1 but only the necessity of getting rid of these who need it by mending or ending them4 ,again1 as to the huge waste of infant life now going on1 which he admits is preventable and might be saved1 he remarks3 ,we must agree that it would be of the lower1 or lowest type of careless1 thriftless1 dirty1 and incapable families that the increase would be obtained4 ,is it worth while to dilute our increase of population by #aj per cent4 more of the more inferior kind8 ,and he concludes thus3 ,this movement is doing away with one of the few remains of natural weeding out of the unfit that our civilisation has left us4 ,and it will certainly cause more misery than happiness in the course of a century4#adj3;,a #adj3;,a ,janus in ,modern ,life4 ,by ,w4 ,m4 ,flinders ,petrie1 ,d4,c4,l41 ,f4,r4,s4 ,the whole book is full of such statements as the above1 for which neither facts nor arguments are given4 ,it is assumed throughout that the failures in our modern society are so through their own fault--they are wastrels--and deserve neither pity nor help4 ,he knows nothing apparently of ,dr4 ,barnardo's work in rescuing these wastrel children from the gutter and the workhouse1 treating them well and kindly1 training them in work1 and sending many thousands to ,canada4 ,a record of their subsequent life was kept1 and it was found that very few failed to do well1 while a very large majority became valuable citizens in their new home4 ,on the whole1 they were in no way inferior to the average of emigrants who go at their own expense1 and who are admitted to be among the best of our workers4 ,none of the writers of the class here quoted seem to have made themselves acquainted with the researches of ,herbert ,spencer1 ,sir ,f4 ,galton1 and others1 as to the natural laws which determine the rate of increase of population when those laws are allowed to operate freely under rational and moral social conditions4 ,a short statement of these laws will therefore be given4 ,in a remarkable essay1 first published in #aheb1 ,h4 ,spencer1 with his usual philosophical insight1 examined the facts of reproduction and population throughout the whole of the animal kingdom1 and showed that the duration of the individual life and the increase of the race varied inversely1 those groups which have the simplest organisation and the shortest lives producing the greatest number of offspring2 in other terms1 individuation and reproduction are antagonistic4 ,but individuation depends almost entirely on the development and specialisation of the nervous system1 through which alone all advance in instinct1 emotion1 and intellect is rendered possible4 ,the actual rate of increase in man has been determined by the necessities of the savage state1 in which1 as in most species of mammals1 it is usually what is just required to maintain a limited average population4 ,but with a true advance in civilisation the average duration of life increases1 and the possible increase of population under favourable conditions becomes very great1 because fertility is greater than is needed under the new conditions4 ,at present1 however1 no general advance in intellectuality has taken place2 but that the facts do accord with the theory is indicated by the common observation that highly intellectual parents do not have large families1 while the most rapid increase occurs in those classes which are engaged in healthy manual labour4 ,but a law founded on such a broad physiological basis of observation is sure to continue in action1 and we may therefore feel certain that as the intellectual level of the whole race is raised by general culture and physical health1 the law of diminishing fertility will act1 and will tend in the remote future to bring about an exact balance between the rate of increase and that of mortality4 ,a more immediate and effective check to rapid increase of population will1 however1 be brought about by the social reforms already suggested4 ,when poverty is abolished and neither economic nor social advantages will be gained by early marriage1 there can be no doubt it will be generally deferred to a later age4 ,still more effective will be the extension of the period of education or training for the whole population for several years longer than at present1 together with the growth of public opinion against all marriages between persons who have not yet begun the serious work of life4 ,it would also be an essential part of education to inculcate the delay of marriage till every opportunity has been afforded both of the parties concerned of becoming thoroughly acquainted with each other before undertaking so serious a responsibility as marriage usually involves4 ,the effect of even a few years' delay of marriage on population is very considerable4 ,sir ,f4 ,galton has shown from the best statistics available that if we compare women married at twenty with those at twenty-nine1 the comparative fertility is as #h to #e4 ,but this does not represent the whole effect on increase of population4 ,when marriage is delayed1 the time between successive generations is correspondingly increased2 and yet another effect in the same direction is produced by the fact that the greater the average age of marriage the fewer generations are alive at the same time1 and it is the combined effect of these three factors that determines the actual increase of the population due to this cause4 ,sir ,f4 ,galton gives a remarkable table showing this combined result of these causes4 ,he finds that if one hundred mothers and their daughters in each successive generation marry at twenty1 there will be an increase of such mothers in each successive generation of #aae4 ,if1 however1 they marry at twenty-nine1 each successive generation of mothers diminishes in the proportion of #jhe4 ,if this goes on for #ajh years1 the hundred mothers who marry at twenty have increased to #age1 and in #baf years to #bii2 while those who marry at twenty-nine will have decreased to #fa and #ch respectively4 ,it is therefore shown that under present social conditions the age of marriage necessary to preserve a stationary population will be somewhere between twenty and twenty-nine4 ,the above figures are1 however1 founded on special cases1 and the actual facts are so complicated by the number of childless marriages1 the rate of infantile mortality and other causes1 that they must be taken only as establishing a law of rather rapid decrease of fertility with each year's addition to the average age of marriage of the mother4 99 99 99 99 99 ,i have now1 ,i venture to hope1 established two important principles in relation to human progress4 ,in the first place1 ,i have shown that modern ideas as to the necessity of dealing directly with some of our glaring social evils1 such as race degeneration and the various forms of sexual immorality1 are fundamentally wrong and are doomed to failure so long as their fundamental causes--widespread poverty1 destitution1 and starvation--are not greatly diminished and ultimately abolished4 ,i have proved that human nature is not in itself such a complete failure as our modern eugenists seem to suppose1 but that it is influenced by fundamental laws which under reasonably just and equal economic conditions will automatically abolish all these evils4 ,in the second place1 ,i have shown that the dread of over-population as the result of the abolition of poverty is wholly and utterly fallacious--a mere bugbear created by ignorance of natural laws and of presumption in thinking that we can cure social evils while leaving the man-made causes which produce them unaltered4 ,the three great natural laws which all our would-be reformers ignore are3-- 7#a7 ,that a very moderate advance in the average age of marriage--which would certainly result from a truly rational system of education combined with economic equality--necessarily diminishes the rate of increase of the population4 7#b7 ,that every approach to educational and economic equality by effecting a large saving of the lives of males who now die from preventable causes1 combined with the fact that male births exceed those of females1 would so diminish the number of the latter that they would soon become less instead of1 as now1 more than that of males3 that this would give them an effective choice in marriage which they do not now possess1 together with the power of delay which for many reasons large numbers of them would exercise4 7#c7 ,the law of diminishing fertility with increase of brain-work through education and training would further tend to the diminution of fertility4 ,these three natural causes all tend in one direction--the equality of births with deaths2 while their action would be so readily modified by public opinion as to obviate all danger of either increase or decrease beyond what was necessary for the well-being of each community1 nation1 or race4 ,the ,future ,status of ,woman ,the foregoing statement of the effect of established natural laws1 if allowed free play under rational conditions of civilisation1 clearly indicates that the position of woman in the not distant future will be far higher and more important than any which has been claimed for or by her in the past4 ,while she will be conceded full political and social rights on an equality with man1 she will be placed in a position of responsibility and power which will render her his superior1 since the future moral progress of the race will so largely depend upon her free choice in marriage4 ,as time goes on1 and she acquires more and more economic independence1 that alone will give her an effective choice which she has never had before4 ,but this choice will be further strengthened by the fact that1 with ever-increasing approach to equality of opportunity for every child born in our country1 that terrible excess of male deaths1 in boyhood and early manhood especially1 due to various preventable causes1 will disappear1 and change the present majority of women to a majority of men4 ,this will lead to a greater rivalry for wives1 and will give to women the power of rejecting all the lower types of character among their suitors4 ,it will be their special duty so to mould public opinion1 through home training and social influence1 as to render the women of the future the regenerators of the entire human race4 ,we hope and believe that they will be fully equal to the high and responsible position which1 in accordance with natural laws1 they will be called upon to fulfil4 ,the certainty that this powerful selective agency will come into existence just in proportion as we reform our existing social system by the abolition of poverty and the establishment of full equality of opportunity in education and economic position1 demonstrates that ,nature--or the ,universal ,mind--has not failed or bungled our world so completely as to require the weak and ignorant efforts of the eugenists to set it right1 while leaving the great fundamental causes of all existing social evils absolutely untouched4 ,let them devote all their energies to purifying this whitened sepulchre of destitution and ignorance1 and the beneficent laws of human nature will themselves bring about the physical1 intellectual1 and moral advancement of our race4 ,,chapter ,,xvii ,,how ,,to ,,initiate ,,an ,,era ,,of ,,moral ,,progress ,in ,chapters ,,viii to ,,xii of this volume ,i have given in briefest outline a summary of the growth during the nineteenth century of the actual social environment in the midst of which we live4 ,we see a continuous advance of man's power to utilise the forces of ,nature1 to an extent which surpasses everything he had been able to do during all the preceding centuries of his recorded history4 ,we also see that the result of this vast economic revolution has been almost wholly evil4 ,we see that this hundredfold increase of wealth1 amply sufficient to provide necessaries1 comforts1 and all beneficial refinements and luxuries for our whole population1 has been distributed with such gross injustice that the actual condition of those who produce all this wealth has become worse and worse1 no efficient arrangements having been made that from the overflowing abundance produced all should receive the mere essentials of a healthy and happy existence4 ,we have seen huge cities grow up1 every one of them with their overcrowded1 insanitary slums1 where men1 women1 and children die prematurely as surely as though a body of secret poisoners were constantly at work to destroy them4 ,we see thousands of girls compelled by starvation to work in such an empoisoned environment as to produce horribly painful and disfiguring disease1 which is often fatal in early youth1 or in what ought to have been1 and what might have been1 the period of maximum enjoyment of their womanhood4 ,and to this very day no efficient steps have been taken to abolish these conditions4 ,we see millions still struggling in vain for a sufficiency of the bare necessaries of life 7which in their misery is all they ask71 often culminating in actual starvation1 or in suicide to which they are driven by the dread of starvation4 ,yet our ,governments1 selected from among the most educated1 the most talented1 the wealthiest of the country1 with absolute power to make what laws and regulations they please1 and an overflowing fund of accumulated wealth to draw upon1 do nothing1 although more people die annually of want than are killed in a great war1 and more children than could be slaughtered by many ,herods4 ,and while all this goes on in the depths1 where-- ,pale anguish keeps the heavy gate1 ,and the ,warder is ,despair-- a little higher up1 among the middle-men distributors of the necessaries and luxuries of life1 bribery1 adulteration1 and various forms of petty dishonesty are rampant4 ,and higher yet1 among the great ,capitalists1 the merchant ,princes1 the ,captains of industry1 we find hard taskmasters who drive down wages below the level of bare subsistence1 and who support a more gigantic and widespread system of gambling than the world has ever seen4 ,and1 finally1 our administration of what we call ,justice 7and of which we are so proud because our judges cannot be bribed7 is utterly unjust1 because it is based on a system of money fees at every step2 because it is so cumbrous and full of technicalities as to need the employment of attorneys and counsel at great cost1 and because all petty offences are punishable by fine or imprisonment1 which makes poverty itself a crime while it allows those with money to go practically free4 ,taking account of these various groups of undoubted facts1 many of which are so gross1 so terrible1 that they cannot be overstated1 it is not too much to say that our whole system of society is rotten from top to bottom1 and the ,social ,environment as a whole1 in relation to our possibilities and our claims1 is the worst that the world has ever seen4 ,such are the evil products of the social environment we have ourselves created in the course of a single century4 ,we have seen it going from bad to worse1 and have applied petty remedies here and there during the whole period2 but the evils have continued to increase4 ,it has now become clear to the more intelligent of the workers that if we wish to improve it--if we wish to prevent it from getting even worse than it is--we must deal with the root-causes of the evil and1 so far as possible1 reverse the conditions which are so demonstrably bad1 such hideous failures4 ,and1 fortunately1 this is by no means so difficult as it may seem to be1 because a large body of our thinkers and a considerable number of our workers see clearly what these root-causes are1 and1 less clearly1 how to remedy them4 ,they will1 however1 give their energetic support to any ,government that devotes itself to the task of remedying them4 ,the following are my own views as to how the problem must be attacked in order to solve it thoroughly and permanently4 ,the ,root-cause and the ,remedy ,if we review with care the long train of social evils which have grown up during the nineteenth century1 we shall find that every one of them1 however diverse in their nature and results1 is due to the same general cause1 which may be defined or stated in a variety of different ways3 7#a7 ,they are due1 broadly and generally1 to our living under a system of universal competition for the means of existence1 the remedy for which is equally universal co-operation4 7#b7 ,it may be also defined as a system of economic antagonism1 as of enemies1 the remedy being a system of economic brotherhood1 as of a great family1 or of friends4 7#c7 ,our system is also one of monopoly by a few of all the means of existence3 the land1 without access to which no life is possible2 and capital1 or the results of stored-up labour1 which is now in the possession of a limited number of capitalists and therefore is also a monopoly4 ,the remedy is freedom of access to land and capital for all4 7#d7 ,also1 it may be defined as social injustice1 inasmuch as the few in each generation are allowed to inherit the stored-up wealth of all preceding generations1 while the many inherit nothing4 ,the remedy is to adopt the principle of equality of opportunity for all1 or of universal inheritance by the ,state in trust for the whole ,community4 ,these four statements of the existing causes of all our social evils cannot1 ,i believe1 be controverted1 and the remedies for them may be condensed into one general proposition3 that it is the first duty 7in importance7 of a civilised ,government to organise the labour of the whole community for the equal good of all2 but it is also their first duty 7in time7 to take immediate steps to abolish death by starvation and by preventable disease due to insanitary dwellings and dangerous employments1 while carefully elaborating the permanent remedy for want in the midst of wealth4 ,i myself have pointed out how these two ends may be best achieved1 and hope to elaborate them4 ,in the meantime1 ,i call attention to ,mr4 ,standish ,o',grady's letter ,to the ,leaders of ,labour in ,the ,new ,age of ,november #bast1 #aiab1 in which1 after referring to the very natural dread by the rich of any such radical reorganisation of ,society1 as leading to their own financial ruin 7which it certainly need not do71 he makes the following suggestive statement1 with which ,i hope all my readers will agree3 ,but what they fail to perceive is1 that1 in a world like this1 made by infinite goodness and wisdom1 ,right is always the great stand-by for men and for ,nations1 and for the rich as well as for the poor2 and that ,wrong1 sooner or later1 ends in misery and destruction4 ,that is sound moral teaching4 ,we have been doing the ,wrong for the past century1 and we have reaped1 and are reaping1 misery and destruction4 ,it is time that we changed our methods1 which are all 7as ,i think ,i have sufficiently pointed out7 fundamentally ,wrong1 radically ,unjust1 wholly ,immoral4 ,we have ourselves created an immoral or unmoral ,social ,environment4 ,to undo its inevitable results we must reverse our course4 ,we must see that all our economic legislation1 all our social reforms1 are in the very opposite direction to those hitherto adopted1 and that they tend in the direction of one or other of the four fundamental remedies ,i have suggested4 ,in this way only can we hope to change our existing immoral environment into a moral one1 and initiate a new era of ,moral ,progress4 99 99 99 99 99 ,in ,chapters ,,xiii to ,,xvi ,i have shown that the well-established laws of ,evolution as they really apply to mankind are all favourable to the advance of true ,civilisation and of ,morality4 ,our existing competitive and antagonistic ,social ,system alone neutralises their beneficent operation4 ,that ,system must therefore be radically changed into one of brotherly co-operation and co-ordination for the equal good of all4 ,to succeed we must make this principle our guide and our pole star in all ,social legislation4 ,index ,acquired characters1 definition of1 #ajd characters1 on the heredity of1 #ajc ,adaptation1 #ajf ,adulteration1 #ee ,alcoholism1 deaths from1 #fg in women1 #fh statistics of1 #fh ,america1 ,central1 architecture of1 #cd ,animals1 natural selection among1 #ge ,anthropological ,review1 #ii ,apes1 anthropoid1 affinity with man1 #ic ,aquatic forms of life1 increase of1 #he ,archimedes1 #cd ,australian aborigines1 character of1 #cc and ,caucasians1 #cd ,barnardo1 ,dr41 #ada ,beaver1 #ie ,bimana1 #id ,brah1 ,tycho1 #bc ,brain as organ of the mind1 #id ,bribery1 #ef ,browning's1 ,mrs41 ,cry of the ,children1 #db ,buddha1 #h ,capitalism1 #aeb ,caucasians and ,australian aborigines1 #cd ,causes of economic evils1 #aed ,chambers's ,vestiges of ,creation1 #ha ,character1 definition of1 #d difficulty of knowing good from bad1 #e mental faculties and1 #e morality based upon1 #e not cumulative1 #cg of savage races1 #cb permanence of1 #h public opinion and1 #cf selective agency to improve1 #cf subject to variation1 #cf transmission of1 #d1 #g1 #cf variability and1 #hb ,characters1 acquired1 definition of1 #ajd acquired1 heredity of1 #ajc innate1 #ajd1 #aaj heredity of1 #aaj ,chemical trades1 evils of1 #ej ,child labour1 evils of1 #da1 #dc ,church1 the work of the1 #aah ,civil law system1 #fb ,civilisation during #ahth century1 #dj evolution and1 #aeg of ancient ,egypt1 #ae1 #ce of ancient ,india1 #h of ancient ,mesopotamia1 #ae ,civilisations1 ancient1 #aab ,classical writers1 our indebtedness to1 #aae ,coal mines1 accidents in1 #dc child labour in1 #dc female workers in1 #dc insecurity in1 #dc who the1 belong to1 #de ,commercial system1 immorality of our1 #ee ,companies1 ,limited ,liability1 #ef ,competition1 #aed ,conduct1 character and1 #e environment and1 #f ,confucius1 #h ,cook1 ,captain1 opinion of1 on natives of ,friendly ,isles1 #cb ,co-operation1 #aed1 #afj ,criminal law system1 #fd ,crucifer family1 increase of1 #hd ,curr1 ,mr41 opinion of1 on ,australian aborigines1 #cc ,cutlery trade1 evils of1 #ej ,daily ,citizen quoted1 #ea1 #eb ,darwin and heredity1 #ajc and natural selection1 #hg1 #ic1 #abe and transference of selection to mind1 #ii and variability1 #hb on ,tahitians1 #cb ,darwin's ,descent of ,man1 #ic1 #abe ,origin of ,species1 #hb theory of ,pangenesis1 #ajd ,darwinism and ,lamarckism1 #gh1 #ha and variability1 #hb objections to1 #he1 #ij 7,see also ,evolution1 ,lamarckism1 ,natural selection1 etc47 ,deadly trades1 #ej ,dell's1 ,j4 ,h41 ,dawning ,grey quoted1 #aag ,descent of ,man1 ,darwin's1 #ic1 #abe ,divine influx into man1 #ib1 #aae1 #aai ,divorce1 #gd ,dutt1 ,mr4 ,romesh1 quoted1 #i ,dwellings1 insanitary1 #dg ,economic advance1 evils of1 #aej antagonism1 #aee brotherhood1 #aee evils1 causes of1 #aed remedies for1 #aed ,education1 effects of1 not hereditary1 #aaa1 #aad extension of period of1 #adc national system of1 needed1 #adf of the world1 #aaa ,egypt1 astronomy in ancient1 #ah civilisation of ancient1 #ae1 #ce intellect in ancient1 #af ,eighteenth century1 stationary epoch1 #dj1 #abb ,elephants1 increase of1 #he ,environment1 laws of heredity and1 #ajc modified by man1 #ie not always responsible for specialisation1 #ajf remedies1 #aed social1 and conduct1 #f social1 character of1 #aec social1 during #aith century1 #dj social1 evils of1 causes of1 #aed ,equality of opportunity1 #aee ,erman1 ,prof4 ,adolf1 quoted1 #bf ,euclid1 #cd ,eugenics1 methods of1 #abg science of1 established by ,sir ,f4 ,galton1 #abg ,eugenists1 #adi ,evil1 origin of1 problem of1 #aah possible solution of1 #aai ,evolution1 a rational theory1 #ha acceptance of1 #ha and civilisation1 #aeg ,lamarckism and1 #ha ,chambers and1 #ha ,darwin and1 #ha exposition of1 by ,spencer1 #ha natural selection and1 #gg objections to1 #ha1 #ij variability of species1 #h1 #hb 7,see also ,darwinism1 ,lamarckism1 ,natural selection1 etc47 ,factory system1 development of1 #da evils of1 #da ,fertility1 law of diminishing1 #add1 #adg ,fines v4 imprisonment1 #fe ,friendly ,isles1 natives of1 character of1 #cb ,galton1 ,sir ,francis1 #cg eugenic theory of1 #abg on laws of increase of population1 #abg ,galvanising trade1 evils of1 #ea ,gambling1 immorality of1 #ei in trade1 #eh inconsistent attitude to1 #ei ,stock ,exchange1 #ei ,genius1 not cumulative1 #cg not necessarily hereditary1 #cg2 examples1 #ch ,gothic architecture1 #cd ,greece1 #aba architecture of ancient1 #cd ,heredity and genius1 #cg and recession to mediocrity1 #ch beneficence of law of1 #aae ,darwin and1 #ajc importance of subject1 #ajc ,lamarck and1 #ajd laws of1 and environment1 #ajc misconceptions regarding1 #ajc of innate characters1 #aaj ,herschel1 ,sir ,john1 #hb ,homer1 #h ,hominid1 #id ,human nature1 faculties of1 #ajj ,imprisonment v4 fines1 #fe ,india1 architecture of ancient1 #cd intelligence and morality in ancient1 #i1 #aa1 #ae religious conceptions in ancient1 #aa ,individuation1 #adb ,infantile mortality1 ,prof4 ,petrie on1 #adj statistics of1 #dg1 #gb ,injustice1 social1 #aee ,innate characters1 #ajd heredity of1 #aaj ,insanitary dwellings1 #dg ,intellect in ancient ,india1 #i1 #aa1 #ae permanence of1 #ae ,intellectual advance not general1 #adb ,jesus ,christ1 #aaf ,justice1 administration of1 #fb immorality of1 #ff1 #aeb ,lamarck and evolution1 #ha and heredity1 #ajd ,lamarckism1 #gh1 #hi and ,darwinism1 #gh insufficiency of1 as a theory1 #hj ,land1 access to1 #aee ,language1 #bh diversity of1 #abj lowest races possess1 #ca ,law1 civil1 system1 #fb criminal1 system1 #fd partiality of the1 #fe ,layard1 ,sir ,h41 #af ,le ,conte1 ,prof41 quoted1 #aci ,lead glaze trade1 evils of1 #ej ,lead poisoning of workers1 #ea ,life-destroying trades1 #dg ,lyell's ,principles of ,geology quoted1 #gh ,maha-,bharata1 ,indian epic1 quoted1 #h ,malthus1 #aci ,mammals1 classification of1 #id ,man1 affinity of1 with anthropoid apes1 #ic and marriage1 #acc dignity of1 #ia ,divine influx into1 #ib1 #aae1 #aai external differences between1 and apes1 #ic modifies his environment1 #ie moral sense in1 #ia nature of1 stationary1 #ajb position of1 #ia predominance of mind in1 #ih preparation of1 for progress1 #abj selection transferred to mind in1 #ii three great races of1 #ajj triumph of1 over ,nature1 #ie1 #aej ,marriage1 #adc freedom of1 insisted upon1 #abh man and1 #acc women and1 #acc ,mental faculties in formation of character1 #e ,mesopotamia1 civilisation of ancient1 #ae ,mind1 brain the organ of the1 #id predominance of1 in man1 #ih selection transferred to1 in man1 #ii ,monier-,williams1 ,sir ,m41 #aa ,monopoly1 #aee ,moral degradation1 indications of1 #fg progress1 definition of1 #a progress1 initiating new era of1 #aej progress through new form of selection1 #abe sense in man1 #ia ,morality amongst the ancients1 #h based upon character1 #e based upon human nature1 #d evolution and1 #aeg in ancient ,india1 #i no definite advance in1 #cf product of environment1 #c savages and1 #ca standards of1 varying1 #b ,morals1 definition of1 #a ,natural selection1 among animals1 #ge and evolution1 #gg and origin of species1 #hb explanation of1 #ge1 #hg modification of1 by man1 #if1 #ii modified by mind1 #ic new form of1 #abe process of1 #aab two modes of1 #abe ,nineteenth century1 environment during1 #dj movements during1 #abb reaction against forced civilisation during1 #da ,o',grady1 ,mr4 ,s41 quoted1 #aef ,oliver's1 ,sir ,t41 ,diseases of ,occupation1 #ec ,organic nature1 development of1 #aji indivisibility of1 #aji ,origin of ,species1 ,darwin's1 essential features of1 #hb ,origin of species1 natural selection essential factor in1 #hb ,overcrowding1 statistics of1 #dh ,owen1 ,sir ,richard1 and man's affinity with apes1 #id ,pall ,mall ,gazette1 reply to1 #gf ,pangenesis1 theory of1 #ajd ,park1 ,mungo1 #aja ,petrie1 ,prof41 quoted1 #aci ,plato1 #h1 #aaf ,poor ,law1 immorality of the1 #fe ,population1 increase of1 laws governing1 #ada social reform and1 #ach ,poverty1 #acj1 #adc1 #aea ,polynesian races1 character of1 #cc ,preventable deaths1 responsibility for1 #dc ,primates1 #id ,proctor1 ,mr4 ,r4 ,a41 quoted1 #ah ,progress1 moral1 definition of1 #a moral1 how to initiate era of1 #aej moral1 through new form of selection1 #abe ,prostitution1 #gc ,pyramid of ,gizeh as observatory1 #bc purpose of1 #ag structure of1 #ai ,quadrumana1 #id ,rawlinson1 #af ,reade's1 ,martyrdom of ,man1 #aac ,recession to mediocrity1 heredity and1 #ch ,religious conceptions in ancient ,india1 #aa ,remedies for economic evils1 #aed ,reproduction1 #adb ,rich1 dread of1 to social reorganisation1 #aef ,rome1 #aba ,savage races1 morality of1 #ca ,selection1 artificial1 #aje1 #abg free1 in marriage1 #acc ,selection1 natural1 action of1 transferred to mind in man1 #ii amongst animals1 #ge and origin of species1 #hb explanation of1 #ge1 #hg modification of1 by man1 #if1 #ii modified by mind1 #ic process of1 #aab two modes of1 #abe ,selection1 new form of1 #abe sexual1 #abe ,selective agency to improve character1 #cf ,sherard's1 ,mr4 ,r4 ,h41 ,white ,slaves of ,england1 #ea 7note7 ,slavery1 #b1 #aae ,slums1 #dg1 #aea ,smyth1 ,piazzi1 on ,pyramids1 #ah ,snowden1 ,philip1 #ec ,social environment and conduct1 #f character of1 #aec during #aith century1 #dj evils of1 causes and remedies of1 #aed reorganisation1 the rich and1 #aef reform1 #adc2 and over-population1 #ach ,socrates1 #h ,species1 increase of1 #hb1 #hd origin of1 natural selection1 and1 #hb variability of1 #hb ,speech as proof of intelligence1 #bh lowest races possess1 #ca origin and development of1 #bi ,spencer1 ,herbert1 #hi1 #ii1 #ajc exposition of evolutionary argument by1 #ha on laws of increase of population1 #ada ,stanley1 ,hiram ,m41 quoted1 #abh ,struggle for existence1 #he1 #hf ,suicide1 statistics of1 #gj ,survival of the fittest1 #he1 #hg1 #aci ,survival value1 #ci ,swedenborg1 #acg ,tahitians1 character of1 #cb ,tinning trade1 evils of1 #ea ,unhealthy trades1 #ej ,universe1 development and purpose of1 #aai ,variability1 character and1 #cf basic law of nature1 #if explanation of1 #hb of species1 #hb purpose of1 #ij ,vedas1 quoted1 #aa ,war1 #gd ,wealth1 increase of1 #da1 #aej ,webb1 ,mr4 ,sidney1 quoted1 #fe ,women and marriage1 #acc excess in numbers of1 #acd1 #adg future status of1 #adg in trade1 #aea ,workmen's compensation1 ,prof4 ,petrie on1 #aci ,writing as proof of intelligence1 #bh origin and development of1 #bi ,zoophytes1 #ie ,zymotic diseases #dg ,,printed ,,by ,,cassell ,,company1 ,,limited1 ,,la ,,belle ,,sauvage1 ,,london1 ,e4,c4 #aj4fac ,,transcriber',s ,,notes ,the following corrections have been made to the original text3 ,page #bf3 ,nile as a human being1 with desires1comma missing in original ,page #aac3 to luxury and civilisationoriginal has civilisa_/tion split across a line break without a hyphen ,page #afa3 ,le ,conteoriginal has ,coute1 ,prof41 quoted1 #aci #aci3;,a ,professor ,joseph ,le ,conteoriginal has ,coute1 in ,the ,monist ,in the ,index1 entries repeated across page breaks and columns have been removed4