annihilating inferior stocks of men. Even in combat between two antagonists it has been assumed that the weaker lost. War has been defended as the application of the principle of natural selection to human affairs although this was denied by such men as Darwin, Wallace and Kropotkin, who asserted that coöperation, not competition, was the key to human achievement. On the other hand, the antagonists of war have pointed out the terrific cost of war both in money and men, the suffering of noncombatants, the destruction of social standards. They argue that the best fitted men of contesting groups are killed and the general average of the group lowered. In reality the loss in men is most easily repaired. Probably every country involved in the late war has a larger population to-day than it had in 1914. That war has some selective effect must be admitted. The Englishmen who volunteered at once and went to the front may easily have been of higher type than the later draftees. Modern warfare does not lead to the extermination of peoples, even in such extreme cases as the massacres of the Armenians. Since bullets and gas are no respecters of persons, in so far as the army represents a cross section of the population, it is hard to see any special selective force exercised by modern warfare unless there be some arrangement which puts the most competent men in the front line and the mentally inferior in the rear where danger is least. To some extent this is true. The most serious effects of war seem to be social rather than physical; economic rather than biologic.

Caste

Complaint has been made that a caste system such as that of India, whatever its early merits as a solution of group relations, is harmful to society in the long run. The upper classes do not have to strive to maintain their position; the lower classes lose ambition to achieve. It is argued with

much force that the perpetuation of artificial distinctions by law and custom is bad. In the western cultures of to-day little limitation has been put on the development of the member of any group, yet the development of a caste system in so far as the Negro is concerned is a common American suggestion. The inherited nobility of Europe has not been very long lived. It is claimed that in France ten generations, say three hundred years, has been the limit for noble families. Of 280 houses only 20 passed the title to the eldest child nine or ten times. Among the Nobles of the Robe the average family lifetime was 230 years. This seems to have been true also in the aristocracies of Germany and England.1

Philanthropy

The critics of modern society make their chief attacks against our philanthropic programs. The argument is not that we ought to neglect the unfortunate or permit needless suffering, but that in caring for the individual we have forgotten the race. There is much truth in the charge. We save the lives of the incompetent, we educate them to some extent and encourage their marriage with the result that society is increasingly burdened financially and otherwise. Left to themselves many would perish and leave no descendants. In the discussion of human heredity it was shown that there was a real danger of the formation of defective strains. When a taxpayer finds eleven children of one couple being supported for life in a Pennsylvania institution, he may well ask why he should pay the bills. In 428 German families there were 1,705 children who lived beyond infancy, of whom 600 (35.6 per cent) were feebleminded.18 In addition we have to deal with the great families, socially as well as mentally degenerate, such as the Jukes, Ishmaelites, and Nams, where the reproduction rate is high and where the chance of any child getting a fair

start in life is exceedingly small regardless of its mental equipment. It must be admitted that these groups constitute an unsolved problem. The answer to the charge, however, is not a return to the older policy of neglect but an advance to greater control by society.

Homicide

The increase in all civilized lands of suicide and homicide is claimed to be another indication of the degeneration taking place. Between 1900 and 1911 there was an increase in suicide in the United States from 11.5 per hundred thousand of population to about 17. Since that date it has fallen somewhat. Suicide is often an indication of insanity. Schallmayer states that on later examination of 124 persons who had tried unsuccessfully to commit suicide only one, a pregnant girl, was found normal: 44 were obviously insane; 12 were epileptic; 10 were hysterical; 28 were chronic alcoholics and 29 were emotionally pathologic.19

The homicide rate climbed steadily in the United States from 1900 to 1926, according to Hoffman, reaching a total of over 11,000 per year. We have twelve times as many homicides per thousand of population as England and five and one-half times as many as Canada. In 1916, London, with a population of 7,250,000, had only 9 murders while Chicago with only one-third as large a population had 105. Murder is twice as common here as in Italy, which has the doubtful honor of standing second. In cities of a million or over the 1924 rate (10.3) was twice that of 1900.20 If it be true, as criminologists have asserted, that the normal course of crime is from assaults on persons to property offences, it seems that we have reverted to more primitive conditions due perhaps to the survival of the feeble-minded and other degenerates or else that we represent for some reason a social frontier.

THE CHARGES AGAINST CIVILIZATION

Biological and Social Remedies

In this hurried survey we have glanced at most of the charges brought against civilization. That many of the problems raised are large and important no one will deny. We have not and shall not discuss the problems or the proposed remedies. We must, however, consider briefly the accuracy of the analysis on which the charges are based. It will be recalled that we began by stating that they rested on two general grounds, interference with natural selection, and the development of bad morals.

A little reflection will show that, if the earlier discussion presented the facts, most of the charges based on the alleged interference with natural selection are not well founded. The older explanation put the cart before the horse. Whatever the causes of variation prove to be, all present evidence indicates that neither use nor disuse of any bodily organ is included. The use of spectacles has nothing to do with causing or preventing future variations of the eyes. That many persons would have to change their careers were it not for glasses is granted, but fitness for a given calling involving heavy use of the eyes, say school-teaching, depends on many things besides eyes. So, too, the harm done the individual, great as it may be, by modern industry does not alter the race stock. The children of European migrants to America or Australia have often proved stronger than their ancestors when given a more favorable environment and better food. The real secret of the riddle lies in the fact that the hardships suffered by the parents often produce a bad social environment for the children. Thus a physical injury while not affecting the race stock may lower the standard of living for the family and produce dire results. The importance of this distinction lies in the fact that it indicates the remedy. Bad conditions may not be defended

on the ground that they do not alter the race stock, for the creation of bad living conditions is quite as serious. The remedy lies, however, in social, not biological, fields. Present policies may be very bad. We can control environment to some degree, if we will.

Physical Imperfection

One main reason for the protests against civilization is that only recently has man discovered that he is far from perfect physically. Ignorant of earlier societies he tends to think that this is a recent phenomenon. There is no justification for this belief. What is happening, as in the case of the eyes, is that present use is revealing unsuspected facts. The eye was not made for long-continued study of small objects at close range. When this becomes necessary imperfections are revealed. To discover that less than 10 per cent of our children averaging eight and one-half years of age have good eyes and that 60 per cent need medical attention but reveals what sort of eyes we have. Of the children examined 88.11 per cent proved to have farsighted eyes, 4.27 per cent, nearsighted, while only 7.51 per cent were blessed with so-called normal eyes. "Simple visual acuity tests made on 42,275 students in 22 colleges and universities showed defective vision varying from 15.6 per cent to 51 per cent and averaging 37.7 per cent. The laboring class showed a range of defects from 48.3 per cent to 713 per cent-averaging 53.6 per cent." That which is thus shown to be true of the eyes is equally true of the body as a whole.21

The table below, taken from an article by E. L. Fisk, the head of the Life Extension Institute, indicates how few men are physically sound, and how the judgments of observers differ. Normal vision is not perfect vision. The normal man is far from being an ideal (as every wife discovers sooner or later).