Principles of western civilisation

II PROJECTED EFFICIENCY 47

(2) that throughout the higher forms of life, so far from nature tending to secure the longest life to the individual, the tendency, on the contrary, was, other things being equal, rather to shorten its duration’; and (3) that duration of life had no ultimate relation to self-realisation in the individual, but was really dependent upon conditions which involved that “its length, whether shorter or longer, was governed by the needs of the species.”* In other words, the average duration of life was an adaptation developed in the individual under the influence of Natural Selection, and in relation to principles and causes which far transcended the range of his own interests.

The fact which Professor Weismann found in the ascendant was, therefore, the need of the species as spread over a prolonged period in the conditions of life with which it was confronted. To put his meaning metaphorically, the standard corresponding to this need of the species was, as it were, projected in front of the advancing form of life. It was the average type which conformed most nearly to it that had been selected. The types in which other tendencies had found expression had not survived to represent them. Amongst forms, for instance, existing in an environment which was rapidly changing, the necessary series of variations from which adjustment could be developed, would be more suitably and easily secured in generations which were short-lived than among generations comprised of long-lived individuals. Among the latter, adjustment might fail altogether ; and their kind would, in any case, tend, after the lapse of time, to be handicapped in competition with

* The Duration of Life, p. 11. * Ibid. pp. 9, 24, 25.