Principles of western civilisation

42 WESTERN CIVILISATION CHAP.

generation. The qualities with which he dealt were simply those which had relation to success or survival for the time being in this struggle. They had no relation to any other function or utility whatever.

Now it will be seen, if the present condition of knowledge is compared with that at the period at which Darwin thus left the hypothesis of Natural Selection, that a development of great significance has taken place—a development which must inevitably be associated in the future with a shifting of the channels in which thought has hitherto flowed. While, on one hand, the distinctive Darwinian principle of Natural Selection holds its ground with all its old significance, the free struggle for existence in the present and the qualities necessary to success therein, which Darwin saw shaping the whole course of progress, is, on the other hand, coming slowly but surely to occupy a changed position in relation to this law. We see the curtain being gradually lifted, as it were, from a wider range of phenomena behind, to which the interests of the existing generation of individuals in this struggle are coming to stand in altogether subordinate relationship.

When we look at the statement of the law of Natural Selection as Darwin left it, it may be perceived on reflection that there is a consequence involved in it which is not at first sight apparent. It is evident that the very essence of the principle is that it must act in the manner in which it produces the most effective results. It must act through the medium of the largest numbers. The qualities in favour of which it must, in the longrun, consistently discriminate are those which most