tions, may be traced here in its mental applications. Removal of certain difficulties and dangers which have to be met by intelligence and activity, is followed by a decreased ability to meet difficulties and dangers. Among children born to the more capable who marry with the less capable, thus artificially preserved, there is not simply a lower average power of self- preservation than would else have existed, but the incapacity reaches in some cases a greater extreme. Smaller difficulties and dangers become fatal in proportion as greater ones are warded off. Nor is this the whole mischief. For such mem bers of a population as do not take care of themselves, but are taken care of by the rest, inevitably bring on the rest extra exertion; either in supplying them with the necessaries of life, or in maintaining over them the required supervision, or in both. That is to say, in addition to self -conservation and the conservation of their own offspring, the best, having to undertake the conservation of the worst, and of their off spring, are subject to an overdraw upon their energies. In. some cases this stops them from marrying; in other cases it diminishes the numbers of their children; in other cases it causes inadequate feeding of their children; in other cases it brings their children to orphanhood — in every way tending to arrest the increase of the best, to deteriorate their consti tutions, and to pull them down towards the level of the worst.
Fostering the good-for-nothing at the expense of the good, is an extreme cruelty. It is a deliberate storing-up of miseries for future generations. There is no greater curse to posterity than that of bequeathing them an increasing population of imbeciles and idlers and criminals. To aid the bad in multi plying, is, in effect, the same as maliciously providing for our descendants a multitude of enemies. It may be doubted whether the maudlin philanthropy which, looking only at di rect mitigations, persistently ignores indirect mischiefs, does not inflict a greater total of misery than the extremest selfishness inflicts. Eefusing to consider the remote influences of his in continent generosity, the thoughtless giver stands but a de gree above the drunkard who thinks only of to-day's pleasure and ignores to-morrow's pain, or the spendthrift who seeks immediate delights at the cost of ultimate poverty. In one PREPARATION IN BIOLOGY. 315 respect, indeed, he is worse; since, while getting the present pleasure produced in giving pleasure, he leaves the future miseries to be borne by others — escaping them himself. And calling for still stronger reprobation is that scattering of money prompted by misinterpretation of the saying that "charity covers a multitude of sins." For in the many whom this misinterpretation leads to believe that by large donations they can compound for evil deeds; we may trace an element of positive baseness— an effort to get a good place in another world, no matter at what injury to fellow-crea tures.
How far the mentally-superior may, with a balance of bene fit to society, shield the mentally-inferior from the evil results of their inferiority, is a question too involved to be here dis cussed at length. Doubtless it is in the order of things that parental affection, the regard of relatives, and the spontane ous sympathy of friends and even of strangers, should miti gate the pains which incapacity has to bear, and the penalties which unfit impulses bring round. Doubtless, in many cases the reactive influence of this sympathetic care which the better take of the worse, is morally beneficial, and in a degree com pensates by good in one direction for evil in another. It may be fully admitted that individual altruism, left to itself, will work advantageously — wherever, at least, it does not go to the extent of helping the unworthy to multiply. But an unques tionable injury is done by agencies which undertake in a wholesale way to foster good-for-nothings: putting a stop to that natural process of elimination by which society continu ally purifies itself. For not only by such agencies is this preservation of the worst and destruction of the best carried further than it would else be, but there is scarcely any of that compensating advantage which individual altruism implies.
A mechanically-working State-apparatus, distributing money drawn from grumbling ratepayers, produces little or no moralizing effect on the capables to make up for multiplica tion of the incapables. Here, however, it is needless to dwell on the perplexing questions hence arising. My purpose is simply to show that a rational policy must recognize certain general truths of Biology; and to insist that only when study of these general truths, as illustrated throughout the living 316 THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY.
world, has woven them into the conceptions of things, is there gained a strong conviction that disregard of them must cause enormous mischiefs.1 Biological truths and their corollaries, presented under these special forms as bases for sociological conclusions, are introductory to a more general biological truth including them — a general biological truth which underlies all rational legislation. I refer to the truth that every species of organ ism, including the human, is always adapting itself, both directly and indirectly, to its conditions of existence.
The actions which have produced every variety of man, — the actions which have established in the Negro and the Hindu, constitutions that thrive in climates fatal to Euro peans, and in the Fuegian a constitution enabling him to bear without clothing an inclemency almost too great for other races well clothed — the actions which have developed in the Tartar-races nomadic habits that are almost insurmountable, while they have given to North American Indians desires and aptitudes which, fitting them for a hunting life, make a civilized life intolerable — the actions doing this, are also ever at work moulding citizens into correspondence with their cir cumstances. While the bodily natures of citizens are being fitted to the physical influences and industrial activities of their locality, their mental natures are being fitted to the structure of the society they live in. Though, as we have seen, there is always an approximate fitness of the social unit to its social aggregate, yet the fitness can never be more than approximate, and re-adjustment is always going on. Could a society remain unchanged, something like a permanent equi librium between the nature of the individual' and the nature of the society would presently be reached. But the type of each society is continually being modified by two causes— by growth, and by the actions, warlike or other, of adjacent societies. Increase in the bulk of a society inevitably leads to change of structure; as also does any alteration in the ratio of the predatory to the industrial activities. Hence con tinual social metamorphosis, involving continual alteration of the conditions under which the citizen lives, produces in him an adaptation of character which, tending towards com- PREPARATION IN BIOLOGY. 317 pleteness, is ever made incomplete by further social meta morphosis.
While, however, each society, and each successive phase of each society, presents conditions more or less special, to which the natures of citizens adapt themselves; there are certain general conditions which, in every society, must be fulfilled to a considerable extent before it can hold together, and which must be fulfilled completely before social life can be complete. Each citizen has to carry on his activities in such ways as not to impede other citizens in the carrying-on of their activities more than he is impeded by them. That any citizen may so behave as not to deduct from the aggregate welfare, it is need ful that he shall perform such function, or share of function, as is of value equivalent at least to what he consumes; and it is further needful that, both in discharging his function and in pursuing his pleasure, he shall leave others similarly free to discharge their functions and to pursue their pleasures. Obviously a society formed of units who cannot live without mutual hindrance, is one in which the happiness is of smaller amount than it is in a society formed of units who can live without mutual hindrance — numbers and physical conditions being supposed equal. And obviously the sum of happiness in such a society is still less than that in a society of which the units voluntarily aid one another.
Now, under one of its chief aspects, civilization is a process of developing in citizens a nature capable of fulfilling these all-essential conditions; and, neglecting their superfluities, laws and the appliances for enforcing them, are expressions and embodiments of these all-essential conditions. On the one hand, those severe systems of slavery, and serfdom, and punishment for vagabondage, which characterized the less- developed social types, stand for the necessity that the social unit shall be self-supporting. On the other hand, the punish ments for murder, assault, theft, etc., and the penalties on breach of contract, stand for the necessity that, in the coiirse of the activities by which he supports himself, the citizen shall neither directly injure other citizens, nor shall injure them indirectly, by taking- or intercepting the returns their activi ties bring. And it needs no detail to show that a fundamental trait in social progress, is an increase of industrial energy, 318 THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY.
leading citizens to support themselves without being coerced in the harsh ways once general; that another fundamental trait is the gradual establishment of such a nature in citizens that, while pursuing their respective ends, they injure and impede one another in smaller degrees; and that a concomi tant trait is the growth of governmental restraints which more effectually check the remaining aggressiveness. That is to say, while the course of civilization shows us a clearer rec ognition and better enforcement of these essential conditions, it also shows us a moulding of humanity into correspondence with them.
Along with the proofs thus furnished that the biological law of adaptation, holding of all other species, holds of the human species, and that the change of nature undergone by the human species since societies began to develop, has been an adaptation of it to the conditions implied by harmonious social life, we receive the lesson, that the one thing needful is a rigorous maintenance of these conditions. While all -see that the immediate function of our chief social institutions is the securing of an orderly social life by making these condi tions imperative, very few see that their further function, and in one sense more important function, is that of fitting men to fulfil these conditions spontaneously. The two functions are inseparable. From the biological laws we have been contem plating, it is, on the one hand, an inevitable corollary that if these conditions are maintained, human nature will slowly adapt itself to them; while, on the other hand, it is an inevit able corollary that by no other discipline than subjection to these conditions, can fitness to the social state be produced. Enforce these conditions, and adaptation to them will con tinue. Relax these conditions, and by so much there will be a cessation of the adaptive changes. Abolish these conditions, and after the consequent social dissolution, there will com mence (unless they are re-established) an adaptation to the conditions then resulting — those of savage life. These are con clusions from which there is no escape, if Man is subject to the laws of life in common with living things in general.
It may, indeed, be rightly contended that if those who are but little fitted to the social state are rigorously subjected to these conditions, evil will result: intolerable restraint, if it PREPARATION IN BIOLOGY. 319 does not deform or destroy life, will be followed by violent re action. We are taught by analogy, that greatly-changed cir cumstances from which there is no escape, fail to produce adaptation because they produce death. Men having consti tutions fitted for one climate, cannot be fitted to an extremely- different climate by persistently living in it, because they do not survive, generation after generation. Such changes can be brought about only by slow spreadings of the race through intermediate regions having intermediate climates, to which successive generations are accustomed little by little. And doubtless the like holds mentally. The intellectual and emotional natures required for high civilization, are not to be obtained by thrusting on the completely-uncivilized, the need ful activities and restraints in unqualified forms: gradual de cay and death, rather than adaptation, would result. But so long as a society's institutions are indigenous, no danger is to be apprehended from a too-strict maintenance of the condi tions to the ideally-best social life; since there can exist neither the required appreciation of them nor the required ap pliances for enforcing them. Only in those abnormal cases where a race of one type is subject to a race of much-superior type, is this qualification pertinent. In our own case, as in the cases of all societies having populations approximately homogeneous in character, and having institutions evolved by that character, there may rightly be aimed at the greatest rigour possible. The merciful policy, no less than the just policy, is that of insisting that these all-essential requirements of self-support and non-aggression, shall be conformed to the just policy, because failing to insist is failing to protect the better or more-adapted natures against the worse or less- adapted; the merciful policy, because the pains accompany ing the process of adaptation to the social state must be gone through, and it is better that they should be gone through once than gone through twice, as they have to be when any relaxation of these conditions permits retrogression.
Thus, that which sundry precepts of the current religion embody — that which ethical systems, intuitive or utilitarian, equally urge, is also that which Biology, generalizing the laws of life at large, dictates. All further requirements are unim portant compared with this primary requirement, that each 320 THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY.
shall so live as neither to burden others nor to injure others. And all further appliances for influencing the actions and natures of men, are unimportant compared with those serving to maintain and increase the conformity to this primary re quirement. But unhappily, legislators and philanthropists, busy with schemes which, instead of aiding adaptation, indi rectly hinder it, give little attention to the enforcing and im proving of those arrangements by which adaptation is ef fected.
And here, on behalf of the few who uphold this policy of natural discipline, let me emphatically repudiate the name of laissez-faire as applied to it, and emphatically condemn the counter-policy as involving a laissez-faire of the most vicious kind. While holding that, when the State leaves each citizen to get what food for himself he can, and to suffer what evil he brings on himself, such a let-alone policy is eventually bene ficial; I contend that, when the State leaves him to bear the evils inflicted by other citizens, and can be induced to defend him only at a ruinous cost, such a let-alone policy is both im mediately and remotely injurious. When a Legislature takes from the worthy the things they have laboured for, that it may give to the unworthy the things they have not earned — when cause and consequence, joined in the order of Nature, are thus divorced by law-makers; then may properly come the sug gestion — " Cease your interference." But when, in any way, direct or indirect, the unworthy deprive the worthy of their dues, or impede them in the quiet pursuit of their ends, then may properly come the demand — " Interfere promptly; and be, in fact, the protectors you are in name." Our politicians and philanthropists, impatient with a salutary laissez-faire, tolerate and even defend a laissez-faire that is in the high est degree mischievous. Without hesitation, this regulative agency we call the Government takes from us some £100,000 a year to pay for Art-teaching and to establish Art-museums; while, in guarding us against robbers and murderers, it makes conviction difficult by demurring to the cost of necessary evidence: even the outlay for a plan, admitted by the taxing- master, being refused by the Treasury! Is not that a disastrous laissez-faire? While millions are voted without a murmur for an expedition to rescue a meddling consul from a half- PREPARATION IN BIOLOGY. 32!
savage king1, our Executive resists the spending- of a few extra thousands to pay more judges: the result being not simply vast arrears and long delays, but immense injustices of other kinds, — costs being run up in cases which lawyers know will never be heard, and which, when brought into court, the over-burdened judges get rid of by appointing junior counsel as referees: an arrangement under which the suitors have not simply to pay over again all their agents, at extra rates, but have also to pay their judges.3 Is not that, too, a flagitious laissez-faire? Though, in our solicitude for Negroes, we have been spending £50,000 a year to stop the East- African slave-trade, and failing to do it, yet only now are we provid ing protection for our own sailors against unscrupulous ship owners — only now have sailors, betrayed into bad ships, got something more than the option of risking death by drowning or going to prison for breach of contract! Shall we not call that, also, a laissez-faire that is almost wicked in its indiffer ence? At the same time that the imperativeness of teaching all children to write, and to spell, and to parse, and to know where Timbuctoo lies, is being agreed to with acclamation, and vast sums raised that these urgent needs may be met, it is not thought needful that citizens should be enabled to learn the laws they have to obey; and though these laws are so many commands which, on any rational theory, the Govern ment issuing them ought to enforce, yet in a great mass of cases it does nothing when told that they have been broken, but leaves the injured to try and enforce them at their own risk, if they please. Is not that, again, a demoralizing laissez- faire — an encouragement to wrong-doing by a half-promise of impunity? Once more, what shall we say of the laissez- faire which cries out because the civil administration of jus tice costs us £800,000 a year — because to protect men's rights we annually spend half as much again as would build an ironclad! — because to prevent fraud and enforce contracts we lay out each year nearly as much as our largest distiller pays in spirit-duty! — what, I ask, shall we say of the laissez-faire which thus thinks it an extravagance that one-hundredth part of our national revenue should go in maintaining the vital condition to national well-being? Is not that a laissez-faire which we might be tempted to call insane, did not most sane 322 THE STUDY OP SOCIOLOGY.
people agree in it? And thus it is throughout. The policy of quiescence is adopted where active interference is all-essen tial; while time, and energy, and money, are absorbed in interfering with things that should be left to themselves. Those who condemn the let-alone policy in respect to matters which, to say the least, are not of vital importance, advocate or tolerate the let-alone policy in respect to vitally-important matters. Contemplated from the biological point of view, their course is doubly mischievous. They impede adaptation of human nature to the social state, both by what they do and by what they leave undone.
Neither the limits of this chapter, nor its purpose, permit exposition of the various other truths which Biology yields as data for Sociology. Enough has been said in proof of that which was to be shown — the use of biological study as a prep aration for grasping sociological truths.
The effect to be looked for from it, is that of giving strength and clearness to convictions otherwise feeble and vague. Sun dry of the doctrines I have presented under their biological aspects, are doctrines admitted in considerable degrees. Such acquaintance with the laws of life as they have gathered in cidentally, lead many to suspect that appliances for preserv ing the physically-feeble, bring results that are not wholly good. Others there are who occasionally get glimpses of evils caused by fostering the reckless and the stupid. But their suspicions and qualms fail to determine their conduct, because the inevitableness of the bad consequences has not been made adequately clear by the study of Biology at large. When countless illustrations have shown them that all strength, all faculty, all fitness, presented by every living thing, has arisen partly by a growth of each power consequent on exercise of it, and partly by the more frequent survival and greater multi plication of the better-endowed individuals, entailing gradual disappearance of the worse-endowed — when it is seen that all perfection, bodily and mental, has been achieved through this process, and that suspension of it must cause cessation of prog ress, while reversal of it would bring universal decay — when it is seen that the mischiefs entailed by disregard of these truths, though they may be slow, are certain; there comes a PREPARATION IN BIOLOGY. 333 conviction that social policy must be conformed to them, and that to ignore them is madness.