mores, or a cloak to cover the prosecution of what unreasoning desires and interests of the old primitive order seem to demand. It is hard to find something that people want to do or do not want to have done for which so-called reasons cannot be assembled and stated sufficiently well for the purpose. But, taking societal evolution as a whole, or in long stretches, the chief way in which genuinely rational selection has been effected in the mores is through its application to the organization for societal self-maintenance. A necessary result, consequent upon selection in this range of the mores, has been a corresponding alteration in derived or dependent ranges. The obvious practical procedure, then, if one wishes to "improve" society, is to render the means of societal selfmaintenance, by judicious rational selection, better adequate to secure the ends in view. In this field the means are as readily susceptible of test as the ends are definite and concrete, and so there is some hope of attaining solid and lasting results. Then the improver might turn attention to the effort to help the secondary societal forms get into consistency or harmony with the improved primary ones. This is about as far as reason can yet go safely and

securely in societal selection. This conclusion cannot content the "world-beatifier," but it may afford a definite, though perhaps minimal hope to those whose ideals are less exalted, and who respect reason enough to wish to go a furlong with her rather than a mile, or even twain, in an emotional ecstasy.

CHAPTER VI

COUNTERSELECTION

WHILE Societal selection arises out of natural selection, and while, in its early stages, amidst unmitigated violence, it is no more than a variation on the process of nature, we have seen that it takes on, as it develops, its own characteristic mode. It becomes specifically distinguishable from natural selection. It selects upon a different set of criteria. This is because it operates as between groups rather than as between individuals, and so favors social superiorities rather than biological ones. For example, in the conflicts between the Roman legions and the Germans, the social qualities of discipline, organization, etc., were plainly favored for extension and propagation over superior physical qualities. Thus does a variation on the process of nature rise up to supplant its parent stock. It is quite understandable that an observer with eye trained upon the nature-process and the resulting survival of the

biologically fit, should conclude that societal selection is antagonistic to natural selection. Then if natural selection is selection par excellence, any selection that results in the survival of the biologically less fit must be counterselection.

By way of rendering the conception of counterselection as objective as possible, I hasten to consider a list of factors in the life of modern society which are asserted to be counterselective. I do not aim at exhaustiveness of illustration, but rather at objectivity of conception about what counterselection is thought to be; nor do I try to balance the pros and cons over the listing of any particular factor as counterselective. When I have made clear what counterselection is conceived to cover, and how it should be viewed from the standpoint of societal evolution, I wish then to show how it is proposed to do away with some of it through an ambitious program of rational selection. This will throw more light upon the difficult topic of societal selection, which is the subject we have had before us now for some time.

Darwin himself1 cites several instances of counterselection, without using the term, and 1 "Descent of Man," pp. 151 ff.

several of the authors mentioned in the Introduction to this essay have something to say along the same line. Schallmayer 1 employs the term freely and undertakes to list the social factors making for the survival of the unfit; his collection is complete enough to illustrate all the points before us. I shall try to paraphrase what he says, with such comment as seems to me likely to bring his point of view out clearly.

War and military organization, first of all, though selective upon a lower stage of culture, are now prevailingly counterselective. The best are exposed to danger, while the inferior do not see the enemy; and, even among the best, the superior man physically — the strongest, the fleetest - has little better chance of survival than his inferiors. All are "food for the bullets." And even if there is no actual war, the man in the service is exposed to diseases and temptations from which the man at home is relatively protected. Again, though he may have escaped all these ills, the former has lost

1 "Vererbung und Auslese im Lebenslauf der Völker," pp. 111 ff.

2 Most of the matter immediately following is quoted or paraphrased from an article by the author, on "Eugenics," in the Yale Review for August, 1908.