"The law of natural selection and the conception of life as a process of adjustment of the organism to its environment have become the core of the biology and the psychology of to-day. It was inevitable that the evolutionary philosophy should be extended to embrace the social phenomena of human life. The science that had traced life from protoplasm to man could not stop with explanations of his internal constitution. It must take cognizance of his manifold external relations, of the ethical groups, of the natural societies of men, and of all the phenomena that they exhibit, and inquire whether these things also are not products of the universal evolution." -Franklin Henry Giddings, "The Principles of Sociology,” p. 7. CHAPTER VII THE HERITAGE OF UNFITNESS As set forth in the preceding pages, the key to the main problems of country life is the thinning out of the rural population in consequence of industrial changes. Our discussion has dealt with the causes, the extent, and the probable continuance of this depletion. To this there has been added a brief survey of the more obvious moral results-degeneracy in the more isolated and backward regions, and ethical soundness where the adjustment to the new social order has been made. We might pass at once to the social problems upon which we seek light, but in that case we should miss the most interesting phases of the subject. We should be like the explorer who follows the Niagara through the wild and fascinating Rapids and turns aside for a shorter route to the lower lake before beholding the Falls in which the mighty forces of the river are revealed. In the rural population is a most interesting exhibition of evolutionary forces. It is beyond question that man is under that system of development through birth and death, through heredity and environment, which has filled sea and land with the countless species of living things; and this process of evolution appears in the changes we have noted. What is taking place can be understood fully only by tracing this operation of the forces that alter the forms of life as science now conceives it. A practical discussion permits only such a survey as suggests how rich the field is for the evolutionist who will cultivate it in the interest of science. All that we venture is to take glimpses of this man-making as it goes forward in country towns. To many evolution as applied to man suggests only the perplexing problem of his origin; far more important is the fact that the moment man appears he finds himself under the laws that are regnant in the transformation of living creatures. Natural selection, certainly, operates upon the human species as effectively as upon any order of life. Indeed, man is transformed under new pressures of environment more rapidly and more completely than any other creature. On the one hand, his natural feebleness and sensitiveness hasten the sifting of death, and, on the other hand, his vast diversity in mental and social and spiritual powers offers an unparalleled range to selection. The ascent to humanity, doubtless, was along the path thus marked out, and the method of progress is fixed by these conditions. The country town, once containing too many people and now depleted, presents a unique field for natural selection. Much depends upon the elements of the population lost and retained. If the best have gone, the type of man must degenerate; if the worst have dropped out, the average man must improve as the generations work out results,-unless other influences afford compensation. Our first task, as we turn to the |