The Pioche weekly record. [volume] (Pioche, Nev.) 1877-1900, 1895-02-28
LIES JOURNEY.
Civilization and the Struggle for
an Existence,
d" THE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST."
Instead of Animal Rapine we Have In
dustrial Competition-Confiict Car
rled on by Clever Devices.

In the case of civilized man, natural
selection is subject to numerous and
extensive limitations. The struggle for
existence still goes ON vehemently
enough; but it is changed in character;
and instead of animal rapine we have
industrial competition. The brutal
and relentless acts of self-assertion
that in savage state secured the sur
vival OF the fittest-that is to say. of
those best adapted to savage surround
ings-have been condemned as unsuita.
BILE to more artificial existence, ana
are punished as crimes, and the con-
fiict is carried ON by cunning devices
which abolish the weakest slowly and
unobtrusively, and do not outrage
certain moral feelings opposed to vio-
lence which have in the meantime
grown up. But, more than that, in
social progress the struggle for exist
ence becomes in certain directions a
surrender, not Of the feeblest, but of
the strongest and the best. A recogni-
ton of the obligations which man
owes to his fellow-men and the prompt
ings of "loves' divine self. abnegation"
impose restraints on some of the COM
petitors who, instead of forcing their
way to the front, as they are we'll able
to do, stand aside, and allow them
selves to be beaten by those less fitted
to survive. To adapt the illustrations
OF Nautilus, nature still spreads her
feast for twenty guests, while thirty
stand by ready to partake of it. but,
whereas in primitive times, the twenty
strongest would have unhesitatingly
appropriated the sustenance, in these
more virtuous days fifteen of the
strongest and five of the weakest
secure it, because five of the strongest
have chosen to abrogate their natural
claims. The census returns clearly
show that while the usual age of mar
riage in this country steadily rises
among the educated and affluent
classes, it remains painfully low in
agricultural districts and in the poorer
quarters of the great towns
The interference with the struggle
for existence which civilization and
ethical development involve is familiar
to medical men above all others, for
their professional career is one sus-
tanned endeavor to prevent the exter-
mination of the unfittest and, therefore,
to check the operation of natural selec.
ton. 1t is theirs to succor the victims
who have been smitten in the fight and
who, but for their aid would perish;
1T is theirs to preserve weakly lives
which. left unprotected, would be
ruthlessly stamped out; it is theirs to
circumvent conquering bacteria, and
so prevent mortality and swell the
millions contending for bare subsis-
tence; it is theirs, as the chosen min
listers of the higher ethics, on the one
hand, to counterfeit the life-destorying
checks which operate chiefly on the
feeble and incompetent, and, ON the
other, to inculcate the prudential con-
, siderations which are most influential
with the finest types Of mankind. No
doubt the wider scope which modern
science has given to medical practice
enables those who pursue it to render
services to the strong as well as to
the weak, and to compensate in some
degree for the general lowering of
vitality which the maintenance of
sickly lives tends to produce. Sanitary
improvements and the removal of many
of the causes of disease not only keep
the infirm alive, but insure increased
vigor to the constitutions of the robust
But still the result of medical work
as whole at the present time must
tend toward the intensifcation and the
thwarting of the struggle for existence,
and perhaps to some deterioration of
the species; for medical work does in
termeddle with natures rough and
ready methods in selecting her breed.
ers. Great numbers of weakly infants
who would formerly have persisted in
their infancy are now reared to
weakly maturity, and enabled to pro-
. pagate their weakness for the weakly
are often highly prolific, while they
,, take part in the life battle on terms
sometimes made unduly favorable to
them by the commiseration that their
weakness commands; and this fact
ought not to be lost sight of when we
are congratulating ourselves on our
greatly diminished death rate. An
enormous saving of life has been effect
ed. but mainly in life's earlier decades.
= The death-rate is actually increasing
D among males at all ages above thirty
Q fve, and among females at all ages
, above forty-tve; and it is not difficult
! to prove that this increased mortality
S at post-meridian ages is due, partly to
the enhanced wear and tear of modern
} existence. and partly to the survival of
5 weakly lives artificially protected and
, prolonged. - Sir James Crichton
0 browne. M. D., in Popular Science
, Monthly.