The Pleasantville press. (Pleasantville, N.J.) 1912-1929, 1916-10-07
SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST.

Of recent years volumes have been
written in defense of the scheme of
life defined in the above phrase. Its
advocates refer US to nature in all
her wondrous workings-the manner
in which she accurately fulfills the
biblical promise that ITO him that
hath shall be given; but from him
that hath not, shall be taken away
even that he hath"
Perhaps no scheme of life half SO
pernicious has ever been promulgated
by sane men in any age of the world.
True, nature, in the person of the
brute, works strictly along this line.
1t is absolutely necessary there. 1t
is necessary from the fact unless ev-
cry energy of the brute were given
to the task of preserving self, then
self, as represented by the brute,
would soon cease to exist.
Scientists define the difference be-
tween mar and the brute thusly: The
brute knows, but knows not that it
knows. Man knows, and knows that
he knows. And in these truths lie
the great danger to humanity of the
Survival of the fittest" theory. The
brute, knowing not that it knows, rec
ognizes absolutely 40 rights but its
does not exist. Nature has equipped
it to make of self the very best speci-
men possible, ever to the absorbing
in many instances of the rights and
very persons of all others. That is
it's first instinct, and were any other
course followed it would be fatal to
the life of the brute creation.
But when, through the faithful ad-
herance to this primal instinct, the
brute has reached brute perfection
we'll, it's nothing but a brute anyway.
A magnificent brute it may be, but
merely a brute.
With man, however, the reverse is
true. Knowing, and knowing that
he knows, he consequently must know
that he has rights. That being the
case, he is compelled to know that
all others (who are in every way
as essential as himself) must have
rights coequal with his own. There
in lies his utter futility in attempting
to usurp any of the rights of others
without doing violence to his own
character. In brief, the moment he
attempts to survive at the expense OF
the weaker brother, just that NOM
ent he becomes most emphatically the
"unfittest" in every sense of the brute.
He becomes as the brute.
So much for "the survival of the
fittest."
But what about the survival of the
"unfittest?"
That is a subject that might we'll
engage the attention of the advocates
of eugenics and other would-be up
lifters," of the human race. Go after
the man who has never had a chance
and give him a character. Lift up
the brother who has fallen by the
way and start him on the road again.
Encourage the respondent. Help the
weak. Strive to equallize the bur-
dens of life. If all would act thus
there soon would be no unfit. All
would be fit.
"The survival of the fttest," as ap.
piled to man, means a race OF splendid
brutes.
The "revival of the unfittest," as
applied to man, means an ultimate
approach to the grand ideal conceived
in his creation. "In the image OF his
Maker"
Theodore Roosevelt gave utterance
to one phrase which should make his
name immortal, will make it so. He
| will be remembered by future genera
lions as the one who demanded for
every man a square deal"-a sermon
-, - ron4anao