Social Environment and Moral Progress |
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abolish action adapted Adolf Erman advance Alpha Draconis ancient artificial selection astronomical Australian Aborigines average body Caucasian race causes CHAPTER character Darwin death degradation degree earliest early earth effect Egypt Egyptian emotional enormous equal evils evolution existence facts feet gallery gambling give Herbert Spencer hereditary heredity Home Office horrors human nature hymn immoral increase individual intellectual and moral kind king known labour large numbers lead less living lower animals lowest Maha-Bharata mankind marriage ment mental faculties Mesopotamia Moral Progress natural selection nineteenth century observations perhaps period persons physical pole star population possess produced proportion pyra Pyramid builders Pyrrho race racter remedy render result Romesh Dutt Savitri selective agency shown slaves social environment species speech supposed survival term terrible tion to-day tunnel varied various Varuna vast wealth whole women workers workhouse wrong Yama
Popular passages
Page 11 - What god shall we adore with sacrifice? Him let us praise, the golden child that rose In the beginning, who was born the lord — The one sole lord of all that is — who made The earth, and formed the sky, who giveth life, Who giveth strength, whose bidding gods revere, Whose hiding-place is immortality. Whose shadow, death ; who by his might is king Of all the breathing, sleeping, waking world.
Page 11 - The mighty Varuna, who rules above, looks down Upon these worlds, his kingdom, as if close at hand. When men imagine they do ought by stealth, he knows it. No one can stand or walk or softly glide along Or hide in dark recess, or lurk in secret cell, But Varuna detects him and his movements spies.
Page 11 - No power can rob us of the home thus won by thee. 0 king, we come ; the born must die, must tread the path That thou hast trod — the path by which each race of men, In long succession, and our fathers too, have passed. Soul of the dead ! depart ; fear not to take the road — The ancient road — by which thy ancestors have gone ; Ascend to meet the god — to meet thy happy fathers, Who dwell in bliss with him. Fear not to pass the guards — The four-eyed brindled dogs — that watch for the...
Page 11 - Whose hiding place is immortality, Whose shadow, death ; who by his might is king Of all the breathing, sleeping, waking world — Who governs men and beasts, whose majesty These snowy hills, this ocean with its rivers, Declare ; of whom these spreading regions form The arms ; by whom the firmament is strong, Earth firmly planted, and the highest heavens Supported, and the clouds that fill the air Distributed and measured out ; to whom Both earth and heaven, established by his will, Look up with...
Page 137 - If it be true that reason must direct the course of human evolution, and if it be also true that selection of the fittest is the only method available for that purpose ; then, if we are to have any raceimprovement at all, the dreadful law of destruction of the weak ii nd helpless must with Spartan firmness be carried out voluntarily and deliberately. Against such a course all that is best in us revolts.
Page 130 - ... will admit; when the standard of public opinion is set by the wisest and the best among us, and that standard is systematically inculcated on the young; then we shall find that a system of truly natural selection will come spontaneously into action which will steadily tend to eliminate the lower, the less developed, or in any way defective types of men, and will thus continuously raise the physical, moral, and intellectual standard of the race.
Page 128 - I have already shown, vicious and rotten at the core. How can it be > possible to determine by legislation those relations of the sexes which shall be best alike for individuals and for the race, in a society in which a large proportion of our women are forced to work long hours daily for the barest subsistence, with an almost total absence of the rational pleasures of life, for the want of which thousands are driven into wholly uncongenial marriages in order to secure some amount of personal independence...
Page 151 - Taking account of these various groups of undoubted facts, many of which are so gross, so terrible, that they cannot be overstated, it is not too much to say that our whole system of society is rotten from top to bottom, and the Social Environment as a whole, in relation to our possibilities and , our claims, is the worst that the world has ever seen.
Page 8 - In the earliest records which have come down to us from the past, we find ample indications that general ethical considerations and conceptions, the accepted standard of morality, and the conduct resulting from these were in no degree inferior to those which prevail to-day.
Page 126 - He argues that, unless some effective measures are soon adopted and strictly enforced, our case will be irremediable; and, since natural selection fails so largely, recourse must be had to artificial selection. "The drunkard, the criminal, the diseased, the morally weak should never come into society. Not reform, but prevention, should be the cry.