Page:George Archdall Reid 1896 The present evolution of man.djvu/351



important considerations now demand our attention. The whole organic world has arisen through the action of Natural Selection, under which general heading should properly he included the various special forms of selection—sexual, artificial, disease, alcoholic, &c. But whenever the stringency of selection is abated, every type, whether plant or animal, throughout the whole organic world, constantly displays a tendency towards retrogression, the strength of which is strictly proportionate to the rapidity of the previous evolution. Now we have no reason to suppose that races that have undergone evolution through the operation of Alcoholic Selection are less liable to undergo retrogression when the stringency of that selection is abated, than are races or types which have undergone evolution under any other form of Natural Selection. On the contrary, we have every reason to suppose, since inborn traits alone are transmissible, that when the stringency of Alcoholic Selection is abated, when the unfittest survive and have offspring as well as the fittest, when the innately intemperate have as much influence on posterity as the innately temperate, alcoholic retrogression will ensue, and therefore that a race that has undergone Alcoholic Evolution will, under such circumstances, undergo Alcoholic Retrogression, and revert to the ancestral type in which the craving was greater. It follows, then, if by any means we cause relaxation of