Note 19 — Chapter II
Henry P. (Henry Pomeroy) Horton translation
I could easily cite a number of celebrated authors who are unanimously of the opinion that the conquerors in the present struggle are not such because they are naturally superior.19 I will confine myself to recalling the opinion of one whose authority no one will contest, namely, Charles Darwin. Here is what Wallace says: “In one of my last conversations with Darwin he expressed himself as having very little hope of the future of humanity, and this upon the basis of his observation that in our modern civilization natural selection does not occur, and the fittest does not survive. The victors in the struggle for gold are by no means the best or the most intelligent, and it is a well known fact that our population reproduces itself in each generation much more rapidly among the lower than among the middle and upper classes.”20