Note 6 — Chapter III · NATURAL SELECTION AND THE LAW OF LOVE

We have seen that Huxley's assertion of the fundamental opposition between moral and cosmic evolution is unwarrantable. We do recognise, however, that in our present practice this opposition exists. Our ancestors were cruel to the insane, but at least they prevented them from multiplying. We are blindly kind to them, and therefore in the long run cruel. But the dilemma, kind to be cruel, or cruel to be kind, is not necessary. It is quite possible, as we have asserted, to be at once kind to the individual and protective of the future. On the other hand, it is also possible to be cruel to both. The London County Council offers us, at the time of writing, a demonstration of this. Sending wretched inebriates on the round of police-court, prison and street, with intermittent gestations, rather than expend a shilling a day, per individual, in decently detaining them, it serves at least the philosophic purpose of demonstrating that it is possible to combine the maximum of brutality to the individual and the present with the maximum of injury to the race and the future.