d to the conditions under which it is
living, or to its environment. As a matter of fact, it is the
general opinion that in practically all fields this principle works
toward progress in the highest and best sense; but it is always a
matter for specific study as well as of great scientific interest
and importance, to determine where and how the variation and the
corresponding selection tend to promote the morally good.
Especially is this true in the study of society, where we should
endeavor to see whether or not the "fittest" means also the highest
from the moral and religious point of view.

The story of the flood gives us a most interesting example of the
way in which the ancient Hebrews looked upon such a process of
selection in the moral and religious world and taught it as a
divine principle. It is, therefore, one of the most suggestive and
interesting of the writings of the early Israelites.

VI.

THE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST IN SOCIAL AND POLITICAL LIFE.

From our modern point of view, the ancient Hebrew writers had a far
deeper knowledge of moral and religious questions than of natural
science. They had a far keener sense of what was socially
beneficial than of what was scientifically true. However we may
estimate their knowledge of geology and biology, we must grant that
their beliefs regarding the good and ill effects of human action
have in them much that is universally true, even though we may not
follow them throughout in their theories of divine wrath and
immediate earthly punishment of the wicked.

But is it not true almost invariably, if we look at social
questions of every kind in a comprehensive way, that the survival
of the fittest means the survival of the morally best? That the
religion which endures is of the highest type? Business success in
the long run, is so strongly based upon mutual confidence and
trust, that, especially in these later days of credit organization,
the dishonest man or even the tricky man cannot prosper long. A
sales manager of a prominent institution said lately that the chief
difficulty that he had with his men was to make them always tell
the truth. For the sake of making an important sale they were
often inclined to misrepresent his goods. "But nothing," he added,
"will so surely kill all business as misrepresentation." Even a
gambling book-maker on the race tracks in New York, before such
work was forbidden by law, is said to have proudly claimed that