Here is what Conan Doyle had Sherlock Holmes say to Watson on that subject: “When one tries to rise above nature, one is liable to fall below it. The highest type of man may revert to the animal, if he leaves the straight road of destiny. Consider, Watson, that the materialists, the sensualists, the worldly, would all prolong their worthless lives. The spiritual would now avoid the call to something higher. It would be the survival of the least fit. What sort of cesspool may not our poor world become?”
