VOL. III. | Recent Literature. 61 
following: ‘‘ When this average rise has been brought about there 
must result a corresponding rise in the high-water mark of human- 
ity; in other words, the great men of that era will be as much above 
those of the last two thousand years as the average man will have 
risen above the average of that period. For those fortunate com- 
binations of germs which, on the theory we are discussing, have 
brought into existence the great men of our day, will have a far 
higher average of material to work with, and we may reasonably 
expect the most distinguished among the poets and philosophers of 
the future will decidedly surpass the Homers and Shakespeares, the 
Newtons, the Goethes and the Humboldts of our age.” (p. 158.) 
In no possible way can these two passages be reconciled. He 
first asserts that natural selection has raised the mean level of hu- 
manity but cannot raise the high-water mark, and follows this by 
another passage in which he says that the elevation of the mean 
level will furnish a higher class of material for germ combinations 
to work upon in the origination of a higher type of genius. 
Mr, Wallace briefly discusses the theory of the isolation of the 
germ-plasm, which carries with it the non-inheritance of acquired 
characters. Education, according to this view, cannot have any 
direct effect upon human progress. The writer argues that if edu- 
cational influences could be transmitted it would be reasonable to 
expect that there would be a progressive improvement in the fami- 
lies of men of genius from generation to generation. He cites a con- 
siderable number of notable instances where this was not the case, 
however. Thus he says: * * * ‘‘we find that Dollond, the in- 
ventor of the achromatic telescope, was a working silk weaver, and 
a wholly self-taught optician; Faraday was the son of a blacksmith, 
and apprenticed to a bookbinder at the age of thirteen; Sir Christo- 
pher Wren, the son of a clergyman and educated at Oxford, was a 
a self-taught architect, yet he designed and executed St. Paul’s 
Cathedral, which will certainly rank among the finest modern build- 
ings of the world,”’ etc.. All of which may be perfectly true, but 
one is tempted to stop before completing the list and ask Mr. Wal- 
lace if he has forgotten the fact that all these men had mothers. 
Genius is a very unstable commodity and once the nice adjustment 
of mental traits by which it was brought about is disturbed by the 
introduction of a new element the whole organization is apt to be 
upset. Mr. Wallace might have continued with an enumeration of 
the sons of men of genius who have been worthless or insane. 
