66 BASIS OF INVESTIGATION. 



must itself be false, and the indications are that the falsity lies with 

 the assumption that variations occur only fortuitously in the germ 

 plasm. 



GREECE AND ROME. 



It has been shown that the theory of use-inheritance means the 

 inheritance of acquired functional capacity. If this theory be true, 

 then a continuous education from generation to generation should 

 cause the men of each succeeding generation to have greater mental 

 power than those of the preceding generation, and a cessation of 

 education should cause descendants to decline in mental power. 

 History gives us several instances of such series of educated genera- 

 tions. We find in Greece the first case in which the record is suffi- 

 ciently accurate to enable us to compare it with the theory of use- 

 inheritance. The inhabitants of ancient Greece were divided into 

 two classes, slaves and their masters. All common labor being per- 

 formed by the slaves, the ruling class was left free for its members 

 to use their time in education, polities and war, all three of which 

 had a tendency to develop their mental powers. At what time edu- 

 cation became general among the ruling class is uncertain. Homer 

 lived about 900 B. C, and the fact that his poems have come down 

 to us indicates some kind of record at that early date. The first 

 date at which the chronology of Greece becomes definite is 776 B. C. 

 At about 650 B. C. there was already in existence a reading class 

 of people, though the class at that time was not extensive. From 

 this time on the ruling class seems to have been regularly educated 

 at schools kept by the men most famous for their learning. In any 

 list of famous Greeks we find the greatest number of them, and the 

 men of greatest ability, located in the century between 425 and 325 

 B. C, and we find that this culmination was gradually reached in 



