THE WIDER VIEW. 363 



land, and the other poor seed in arid soil, as measure 

 the mental activities of the members of two communities 

 by the actual contributions of these communities to 

 knowledge, without taking into account the background 

 of their respective cultures. 



To be sure, the logical processes of the civilised man 

 seem to count for more to-day than in the past, yet the 

 first forms of tools, weapons, and the arts were no paltry 

 achievements, and a discovery as epoch-making as the 

 potter's wheel, the saw, or the bow would be an enviable 

 distinction for any man, however recent was his birth. 

 Yet by our common measure these great inventors were 

 all uncivilised. 



In comparing, therefore, remote times with the 

 present, or in our own age races which have reached 

 distinction with those which have remained obscure, it is 

 by no means clear that the grade of civilisation attained 

 is associated \vith a corresponding enlargement in the 

 nervous system, or with an increase in the mental 

 capabilities of the best representatives of these 

 communities. Certainly the members of the com- 

 munity at large find themselves surrounded by condi- 

 tions which favour mental growth just as they are 

 surrounded by conditions which protect them from 

 accident and from disease ; but length of human life 

 has not thereby been increased. Eighty or more years 

 is long to live, as it always has been since historic time 

 began, and that more men live out their allotted days in 

 these later centuries, is due rather to a change in the 

 conditions which surround them than to any alteration 

 in their natural powers. Thus our generation makes 

 great marches into the unknown ; enabled to do this, 

 not so much because the living are a superior race, but 

 because civilisation has, as it were, constructed military 

 roads throughout the country, and thus the " going " is 



