330 THE ACTION OF NATURAL 



the development of that perfect beauty which results 

 from a healthy and well organized body, refined and 

 ennobled by the highest intellectual faculties and sym- 

 pathetic emotions, his mental constitution may con- 

 tinue to advance and improve, till the world is again 

 inhabited by a single nearly homogeneous race, no 

 individual of which will be inferior to the noblest 

 specimens of existing humanity. 



Our progress towards such a result is very slow, but 

 it still seems to be a progress. We are just now living 

 at an abnormal period of the world's history, owing to 

 the marvellous developments and vast practical results 

 of science, having been given to societies too low 

 morally and intellectually, to know how to make the 

 best use of them, and to whom they have consequently 

 been curses as well as blessings. Among civilized na- 

 tions at the present day, it does not seem possible for 

 natural selection to act in any way, so as to secure the 

 permanent advancement of morality and intelligence ; 

 for it is indisputably the mediocre, if not the low, both 

 as regards morality and intelligence, who succeed best 

 in life and multiply fastest. Yet there is undoubtedly 

 an advance on the whole a steady and a permanent 

 one both in the influence on public opinion of a high 

 morality, and in the general desire for intellectual ele- 

 vation ; and as I cannot impute this in any way to 

 "survival of the fittest," I am forced to conclude that 

 it is due, to the inherent progressive power of those 

 glorious qualities which raise us so immeasurably above 

 our fellow animals, and at the same time afford us the 



