MENTAL AND MORAL QUALITIES. 517 



human nature has at heart changed or ever will change. To the minds 

 of some, civilization is but a gloss and a veneer, politeness and kindli- 

 ness are maintained while everything runs smoothly, but let danger or 

 necessity arise, and they say man is again thrown back on his brute 

 passions. 



For a discussion of the question, 'Is the mean standard of faculty 

 rising?' and the citations from various authors who consider that it is 

 not (Buckle, Bellamy, Eitchie, Gladstone, Benjamin Kidd, et al.), 

 see Lloyd Morgan, 'Habit and Instinct,' where he himself states in 

 his closing paragraph : ' ' Natural selection becomes more and more sub- 

 ordinate in the social evolution of civilized mankind; and it would 

 seem probable with this waning of the influence of natural selection 

 there has been a diminution also of human faculty." Alfred Eussel 

 Wallace writes:* "In one of my latest conversations with Darwin he 

 expressed himself very gloomily on the future of humanity, on the 

 ground that in our modern civilization natural selection had no play, 

 and the fittest did not survive." Wallace himself insists that there 

 are forces to be counted on for the amelioration of the race, one of 

 which is the process of elimination 'by which vice, violence and reck- 

 lessness so often bring about the early destruction of those addicted to 

 them.' But it is much more difficult at first sight to see how purely 

 intellectual qualities are to be enhanced through any process of natural 

 selection going on at the present day. Nevertheless, if a mental and a 

 moral correlation can be shown to be a reality the difficulty is overcome. 



The following figures, which prove that the morally superior are 

 also the more endowed mentally, were drawn from records of the 

 characteristics of European royalty. They include the entire number 

 who formed the basis of a study of heredity which appeared in The 

 Popular Science Monthly, August, 1902, to April, 1903. These 

 were arranged to the best of the writer's ability, and in consultation 

 with John Fiske and other historians, in ten grades for intellect and 

 ten grades for morality. The latter term is used in its widest mean- 

 ing and under this head are included all the qualities which may count 

 as virtues. Amiability and kindliness are included, so that only those 

 who have received praise for many good qualities can appear in the 

 higher grades. The highest grade (10) is for those only who have 

 .been known as altruists, or reformers, or have devoted their lives to 

 charity or other noble aims for the welfare of their country. 



It has been the aim of the writer to take only the opinions of others, 

 following the biographical dictionaries and standard histories as far as 

 possible. If a personal equation may have unconsciously influenced 

 the grading, it can have no possible effect on the results of the present 

 article, because the grading was made with a view to the study of in- 



* ' Studies Scientific and Social,' London, 1900, Vol. 1, p. 509. 



