172 THE DESCENT OF MAN. Part I. 



Great lawgivers, the founders of beneficent religions, 

 great philosophers and discoverers in science, aid the 

 progress of mankind in a far higher degree by their 

 works than by leaving a numerous progeny. In the 

 case of corporeal structures, it is the selection of 

 the slightly better-endowed and the elimination of the 

 slightly less well-endowed individuals, and not the pre- 

 servation of strongly-marked and rare anomalies, that 

 leads to the advancement of a species. 15 So it will be 

 with the intellectual faculties, namely from the some- 

 what more able men in each grade of society succeeding 

 rather better than the less able, and consequently in- 

 creasing in number, if not otherwise prevented. When 

 in any nation the standard of intellect and the number 

 of intellectual men have increased, we may expect from 

 the law of the deviation from an average, as shewn by 

 Mr. Galton, that prodigies of genius will appear some- 

 what more frequently than before. 



In regard to the moral qualities, some elimination of 

 the worst dispositions is always in progress even in the 

 most civilised nations. Malefactors are executed, or 

 imprisoned for long periods, so that they cannot freely 

 transmit their bad qualities. Melancholic and insane 

 persons are confined, or commit suicide. Violent and 

 quarrelsome men often come to a bloody end. Kestless 

 men who will not follow any steady occupation — and 

 this relic of barbarism is a great check to civilisation 16 — 

 emigrate to newly- sett led countries, where they prove 

 useful pioneers. Intemperance is so highly destructive, 

 that the expectation of life of the intemperate, at the 

 age, for instance, of thirty, is only 13 -8 years ; whilst for 

 the rural labourers of England at the same a^e it is 



15 ' Origin of Species' (fifth edition, 1869), p. 104. 



16 'Hereditary Genius,' 1870, p. 347. 



