CnAP. V.] CIVILIZED NATIONS. ]G5 



in the number and in the standard of the intellectually 

 able. But I do not wish to assert that this tendency may 

 not be more than counterbalanced in other ways, as by 

 the multiplication of the reckless and improvident; but 

 even to such as these, ability must be some advantage. 



It has often been objected to views like the foregoing, 

 that the most eminent men who have ever lived have left 

 no offspring to inherit their great intellect. Mr. Galton 

 says, 14 " I regret I am unable to solve the simple question 

 whether, and how far, men and women who are prodigies 

 of genius are infertile. I have, however, shown that men 

 of eminence are by no means so." 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 nu- 

 merous 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 preservation 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 somewhat more able men in each grade of society 

 succeeding rather better than the less able, and conse- 

 quently increasing in number, if not otherwise prevented. 

 When in any nation the standard of intellect and the 

 number of intellectual men have increased, we mav ex- 

 pect from the law of the deviation from an average, as 

 shown by Mr. Galton, that prodigies of genius will appear 

 somewhat more frequently than before. 



In regard to the moral qualities,-. some elimination of 

 the worst dispositions is always in progress even in the 

 most civilized nations. Malefactors are executed, or im- 

 prisoned for long periods, so that they cannot freely trans 



14 'Hereditary Genius,' 1870, p. 330. 



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



