4 i4 SCIENCE PROGRESS. 



under one law, which Closson has most fitly styled "the 

 Law of Lapouge," i.e., that of the greater activity of Homo 

 Europceus. 



Whether we can conceive of the ultimate results of all 

 this as being in agreement with the Darwinian law of the 

 survival of the fittest, unless we are careful to ascribe only 

 the absolutely correct meaning to the word fit, is a little 

 doubtful. The dolichoblond man was developed, we believe, 

 in the course of a long and arduous struggle against the 

 hostile powers of nature, as well as against his fellow-man. 

 Beowulf and Siegfried and Hercules were his ideals. Now 

 perhaps he may not be quite so much needed. Most of the 

 processes we have reviewed may seem to turn to his advan- 

 tage, but this is not so in the long run. Most of the great 

 things that have been done in the world, it is said, have 

 been done by him ; x but in doing them, or in consequence 

 of doing them, he and his progeny are very apt to perish. 

 How few descendants can be found of great soldiers, tra- 

 vellers, discoverers, inventors, poets. The higher and more 

 enlightened classes in communities, the producers and assimi- 

 lators of new ideas, have repeatedly in the course of history 

 been swept away or decimated, while the proletariat sur- 

 vived. Thus the noble Greek race, which was long-headed 

 and largely blond, has now but few and doubtful representa- 

 tives ; the Ostrogoths, a people evidently of great capacities, 

 almost wholly perished ; the nobler strains of the Irish 

 people perished or emigrated in the seventeenth century. 

 And now-a-days, in the cities of France and central Europe, 

 the dolichoids seem to melt away, to give place to fresh 

 strains of brachykephalic peasant blood. The fittest, who 

 survives, is therefore the quiet, unambitious, commonplace 

 thickhead, who remains at home and tempts no dangers. 

 It may be that when wars have ceased to be and there are 

 no more regions to explore, and perhaps fewer scientific 

 realms to conquer, this may be the happiest as well as the 

 fittest, i.e., the best adapted class of man. It certainly seems 

 most suited to a socialist organisation. 



1 Napoleon, however, though blue-eyed and rather blond than dark in 

 hair, was decidedly brachykephalic. 



