Ohap V. Civilised Nations. 141 



existed/ 6 ought, if the power of natural selection were real, to 

 have risen still higher in the scale, increased in number, and 

 stocked the whole of Europe. Here we have the tacit assump- 

 tion, so often made with respect to corporeal structures, that 

 there is some innate tendency towards continued development in 

 mind and body. But development of all kinds depends on many 

 concurrent favourable circumstances. Natural selection act* 

 only tentatively. Individuals and races may have acquired cer- 

 tain indisputable advantages, and yet have perished from failing 

 in other characters. The Greeks may have retrograded from a 

 want of coherence between the many small states, from the small 

 size of their whole country, from the practice of slavery, or from 

 extreme sensuality ; for they did not succumb until " they were 

 " enervated and corrupt to the very core." 27 The western nations 

 of Europe, who now so immeasurably surpass their former savage 

 progenitors, and stand at the summit of civilisation, owe little 

 or none of their superiority to direct inheritance from the old 

 Greeks, though they owe much to the written works of that 

 wonderful people. 



Who can positively say why the Spanish nation, so dominant 

 at one time, has been distanced in the race. The awakening of 

 the nations of Europe from the dark ages is a still more perplex- 

 ing problem. At that early period, as Mr. Galton has remarked, 

 almost all the men of a gentle nature, those given to meditation 

 or culture of the mind, had no refuge except in the bosom of 

 a Church which demanded celibacy; 28 and this could hardly 

 fail to have had a deteriorating influence on each successive 

 generation. During this same period the Holy Inquisition 

 selected with extreme care the freest and boldest men in order 

 to burn or imprison them. In Spain alone some of the best 

 men — those who doubted and questioned, and without doubting 

 there can be no progress — were eliminated during three cen- 

 turies at the rate of a thousand a year. The evil which the 

 Catholic Church has thus effected is incalculable, though no 

 doubt counterbalanced to a certain, perhaps to a large, extent 

 in other ways ; nevertheless, Europe has progressed at an un- 

 paralleled rate. 



26 See the ingenious and original 257) advances arguments on the 

 argument on this subject by Mr. other side. Sir C. Ly ell had already 

 Galton, 'Hereditary Genius,' pp. ('Principles of Geology,' vol. a. 

 340-3-42. 1868, p. 489) in a striking passage 



27 Mr. Greg, ' Fraser's Magazine,' called attention to the evil influence 

 Sept. 1868, p. 357. of the Holy Inquisition in having,, 



28 'Hereditary Genius,' 1870, pp. through selection, lowered the g<ene« 

 357-359. The Ri>v. F. W. Farrar ral standard of intelligence in Eu« 



' Fraser's Mag.,' kwg. 1870, p. rope. 



