484 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



to-day. Nevertheless, the centuries spent in purging the primitive from 

 the race have contributed to the result. Undoubtedly, too, this agency 

 will continue to operate in the future, although with what modifications 

 it is hard to predict. 



Patently it is impossible to weigh statistically the effect of the many 

 criss-cross forces which have molded nations, or to reconstruct with 

 accuracy the historical process. Both the men who perished and the 

 men who survived are now gone beyond recall. It might be suggested 

 that we could make a "control test" by analyzing the mental char- 

 acters of contemporary savages, who are often said to be close replicas 

 of our own barbarian ancestors. We might, provided we had the psy- 

 chological method at hand, make enough mental tests to define a type- 

 barbarian. In similar wise we might be able to define a civilized type. 

 Then by comparing the two we could determine what were the inherent 

 moral differences between them. But there are unsurmountable difficul- 

 ties in this procedure. We have not the psychological method as yet to 

 work with, and after the work had been accomplished we could not be 

 sure that the savages whose natures had been charted were in truth 

 identical with the ancients from whom civilized men are sprung. We 

 should, moreover, become entangled in the questions of racial differ- 

 ences — why, for example, some savage peoples, like the Papuans, the 

 Aleuts and the Dyaks, are so amiable, while other savages, such as the 

 North American Indians and the Gonds, are bloodthirsty; or why the 

 ancient Egyptians were apparently less cruel than the ancient Assy- 

 rians. In our discussion of selective agencies attention has been directed 

 chiefly to the development of the Aryan peoples. 



One test of a logical nature is available. If we grant the validity of 

 socialized selection we find an immediate explanation of the paradox 

 which has puzzled former commentators on the dissimilarities of the 

 classic and modern cultures. We can now understand why it is that 

 there has been an enormous increase of kindliness, of steadiness, of 

 "prescriptive governability," despite the fact that early civilizations 

 were quite as prolific of eminent men of the highest intellectual and 

 moral caliber. 



As we said earlier, confusion has been wrought by looking for moral 

 improvement where there has been only moral change. A growth in 

 human meekness may very naturally have been accompanied by a 

 decline in a certain splendid turbulent virility possessed by our ances- 

 tors. When this selective instrument made men more sympathetic, it 

 may also have made them less daring. David Starr Jordan remarks : 9 



If France, through wine, has grown temperate, she has grown tame. "New 

 Mirabeaus, " Carlyle tells us, "one hears not of; the wild kindred has gone out 

 with this, its greatest." 



»"The Human Harvest," p. 69. 



