VOL. III.] Recent Literature. 6i 



following-: " When this average rise has been brought about there 

 must result a corresponding rise in the high-water mark of human- 

 ity; in other words, the great men of that era will be as much above 

 those of the last two thousand years as the average man will have 

 risen above the average of that period. For those fortunate com- 

 binations of germs which, on the theory we are discussing, have 

 brought into existence the great men of our day, will have a far 

 higher average of material to work with, and we may reasonably 

 expect the most distinguished among the poets and philosophers of 

 the future will decidedly surpass the Homers and Shakespeares, the 

 Newtons, the Gcethes and the Humboldts of our age." (p. 158.) 



In no possible way can these two passages be reconciled. He 

 hrst asserts that natural selection has raised the mean level of hu- 

 manity but cannot raise the high-water mark, and follows this by 

 another passage in which he says that the elevation of the mean 

 level will furnish a higher class of material for germ -combinations 

 to work upon in the origination of a higher type of genius. 



Mr. Wallace briefly discusses the theory of the isolation of the 

 germ-plasm, which carries with it the non-inheritance of acquired 

 characters. Education, according to this view, cannot have any 

 direct effect upon human progress. The writer argues that if edu- 

 cational influences could be transmitted it would be reasonable to 

 expect that there would be a progressive improvement in the fami- 

 lies ol men of genius from generation to generation. He cites a con- 

 siderable number of notable instances where this was not the case, 

 however. Thus he says: ^ * * " we find that Dollond, the in- 

 ventor of the achromatic telescope, was a working silk weaver, and 

 a wholly self-taught optician; Faraday was the son of a blacksmith, 

 and apprenticed to a bookbinder at the age of thirteen; Sir Christo- 

 pher Wren, the son of a clergyman and educated at Oxford, was a 

 a self-taught architect, yet he designed and executed St. Paul's 

 Cathedral, which will certainly rank among the finest modern build- 

 ings of the world," etc. All of which may be perfectly true, but 

 one is tempted to stop before completing the list and ask Mr. Wal- 

 lace if he has forgotten the fact that all these men had mothers. 

 Genius is a very unstable commodity and once the nice adjustment 

 of mental traits by which it was brought about is disturbed by the 

 introduction of a new element the whole organization is apt to be 

 upset. Mr. Wallace might have continued with an enumeration of 

 the sons of men of genius who have been worthless or insane. 



