HEBEDITY — BATESON. 389 



Such a problem is raised in a striking form by the population of 

 modern Greece, and especially of Athens. The racial characteristics 

 of the Athenian of the fifth century B. C. are vividly described by 

 Galton in "Hereditary Genius." The fact that in that period a 

 population, numbering many thousands, should have existed, capable 

 of following the great plays at a first hearing, revelling in subtleties 

 of speech, and thrilling with passionate delight in beautiful things, 

 is physiologically a most singular phenomenon. On the basis of the 

 number of illustrious men produced by that age Galton estimated 

 the average intelligence as at least two of his degrees above our own, 

 differing from us as much as we do from the Negro. A few genera- 

 tions later the display was over. The origin of that constellation 

 of human genius which then blazed out is as yet beyond all biological 

 analysis, but I think we are not altogether without suspicion of the 

 sequence of the biological events. If I visit a poultry breeder who 

 has a fine stock of thoroughbred game fowls breeding true, and 10 

 years later — that is to say, 10 fowl-generations later — I go again 

 and find scarcely a recognizable game fowl on the place, I know 

 exactly what has happened. One or two birds of some other or of 

 no breed must have strayed in and their progeny been left unde- 

 stroyed. Now, in Athens, we have many indications -that up to the 

 beginning of the fifth century so long as the phratries and gentes 

 were maintained in their integrity there was rather close endogamy, 

 a condition giving the best chance of producing a homogeneous pop- 

 ulation. There was no lack of material from which intelligence 

 and artistic power might be derived. Sporadically these qualities 

 existed throughout the ancient Greek world from the dawn of his- 

 tory, and, for example, the vase painters, the makers of the Tanagra 

 figurines, and the gem cutters were presumably pursuing family 

 crafts, much as are the actor families^ of England or the profes- 

 sorial families of Germany at the present day. How the intellectual 

 strains should have acquired predominance we can not tell, but in 

 an in-breeding community homogeneity at least is not surprising. 

 At the end of the sixth century came the " reforms " of Cleisthenes 

 (507 B. C), which sanctioned foreign marriages and admitted to 

 citizenship a number not only of resident aliens but also of manu- 

 mitted slaves. As Aristotle sa3^s, Cleisthenes legislated with the 

 deliberate purpose of breaking up the phratries and gentes, in order 

 that the various sections of the population might be mixed up as 

 much as posible, and the old tribal associations abolished. The 

 " reform '' was probably a recognition and extension of a process 

 already begim ; but is it too much to suppose that we have here the 

 effective beginning of a series of genetic changes which in a few 

 generations so greatly altered the character of the people? Under 



1 For tables of these families, see the Supplement to Who's Who in the Theater. 



