XXVII HUMAN PROGRESS : PAST AND FUTURE 497 



sickly, or the malformed infants ; but in this, probably, 

 humanity gains rather than loses, since many who are in 

 infancy weak or distorted exhibit superior mental or 

 moral qualities which are a gain to civilization, while the 

 cultivation of humane and sympathetic feelings in their 

 care and nurture is itself of the greatest value. 



Balancing, as well as we are able, these various opposing 

 influences, it seems probable that there has been, on the 

 whole, a decided gain. Health, perseverance, self-restraint, 

 and intelligence have increased by slowly weeding out the 

 unhealthy, the idle, the grossly vicious, the cruel, and the 

 weak-minded ; and it may be in part owing to the 

 increased numbers of the higher and gentler natures thus 

 brought about that we must impute the undoubted 

 growth of humanity — of sympathy with the sufferings of 

 men and animals, which is perhaps the most marked and 

 most cheering of the characteristics of our age. 



The Effect of Education. 



But although the natural j^rocess of elimination does 

 actually raise the mean level of humanity by the destruc- 

 tion of the worst and most degraded individuals, it can 

 have little or no tendency to develop higher types in each 

 successive age ; and this agrees with the undoubted fact 

 that the great men who appeared at the dawn of his- 

 tory and at the culminating epochs of the various 

 ancient civilizations, were not, on the whole, inferior to 

 those of our own age. It remains, therefore, a mystery 

 how and why mankind reached to such lofty pinnacles of 

 greatness in early times, when there seems to be no 

 agency at work, then or now, calculated to do more than 

 weed out the lower types. Leaving this great problerrT 

 as, for the present, an insoluble one, we may turn to 

 that aspect of the question which is of the most vital 

 present day interest — whether any agencies are now at 

 work or can be suggested as practicable, which will pro- 

 duce a steady advance, not only in the average of human 

 nature, but in those higher developments which now, as 

 in former ages, are the exceptions rather than the rule. 



VOL. II. K K 



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