SOCIAL EVOLUTION 265 



are simply nowhere. 1 These men are not now leaders. 



1 " We may well ask, What do our so-called ' educated ' circles, 

 who think so much of the high civilization of the nineteenth century, 

 know of these most important biological facts, of these indispensable 

 foundations for understanding their own organization ? How much 

 do our speculative philosophers and theologians know about them, 

 who fancy they can arrive at an understanding of the human 

 organism by mere guesswork or divine inspiration ? What indeed 

 do the majority of naturalists, even so-called ' zoologists ' (including 

 the entomologists !), know about them ? 



" The answer to this question tells much to the shame of the 

 persons above indicated, and we must confess, willingly or unwillingly, 

 that these invaluable facts of human ontogeny are, even at the present 

 day, utterly unknown to most people, or are in no way valued as 

 they deserve to be. It is in the face of such a condition of things as 

 this that we see clearly upon what a wrong and one-sided road the 

 much-vaunted culture of the nineteenth century still moves. Ignor- 

 ance and superstition are the foundations upon which most men 

 construct their conception of their own organization, and its relation 

 to the totality of things ; and the palpable facts of the history of 

 development, which might throw the light of truth upon them, are 

 wholly ignored. 



" The chief cause of this lamentable and mischievous state of 

 things is unquestionably owing to the education given in our higher 

 schools, and, above all, owing to our so-called ' classical education.' 

 For as it is still deeply imbued with the scholasticism of the Middle 

 Ages, it is still unable to digest the enormous advances which natural 

 science has made in our century. It still does not consider that its 

 chief task should be to obtain a comprehensive knowledge of nature 

 -of which we are ourselves a part or of the present state of the civilized 

 world in which we live ; its main object is rather to acquire an 

 accurate knowledge of the history of the ancient countries, and, above 

 all, a knowledge of the Greek and Latin grammars. We grant that 

 a thorough knowledge of classic antiquity is an exceedingly important 

 and indispensable part of our higher education ; however, our 

 pleasant acquaintance with antiquity we owe in a much higher degree 

 to painters and sculptors, to epic and dramatic poets, than to classical 

 philologists or to dreaded grammarians. And to enjoy and understand 

 these ancient poets, it is as little necessary for us to read them in the 



