INTELLECTUAL EVOLUTION 327 



gress in the race identical in character with the progress of the 

 man whose brain has reached maturity ? Or does the race, 

 intellectually speaking, advance simultaneously along two lines ? 

 In other words, is it only by means of accumulated knowledge 

 and better methods that many men are able to perform what 

 may seem greater intellectual feats than ever their forefathers 

 could, and to modify their environment in a way that was never 

 achieved before ? or is there also a selection of the more clever for 

 survival, and so a gain in brain-power properly so called ? In 

 the same way when bicycling records are " cut," we may fairly 

 ask the question : Is it that the men, as well as the bicycles are 

 superior to what they were, or is it only the bicycles ? 



The history of inventions throws some light on this question. 

 One man may get the credit, in popular estimation, of inventing 

 the steam engine, but the invention is really due to a number 

 of workers each of whom added something. And it is impossible 

 to weigh the comparative merit of those who produced engines 

 that, perhaps, would not work at all, because of some slight 

 defect, or that were of no practical use, and that of the man 

 who presented the crowning triumph to the eyes of the admiring 

 world. Wireless telegraphy, when first discovered, is nothing 

 but an interesting laboratory experiment. It then comes out 

 into the glare of public fame as a means of communication. 

 But the man who puts the finishing touch is no greater, 

 necessarily, than the man who is the first to grope his way 

 towards the dimly seen possibility. Apply this principle logic- 

 ally, and the man who discovers a better means of shaping flint 

 instruments, or a better means of hafting them, or an easier and 

 quicker way of producing fire is not, necessarily, lower in the 

 scale than the man who discovers an improved method of 

 telegraphy. In every case the difficult thing is to add a little 

 to existing knowledge, to improve a little upon the existing 

 practice. It is possible sometimes to estimate the advance made 

 by one man, and applying this test we must, I believe, rank 

 Newton above any man that has appeared on the earth since. 

 This does not look like progress in brain-power, unless it be 

 argued and I think it hardly can be that Newton is too 



