INTELLECTUAL EVOLUTION 331 



repeat that there is little or no foundation for the belief that the 

 children of those who by study sharpen their intellects will be 

 born with greater brain capacity due to the training to which 

 their fathers have been subjected. Moreover, competitive 

 examinations require moral quite as much as intellectual quali- 

 ties. Fair intelligence if combined with perseverance and a 

 power of sacrificing the present to the future will generally 

 succeed, but great intellectual power, when unaccompanied 

 by the required moral qualities, is apt to fail. And there is 

 another factor necessary to success ; education in England is 

 still very expensive. If a boy is to pass a difficult examination, 

 his father must have money. And money is obtained by a 

 combination of qualities, by no means exclusively intellectual. 

 Everywhere in civilised society we see that character is in de- 

 mand. Moderate ability, no doubt, is wanted, but the great 

 qualification for most careers is character. 



There is another strong reason for believing that a nation, to Results 

 be successful, requires only a few highly intellectual men, while ^. e * e 

 unless a large percentage of the citizens are men of sound moral ments of 

 principle it must infallibly decay. The very stupid are able to *?j ect 

 enjoy the blessings due to the labours of discoverers, inventors, transfer- 

 and thinkers. An invention is often a contrivance by which an a 

 almost brainless man is able to do work which requires a great 

 deal of brain. " You press the button and we do the rest," 

 say the directions that accompany the camera. Thus instead of 

 the skill of an artist, all that is wanted is to press a button ! 

 The men of a nation that has produced not a single mechanical 

 invention, can in a day or two learn to use the finest rifle that 

 mechanical ingenuity has devised. The results of the achieve- 

 ments of intellect are in a wonderful degree transferable. But 

 moral ideas are not so easily transferred. If a sermon is to pro- 

 duce much effect, three conditions are necessary. It must be a 

 good sermon, it must be preached by the right man and preached 

 to the right people. The preacher himself must be a man of 

 high character or his eloquence will bear no fruit, and his 

 hearers must be persons so constituted that they respond to 

 good influences. From this it follows that moral principle 



