The Evidence from intellectual Differences. 271 



Those who acknowledge the weight of my argument, 

 as applied to evolution in the past, may, however, ques- 

 tion its applicability to the human evolution of the fu- 

 ture. It may fairly be urged that while we grant that 

 the course of evolution from the lower forms of life up 

 to rational man has been by the slow process of variation 

 and heredity, we have now passed into a new order of 

 things, and the great advances of the human race have 

 been and now are brought about by the much more rapid 

 a-nd totally dissimilar process of intelligent education. 

 It may be urged that heredity does very little more for 

 the civilized than for the savage child, and that the wide 

 difference between the savage and the civilized adult is 

 mainly the result of the training and instruction of the 

 individual; that it has not been brought about by the de- 

 struction of those children whose congenital share in the 

 results of the intellectual advancement of the race is 

 most scanty. It may be urged that, since man has 

 reached a point where progress is almost entirely intel- 

 lectual, and depends upon his own efforts, he is free 

 from the laws by which development up to that point 

 was reached. 



We are not concerned at present with the question 

 how far progress might be accelerated by intelligent selec- 

 tion, and we may therefore conditionally accept the view 

 that future progress, for some time to come at any rate, 

 must depend almost entirely upon education; but, far 

 from holding that this conclusion will allow us to ignore 

 or obliterate the differences between the male and the 

 female intellect, I believe that the full significance of 

 these differences can be appreciated only in their relation 

 to higher education. The scope of the present paper 

 will only allow the space for an outline sketch of the 

 reasons for this belief. As the field of human knowl- 



