from the Standpoint of Science 59 



of Thackeray and George Eliot ? Where are 

 the leaders of science who will make the 

 epoch that Darwin and Huxley made in 

 biology, or Faraday and Clerk Maxwell in 

 physics ? There may be steady average 

 ability, but where is the fire of genius, 

 the spirit of enthusiasm, which creates the 

 leader of men either in thought or 

 action ? Alas ! it is difficult to see any 

 light on the horizon predicting the dawn of 

 an intellectual renaissance, or heralding social 

 and political reforms such as carried the 

 nation through the difficult fifty years of the 

 middle of last century. Possibly our strong 

 men may have got into the wrong places. 

 Ability may have drifted onto the Stock 

 Exchange, the race-course, or the cricket- 

 field, for aught I can say to the contrary ; 

 but I must confess to feeling sometimes that 

 an actual dearth is upon us. And if this 

 should be so, then the unchangeable law of 

 heredity shows us only too clearly the chief 

 source of the evil : we have multiplied from 

 the inferior, and not from the superior stocks. 

 I have laid special stress on this point, for 

 I want to impress you with two aspects under 



