National Deterioration 71 



finest intellectuals have sprung from the 

 unintellectual class, and genius is generally 

 more or less of a sport." Now, I have 

 personally been careful never in discussing 

 this subject to use the word "genius." The 

 term itself is vague, and the hard work of a 

 nation is carried on in the main by the able 

 and capable man, and not by vague "genius." 

 Capacity breeds capacity, whatever "genius" 

 may do. Now, taking the numbers actually 

 given by our statistics, What do we find ? 

 " That pairs of exceptional parents produce 

 exceptional sons at a rate more than ten 

 times as great as pairs of non-exceptional 

 parents. At the same time, eighteen times 

 as many exceptional sons are born to non- 

 exceptional as to exceptional parents, for the 

 latter form only about \ per cent, of the 

 community " (Phil. Trans ., vol. cxcv., p. 47, 

 1900). The word exceptional here repre- 

 sents a very high standard indeed. But 

 the mere fact that rare sons of commonplace 

 parents are more frequent than the usual sons 

 of rare parents explains the statement that 

 many of our finest intellectuals have sprung 

 from the unintellectual class. It does not 

 in the least, however, destroy the impor- 

 tance of the fact that ability and capacity 

 breed their like. The time ability takes to 

 fight its way into notice renders " sports " 

 of little service for most national purposes ; 

 the great majority of our legislators and of 

 our leaders in art, literature, commerce, and 



