THE PROMISE OF RACE CULTURE 507 



evolution of the psychical is capable. There is every reason lo deny 

 this, but let us for the moment assume it true. There still remains 

 the thought of Wordsworth, "What one is, why may not millions 

 be?" — a thought to which Spencer has also given utterance. What 

 is shown possible for human nature here and there, he says, Ls con- 

 ceivable for human nature at large. It is possible for a human being, 

 whilst still remaining human, to be a Shakespeare or a St. Francis; 

 these things are thus demonstrably within the possibilities of human 

 nature. It is therefore at the least conceivable that, in the course of 

 almost infinite time (even assuming, say, that intelligence must ever 

 be limited, as even Newton's intelligence was limited) — some such 

 capacities as his may be common property amongst men of the 

 scientific type; and so with other types. We may answer Words- 

 worth that there is no bar thrown by Nature in the way of such a hope. 

 Whal is possible. — This of course is speculation and of no 

 immediate value. I would merely remind the reader that the doctrine 

 of optimism, as regards the future of mankind, which the principles of 

 race-culture assume and which they desire to justify, was definitely 

 shared by the great pioneers to whom we owe our understanding 

 of those principles. Notwithstanding grave nervous disorder, such 

 as makes pessimists of most men, both Darwin and Spencer were 

 compelled by their study of Nature to this rational optimism as 

 regards man's future. The doctrine of organic evolution, and of the 

 age-long ascent of man through the selection of the fittest (who have, 

 on the whole, been the best) for parenthood, is one not of despair but 

 of hope. Exactly half a century ago it struck horror into the minds of 

 our predecessors. Man, then, is only an erected ape, they thought — 

 as if any historical doctrine, however true, could shorten the dizzy 

 distance to which man has cHmbed since he was simian; and man 

 being an ape, they thought his high dreams palpably vain. But the 

 measure of the accomplished hints at the measure of the possible, and 

 the value of the historical facts lies not in themselves, all facts as 

 such being as dead as are the individual atoms of the living body, but 

 in the principles which grow out of them. It is of no imj^ortance as 

 such that man has simian ancestors; it is of immeasurable importance 

 that he should learn by what processes he has become human, and by 

 what, indeed, they became simian -which would have been a proud 

 adjective for its own day. The principles of organic progress matter 

 for us because they are the principles of race-culture, the only sure 

 means of human progress. Our looking backwards does not turn us 



