Heredity in Man. 343 



standard of excellence in the mill itself. There is more 

 to grind ; but this does not necessarily improve the grind- 

 ing apparatus. If, however, it does improve the mill, this 

 tells so far in favour of the Lamarckian and against the 

 nee-Darwinian hypothesis. Or to vary the analogy, the 

 diffusion and storage of knowledge while it increases the 

 stock of available food, does not necessarily bring with 

 it any additional power of digesting the food. But if 

 it does improve the faculty of assimilation, this may be 

 through inherited increments of digestive power. It may, 

 however, be contended that there is no conclusive proof 

 that the mean intellectual level of Englishmen to-day is 

 any higher than in the days of the Tudors. If so, of course 

 the argument for transmission falls to the ground. Having 

 no desire to dogmatize on the subject, I merely set down 

 the reasons which led me to entertain a general belief 

 that the intellectual progress of Englishmen during, say, 

 the past three hundred years has been in part due to the 

 inheritance of individually acquired faculty. 



I must confess that this general belief has since then 

 been weakened rather than strengthened. Those who are 

 far better fitted to form an opinion in this matter seem to 

 regard the supposed raising of the mean standard of faculty 

 as, to say the least of it, exceedingly doubtful. Mr. Kidd, 

 in his " Social Evolution," has collected some of the evidence 

 and quotes this statement of Mr. Gladstone's in an inter- 

 view with Mr. Stead*: "I sometimes say, that I do not 

 see that progress in the development of the brain-power 

 which we ought to expect. . . . Development, no doubt, is 

 a slow process, but I do not see it at all. I do not think 

 we are stronger but weaker than men of the Middle Ages. 

 I would take it as low down as the men of the sixteenth 

 century. The men of the sixteenth century were strong 



* Review of Reviews, April, 1892. Quoted in " Social Evolution," p. 256 



