184 PERFECTIBILITY OF MAN. 



any direct purpose or intervention, may issue hereafter 

 in higher degrees of mental attainment in greater 

 vigour of the faculties generally, as well as of those 

 special qualities and those felicities of genius which in 

 every age seem to have carried some men beyond the 

 sphere of their common humanity. The occurrence of 

 the latter instances, though they come in strong con- 

 trast to the mediocrity or abasement characterising 

 the mass of mankind, gives proof of capacities belong- 

 ing to the species as such, from which we may augur, 

 under new conditions, its future and more general 

 elevation. 



In pursuing the argument, however, we must not 

 analyse too minutely those various faculties of percep- 

 tion, intellect, feeling, and will, to which we give unity 

 under the name of Mind ; nor those innate individual 

 propensities (aberrent they may often be called) on 

 which the phrenologists dwell in evidence of their doc- 

 trine, and which, whencesoever derived, are elements 

 both in the highest elevation and greatest abasement of 

 man. Here, more especially, we encounter those mys- 

 terious problems regarding generation and inheritance 

 which are of such deep concernment in this as in other 

 questions now under active discussion. Science is still 

 working outside these problems. If it should ever go 

 deeper into them, the question as to the future perfecti- 

 bility of man might gather some special evidence or 

 presumption from this source. As it is we must be 

 content in coming to a general conclusion on the 

 general grounds already denoted. 



These reasons, however short of absolute proof, are 



