Chap, v.] CIVILIZED NATIONS. 1C3 



the same country do not by any means start fair in the 

 race for success. But this is far from an unmixed evil ; 

 for without the accumulation of capital the arts could not 

 progress ; and it is chiefly through their power that the 

 civilized races have extended, and are now everywhere 

 extending, their range, so as to take the place of the lower 

 races. Nor does the moderate accumulation of wealth 

 interfere with the process of selection. When a poor man 

 becomes rich, his children enter trades or professions in 

 which there is struggle enough, so that the able in body 

 and mind succeed best. The presence of a body of well- 

 instructed men, who have not to labor for their daily 

 bread, is important to a degree which cannot be over- 

 estimated ; as all high intellectual work is carried on by 

 them, and on such work material progress of all kinds 

 mainly depends, not to mention other and higher advan- 

 tages. No doubt wealth, when very great, tends to con- 

 vert men into useless drones, but their number is never 

 large ; and some degree of elimination here occurs, as we 

 daily see rich men, who happen to be fools or profligate, 

 squandering away all their wealth. 



Primogeniture with entailed estates is a more direct 

 evil, though it may formerly have been a great advantage 

 by the creation of a dominant class, and any government 

 is better than anarchy. The eldest sons, though they 

 may be weak in body or mind, generally marry, while the 

 younger sons, however superior in these respects, do not 

 so generally marry. Nor can worthless eldest sons with 

 entailed estates squander their wealth. But here, as else- 

 where, the relations of civilized life are so complex that 

 some compensatory checks intervene. The men who are 

 rich through primogeniture are able to select generation 

 after generation the more beautiful and charmmg women ; 

 and these must generally be healthy in body and active 

 in mind. The evil consequences, such as they may be, of 



