318 SOCIAL HEREDITY AND SOCIAL EVOLUTION 



much mental power to make the first crude imple- 

 ment out of stone, with nothing as a pattern and with 

 not even the idea of the possibility of making any- 

 thing like an artificial implement, as it does in these 

 later ages to fashion the most delicate instrument 

 when the inventor has all the patterns of previous 

 ages to aid him. When we come to try to compare 

 mental power of our twentieth-century inventors 

 and those of earlier ages we have no adequate 

 measure. Did Beethoven have a greater musical 

 genius than the savage who makes music on his crude 

 flute? Doubtless Beethoven produced greater music. 

 But he had a better instrument to work with, and 

 withal he had the music of centuries behind him to 

 stimulate and guide him. Is a Maxim with his 

 rapid-fire gun a greater inventor than the savage 

 who invented the bow and arrow? Who can answer 

 such a question? Certainly the rapid-fire gun is a 

 more intricate instrument; but the savage created 

 his bow and arrow out of nothing, while Maxim 

 utilized the discoveries of thousands of men behind 

 him. There is surely some reason for insisting that, 

 so far as innate abilities are concerned, the twentieth- 

 century man is not superior to the earliest race of 

 men of whom we have any knowledge. While it 

 hardly seems that such a conception is or can be true, 

 there is certainly enough of suggestion in it to make 

 us think soberly, and to ask ourselves what is this 

 boasted progress which the human race has made 

 during the centuries ? 



For progress there has been beyond any question. 

 Whether twentieth-century man is superior to pre- 

 historic man we may at least doubt, but that the 

 human race of the twentieth century is vastly above 



