CHAPTER X 



THE ORIGIN OF NEW TYPES AMONG 



MEN 



HAVING inquired into the causes of variations among 

 animals, we are ready to ask why they occur among 

 men. Why did so many races of men arise during the 

 Glacial Period? Why were there so many great men in ancient 

 Greece? Why so many in Italy during the fourteenth century, 

 and in England since the days of Shakespeare and Newton? In 

 a gang of boys why is there generally a leader who starts things? 

 In his little way such a boy is a Napoleon or an Alexander. He 

 is one of the variants, or perhaps even one of the mutants, whose 

 biological importance we have been discussing in the preceding 

 chapter. 



Does the world need mutants? In the Harvard Library the 

 catalogue contains seven and one half drawers, or about 4,700 

 cards, under the name of William Shakespeare. The two names 

 before and after that of the great poet are Shakery and Shakh- 

 matov, each with only one card. Why such a discrepancy? Why 

 should Abraham Lincoln have 498 cards, while Barnabas Lincoln 

 has only one, and Benjamin Lincoln three? The same catalogue 

 contains 157 cards under the name of that strange mixture of 

 good and bad called Macchiavelli, and 38 under the sentimental 

 brute named Nero. Still more remarkable is the fact that there 

 are seven cards under Jukes, a name that stands for the lowest 

 depths of crime, vice, and degradation. W^hy should this be when 

 millions of most estimable citizens find no place either in the 

 catalogue or in history? 



