294 Heredity and Environment 



Athens famous. Galton concludes that the average ability of the 

 Athenian race of that period was, on the lowest estimate, as much 

 greater than that of the English race of the present day as the 

 latter is above that of the African negro. 



But this marvellously gifted race declined, as all such races 

 have in time declined : 



Social morality grew exceedingly lax, marriage became unfash- 

 ionable and was avoided, many of the more ambitious and ac- 

 complished women were avowed courtesans and consequently in- 

 fertile, and the mothers of the incoming population were of a 

 heterogeneous class. ... It can be therefore no surprise to us, 

 though it has been a severe misfortune to humanity, that the 

 high Athenian breed decayed and disappeared, for if it had main- 

 tained its excellence and had multiplied and spread over large 

 countries, displacing inferior populations (which it well might 

 have done, for it was naturally very prolific), it would assuredly 

 have accomplished results advantageous to human civilization to 

 a degree that transcends our powers of imagination. (Galton, 

 ''Hereditary Genius," page 331.) 



Bateson suggests that the high intellectual qualities of the an- 

 cient Athenian race were due to the inbreeding of homogeneous 

 and very superior phratries and gentes, but when foreign mar- 

 riages were sanctioned, and aliens and manumitted slaves were 

 admitted to citizenship by the "reforms" of Cleisthenes (507 

 B. C.) the population gradually became mongrelized and its in- 

 tellectual superiority declined. 



3. Why the Race Has Not Improved. If mankind has made 

 no progress in hereditary characteristics since the time of the 

 Greeks the cause is not far to seek. There have been gifted races 

 and families, doubtless many notable human mutations have oc- 

 curred, but most of these have been diluted, squandered, lost. 

 There has been persistent violation of all principles of good 

 breeding among men. For example, there has been for ages a 

 futile reliance upon good environment to improve heredity. Men 

 do not so improve the races of animals and plants, and thousands 



