5 o DARWINISM AND POLITICS. 



the mind, just as I acknowledge the effect of 

 use in developing the muscles of a blacksmith's 

 arm, and no further." There is a definite 

 limit to the muscular [and intellectual] power 

 of every man, which he cannot by any educa- 

 tion or exertion over-pass. 1 If this is the 

 dictum of science, it might seem for a moment 

 to deal a fatal blow to the aspirations of demo- 

 cracy. But does it ? Equality, we need to be 

 reminded, is not a fact, but an ideal something 

 at which we have to aim. And one of the 

 main things we may hope for in a better 

 organised society is that the world will not lose 

 or waste so much of the intellectual genius in 

 its midst. We need all the eminence, intel- 

 lectual, moral, artistic, that we can get not 

 that the eminent individual may amass a 

 fortune or receive the fatal gift of the peerage 

 (as for those that care for such things verily 

 they have their reward), but that he may exer- 

 cise his gifts, as all the world's greatest men 

 would wish to exercise them, for the benefit of 

 his fellow-men. Mr. Galton seems indeed to 

 suggest that eminent men generally do come to 

 the front as it is ; but his statement is a little 

 1 Hereditary Genius, p. 14. 



