14 HEREDITY. 



age rank in ability, were likely to drift into the 

 artisan class. The upper order contained a great 

 mass of exceedingly able individuals. Perhaps there 

 never has been such a development of genius as oc- 

 curred after this unconscious natural selection began 

 in the unrolling of Athenian history. 



5. In two centuries, or from 500 to 300 B.C., the 

 Greek race produced the following illustrious per- 

 sons, twenty-eight in number : 



These were statesmen and commanders Milti- 

 ades, Leonidas, Themistocles, mother an alien, 

 Aristides, Cimon, Epaminondas, Phocion, Pericles. 



These were philosophers and men of science 

 Pythagoras, Socrates, Hippocrates, Euclid, Plato, 

 Aristotle. 



These were poets Anacreon, u3Sschylus, Pindar, 

 Euripides, Sophocles, Aristophanes. 



These were architects, sculptors, and artists 

 Apelles, Phidias, and Praxiteles. 



These were historians Herodotus, Thucydides, 

 Xenophon. 



These were orators JEscbines and Demosthenes. 



6. Almost without exception these twenty-eight 

 men were either born, nurtured, or educated, in At- 

 tica ; and they all, without exception, owed inspira- 

 tion to her. 



7. But take Attica alone, and we find that in 

 a single century she produced fourteen of these 

 twenty-eight illustrious men. 



8. Attica contained, in the best days of Greece, a 

 population of only about ninety thousand free per- 



