294 BIOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF HUMAN PROBLEMS 



under conditions so different as those of to-day, 

 and those of the period of the Rameses or of Alex- 

 ander. The great superiority of the conditions of 

 to-day for mental development gives us the impres- 

 sion that the best modern Germanic minds show more 

 capacity than the best Teutonic minds of the times 

 of Suetonius. There is, however, no proof that this 

 is really so. We can merely guess and hope that in 

 the general tendency of man to ameliorate the brain 

 has had its share. The improvement in the general 

 level of intelligence should not make us overconfi- 

 dent of the growth of maximal understanding. If 

 there be a tendency toward the betterment of the 

 I lowest minds, that is, of those least able to voice the 

 feeling of the infinite and abstract, it is at best a 

 slow and hesitant tendency. We have no right to 

 assume that the mental and moral progress of any 

 nation must continue. The best minds of any race 

 may grow less numerous in response to decadent 

 physical changes liable at any time to assert them- 

 selves ; and this lowering of the highest levels would 

 be apt to coincide with a decline in the general level 

 of capacity. But it is reasonable for us to take an 

 optimistic view of the possibilities open to the 

 human mind, to believe that at least some races, by 

 struggle and self-culture, may conserve and develop 

 natural powers in their chosen few, distinctly superior 

 to any that have yet left their record in the world. 

 Our conception of the universe is limited by the re- 

 strictions of the most capacious and intuitive minds 



