494 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP. 



intellectually, than they were. The question I propose to 

 discuss is one quite apart from that of civilization as 

 usually understood. It is, whether mankind have ad- 

 vanced as intellectual and moral beings ; and, if so, by 

 what agencies and under what laws have they so advanced 

 in the past, and what are the conditions under which that 

 advance may be continued in the future. 



Has Human Nature improved during Historic Times ? 



We have, first, to inquire whether there is any evidence 

 of such an advance in human nature during historic times.; 

 and this is by no means so simple a problem and one so 

 easily answered as is sometimes supposed. If there has 

 been any cause constantly at work tending to elevate 

 human nature, we should expect it to manifest itself by a 

 perceptible rise in the culminating points reached by man- 

 kind, in the intellectual and moral spheres, at successive 

 periods. But no such continuous rise of the high-water 

 mark of humanity is perceptible. The earliest known 

 architectural work, the great pyramid of Egypt, in the 

 mathematical accuracy of its form and dimensions, in its 

 precise orientation, and in the perfect workmanship 

 shown by its internal structure, indicates an amount of 

 astronomical, mathematical, and mechanical knowledge, 

 and an amount of experience and practical skill, which 

 could only have been attained at that early period of man's 

 history by the exertion of mental ability no way inferior 

 to that of our best modern engineers. In purely 

 intellectual achievements tl^e Vedas and the Maha- 

 bharata of ancient India, the Iliad of Homer, the book of 

 Job, and the writings of Plato, will rank with the noblest 

 works of modern authors. In sculpture and in architecture 

 the ancient Greeks attained to a height of beauty, harmony 

 and dignity, that has never been equalled in modern 

 times ; and taking account also of the great statesmen, 

 commanders, philosophers, and poets of the age of Pericles, 

 Mr. Francis Galton is of opinion " that the average ability 

 of the Athenian race was, on the lowest possible estimate, 

 very nearly two grades higher that our own that is, 



