94 ARISTOCRA C Y AND E VOL UTION 



Book i constructed the Imperial Institute. But with this 

 hapter 4 s i owness j n t h e r | se o f the general level of capacity 

 let us compare the progressive results achieved 

 within some short period. We cannot do better 

 than take the past hundred years, and consider the 

 progress made in the material arts of life. How the 

 whole spectacle changes ! Within that short period, 

 at all events, no one will venture to maintain that 

 the average congenital capacities of our own 

 countrymen have been enlarged. We are not 

 wittier than Horace Walpole, more polite than 

 Lord Chesterfield, more shrewd and sensible than 

 Dr. Johnson ; whilst it is easy to see by reference 

 to those trades, such as the building trade, which 

 science and invention have done comparatively 

 little to alter, that the natural efficiency of the 

 average workman is no greater now than in the 

 days of our great -great -grandfathers. And yet 

 during that short period what an astounding progress 

 has taken place ! To sum it up in a bald economic 

 formula, whilst the capacities of the average English- 

 man have remained altogether stationary, the eco- 

 nomic productivity per head of the population of 

 this country has during the past century trebled, 

 and more than trebled itself. 



This remarkable comparison between the rapidity 

 of actual progress and the extreme slowness of the 

 biological development resulting from the survival 

 of the fittest in the Darwinian struggle for existence, 

 will be enough to show anybody that progress is not 

 one movement but two ; and whilst the survival of 



