48 DEGENERATION : I 



Europe, tlie possibility of degeneration seems to 

 be worth some consideration. In accordance with 

 a tacit assumption of universal progress — an unrea- 

 soning optimism — we are accustomed to regard our- 

 selves as necessarily progressing, as necessarily having 

 arrived at a higher and more elaborated condition than 

 that which our ancestors reached, and as destined to 

 progress still further. On the other hand, it is well 

 to remember that we are subject to the general 

 laws of evolution, and are as likely to degenerate as 

 to progress. As compared with the immediate fore- 

 fathers of our civilisation — the ancient Greeks — we 

 do not appear to have improved so far as our bodily 

 structure is concerned, nor assuredly so far as some of 

 our mental capacities are concerned. Our powers of 

 perceiving and expressing beauty of form have cer- 

 tainly not increased since the days of the Parthenon 

 and Aphrodite of Melos. In matters of the reason, 

 in the development of intellect, we may seriously 

 inquire how the case stands. Does the reason of 

 the average man of civilised Europe stand out clearly 

 as an evidence of progress when compared with that 

 of the men of bygone ages ? Are all the inventions 

 and figments of human superstition and folly, the 

 self-inflicted torturing of mind, the reiterated substi- 

 tution of wrong for right, and of falsehood for truth, 

 which disfigure our modern civilisation — are these 

 evidences of progress ? In such respects we have at 

 least reason to fear that we may be degenerate. 

 Possibly we are all drifting, tending to the condition 

 of intellectual Barnacles or Ascidians. It is possible 



