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Ch. XLIIL] 



LAW OF PEOGEESS. 



480 



amonnt of talent above the average of their generation. 



he a power in natnre, capable of giving rise to individuals in 

 advance of all which have preceded them, and it then becomes 

 simply a question of time how soon the more improved 

 varieties will prevail. Their final success is certain, though 

 many adverse circumstances may retard the rate of progress. 

 Suppose a human infant endowed with intellectual capacity 

 superior to that of any one previously born into the world ; it 

 is as liable to be cut off in childhood as one less gifted, but 

 it has also an equal chance of growing up, and if it attains 

 maturity it will promote the advancement of the tribe to which 

 it belongs, inventing perhaps some warlike weapon or better 

 laws and institutions, and there will be a great probability 

 of some of the children of such an individual inheriting an 



The 



more civilisation advances the less will mere bodily strength 

 and acuteness of the senses confer social superiority* But 

 still, as Darwin says, there is no fixed and necessary law of 

 progress. The institutions of a country may be so framed 

 that individuals possessing moderate or even inferior abilities 

 may have the best chance of surviving. Thus the Holy In- 

 quisition in Spain may for centuries carefully select from the 

 thinking part of the population all men of genius, all who dare 

 to question received errors and who have the moral courage 

 to express their doubts, and may doom them by thousands 

 to destruction, so as effectually to lower the general standard 



But s^ch exceptional institutions will not 

 arrest the onward march of the human race. It will only 

 depress one nation, causing it to decline in knovdedge, powei", 

 wealth, population, and political influence, and prepare for 

 the day when it will be conquered by some other people in 

 which freer scope has been given to intellectual progress. 



OhjecUons to Darwin's theory of Natural Selection. — The 

 Duke of Argyll, in his lately pubhshed work on the ' Eeign of 

 Law,' has made some valuable criticisms on Mr. Darwin's 

 theory of Natural Selection, to which, in conclusion, I shall 

 now allude. After observing that we know nothing of the 

 natural forces by which new forms of life are called into being, 

 he says that if there were evidence that the new could be de- 



■ r 



veloped from the old, he cannot see why there should be any 



of intelligence. 



