CIVILIZED NATIONS. 133 



We will now look to the intellectual faculties. If in each grade 

 of society the members were divided into two equal bodies, the 

 one including the intellectually superior and the other the in- 

 ferior, there can be little doubt that the former would succeed 

 best in all occupations, and rear a greater number of children. 

 Even in the lowest walks of life, skill and ability must be of 

 some advantage; though in many occupations, owing to the great 

 division of labor, a very small one. Hence in civilized nations 

 there will be some tendency to an increase both in the number 

 and in the standard of the intelleetually able. But I do not wish 

 to assert that this tendency may not be more than counterbal- 

 anced in other ways as by the multiplication of the reckless and 

 improvident; but even to such as these, ability must be some 

 advantage. 



It has often been objected to views like the foregoing, that the 

 most eminent men who have ever lived have left no offspring to 

 inherit their great intellect. Mr. Galton says,"° "I regret I am 

 "unable to solve the simple question whether, and how far, men 

 "and women who are prodigies of genius are infertile. I have, 

 "however, shown that men of eminence are by no means so." 

 Great lawgivers, the founders of beneficent religions, great philos- 

 ophers and discoverers in science, aid the progress of mankind 

 in a far higher degree by their works than by leaving a numerous 

 progeny. In the case of corporeal structures, it is the selection of 

 the slightly better-endowed and the elimination of the slightly 

 less well-endowed individuals, and not the preservation of 

 strongly-marked and rare anomalies, that leads to the advance- 

 ment of a species." So it will be with the intellectual faculties, 

 since the somewhat abler men in each grade of society succeed 

 rather better than the less able, and consequently increase in 

 number, if not otherwise prevented. When in any nation the 

 standard of intellect and the number of intellectual men have 

 increased, we may expect from the law of the deviation from 

 an average, that prodigies of genius will, as shown by Mr. Galton, 

 appear somewhat more frequently than before. 



In regard to the moral qualities, some elimination of the worst 

 dispositions is always in progress even in the most civilized na- 

 tions. Malefactors are executed, or imprisoned for long periods, 

 so that they cannot freely transmit their bad qualities. Melan- 

 cholic and insane persons are confined, or commit suicide. Violent 

 and quarrelsome men often come to a bloody end. The restless 

 who will not follow any steady occupation — and tills relic of 

 barbarism is a great check to civilization" — emigrate to "newly- 



15 'Hereditary Genius,' 1870, p. 330. 



" 'Origin ol Species' (fifth edition, 1869), p. 104. 



1' 'Hereditaxy Genius,' 1870, p. 347. 



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