3830 THE ACTION OF NATURAL 
the development of that perfect beauty which results 
from a healthy and well organized body, refined and 
ennobled by the highest intellectual faculties and sym- 
pathetic. emotions, his mental constitution may con- 
tinue to advance and improve, till the world is again 
inhabited by a single nearly homogeneous race, no 
individual of which will be inferior to the noblest 
specimens of existing humanity. ' 
Our progress towards such a result is very slow, but 
it still seems to be a progress. We are just now living 
at an abnormal period of the world’s history, owing to 
the marvellous developments and vast practical results 
of science, having been given to societies: too low 
morally and intellectually, to know how to make the 
best use of them, and to whom they have consequently 
been curses as well as blessings. Among civilized na- 
tions at the present day, it does not seem possible for 
natural selection to act in any way, so as to secure the 
permanent advancement of morality and intelligence ; 
for it is indisputably the mediocre, if not the low, both 
as regards morality and intelligence, who succeed best 
in life and multiply fastest. Yet there is undoubtedly 
an advance—on the whole a steady and a permanent 
one—both in the influence on public opinion of a high 
morality, and in the general desire for intellectual ele- 
vation; and as I cannot impute this in any way to 
“survival of the fittest,’’ I am forced to conclude that 
it is due, to the inherent progressive power of those 
glorious qualities which raise us so immeasurably above 
our fellow animals, and at the same time afford us the 
