THE PROMISE OF RACE CULTURE 5°07 
evolution of the psychical is capable. There is every reason to deny 
this, but let us for the moment assume it true. There still remains 
the thought of Wordsworth, “What one is, why may not millions 
be ?”’—a thought to which Spencer has also given utterance. What 
is shown possible for human nature here and there, he says, is con- 
ceivable for human nature at large. It is possible for a human being, 
whilst still remaining human, to be a Shakespeare or a St. Francis; 
these things are thus demonstrably within the possibilities of human 
nature. It is therefore at the least conceivable that, in the course of 
almost infinite time (even assuming, say, that intelligence must ever 
be limited, as even Newton’s intelligence was limited)—some such 
capacities as his may be common property amongst men of the 
scientific type; and so with other types. We may answer Words- 
worth that there is no bar thrown by Nature in the way of such a hope. 
What is possible—This of course is speculation and of no 
immediate value. I would merely remind the reader that the doctrine 
of optimism, as regards the future of mankind, which the principles of 
race-culture assume and which they desire to justify, was definitely 
shared by the great pioneers to whom we owe our understanding 
of those principles. Notwithstanding grave nervous disorder, such 
as makes pessimists of most men, both Darwin and Spencer were 
compelled by their study of Nature to this rational optimism as 
regards man’s future. The doctrine of organic evolution, and of the 
age-long ascent of man through the selection of the fittest (who have, 
on the whole, been the best) for parenthood, is one not of despair but 
of hope. Exactly half a century ago it struck horror into the minds of 
our predecessors. Man, then, is only an erected ape, they thought— 
as if any historical doctrine, however true, could shorten the dizzy 
distance to which man has climbed since he was simian; and man 
being an ape, they thought his high dreams palpably vain. But the 
measure of the accomplished hints at the measure of the possible, and 
the value of the historical facts lies not in themselves, all facts as 
such being as dead as are the individual atoms of the living body, but 
in the principles which grow out of them. It is of no importance as 
such that man has simian ancestors; it is of immeasurable importance 
that he should learn by what processes he has become human, and by 
what, indeed, they became simian—which would have been a proud 
adjective for its own day. The principles of organic progress matter 
for us because they are the principles of race-culture, the only sure 
means of human progress. Our looking backwards does not turn us 
