254 THE MEANING OF EVOLUTION 
learn of them and to lead lives like theirs. To this 
process who shall set an end? The advance is slow, 
as in all evolution; but anyone who wishes to do 
“so may easily detect the direction of the current. 
The evolution of man’s physical frame probably 
has nearly ceased. Gradually organs that are use- 
less to him are passing away. Slowly his hands are 
becoming more delicate and refined and skilled. But 
his evolution has begun to work itself out on en- 
tirely other lines. We sometimes hear that the men 
of the past were the full equivalent of the men of 
to-day. Scholars like to tell us that the population 
of Athens was finer in quality than any population 
that has existed since. We must remember that 
group after group of men may be expected to special- 
ize intellectually and fail to develop morally and 
physically. Under these conditions this little branch 
of the human race runs through its forced flower- 
ing and comes to an end. With the study of history 
and the earnest investigation of these lives of the 
past, new possibilities arise within the human family. 
The next race that flowers may take longer to decay 
because it understands better the weaknesses that car- 
ried away the preceding civilization. In time there 
will arise a civilization that understands the past. 
A whole people will some time realize that intel- 
lectual development alone will not save it, or Athens 
