184: THE DESCENT OF MAN 



cupations, 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 

 intellectually able. But I do not wish to assert that this 

 tendency may not be more thau counterbalanced in other 

 ways, as by the multiplication of the reckless and improvi- 

 dent; 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 philosophers 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 ad- 

 vancement of a species." So it will be with the intellec- 

 tual faculties, since the somewhat abler men in each grade 

 of society succeed rather better than the less able, and con- 

 sequently increase in number, if not otherwise prevented. 

 When in any nation the standard of intellect and the num- 

 ber 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 nations. Malefactors are executed, or imprisoned 



" "Hereditary Geniua," IStO, p. 330. 



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



