200 THE PRESENT EVOLUTION OF MAN — PHYSICAL 



the ancestral direction has not entirely ceased seems to 

 be proved by the apparently well-ascertained fact, that 

 moderns have on the whole larger bodies and brains 

 than had their ancestors of five hundred years or more 

 ago. The ancient Greeks and Romans were certainly 

 of extraordinary mental prowess, but it is more than 

 probable that they surpassed our less remote ancestors 

 only because the environment in which they lived was 

 more favourable than the mediieval to the acquirement 

 of fit mental traits ; because, in their free intellectual 

 atmosphere, they were trained to the performance of 

 intellectual feats which were impossible to the fettered 

 minds of our forefathers, who could hardly achieve 

 greatness except as priests, or warriors, or as painters, 

 sculptors, architects, musicians, or as other labourers in 

 such arts as subserved the grandeur of the Church or 

 the Throne. The splendour of the Greek and Roman 

 achievements, therefore, does not constitute a proof 

 that the Greeks and Romans were splendidly endowed, 

 but only that the traits which they acquired from 

 their progenitors enabled them to use their endow- 

 ments splendidly. In judging of the mental capa- 

 bilities of a people as a whole, as in judging of 

 physical powers, it is safer to take as a test their 

 corporal structures, their bodies and brains, rather than 

 their physical and mental feats, for whether these 

 latter be great or little depends upon circumstances 

 which may be favourable or the reverse. 



What awaits the human races in the future it is 

 difficult to forecast. It may be, as modern tendencies 

 seem to indicate, that as our social organization ap- 

 proaches perfection the labourer will receive accord- 

 ing to the effort put forth, not according to the result 

 achieved, and therefore that the weak and feeble in body 

 and brain will be rewarded as richly as the strong and 

 capable. In which case the evolution of man on his 



