178 
THE DESCENT OF MAN. 
Part I. 
risen, if the power of natural selection were real, still 
higher in the scale, increased in number, and stocked 
the whole of Europe. Here we have the tacit assump- 
tion, so often made with respect to corporeal structures, 
that there is some innate tendency towards continued 
development in mind and body. But development of 
all kinds depends on many concurrent favourable cir- 
cumstances. Natural selection acts only in a tentative 
manner. Individuals and races may have acquired 
certain indisputable advantages, and yet have perished 
from failing in other characters. The Greeks may have 
retrograded from a want of coherence between the many 
small states, from the small size of their whole country, 
from the practice of slavery, or from extreme sensuality ; 
for they did not succumb until “they were enervated 
“ and corrupt to the very core .” 25 The western nations 
of Europe, who now so immeasurably surpass their 
former savage progenitors and stand at the summit of 
civilisation, owe little or none of their superiority to 
direct inheritance from the old Greeks; though they 
owe much to the written w T orks of this wonderful people. 
Who can positively say why the Spanish nation, 
so dominant at one time, has been distanced in the 
race. The awakening of the nations of Europe from 
the dark ages is a still more perplexing problem. At 
this early period, as Mr. Gal ton 26 has remarked, almost 
all the men of a gentle nature, those given to medi- 
tation or culture of the mind, had no refuge except in 
the bosom of the Church which demanded celibacy; 
25 Mr. Greg, ‘Fraser’s Magazine,’ Sept. 1868, p. 357. 
26 ‘Hereditary Genius,’ 1870, p. 357-359. The Kev. F. H. Farrar 
(‘ Fraser’s Mag.’, Aug. 1870, p. 257) advances arguments on the other 
side. Sir C. Lyell had already (‘ Principles of Geology,’ vol. ii. 1868, 
p. 489) called attention, in a striking passage, to the evil influence of 
the Holy Inquisition in having lowered, through selection, the general 
standard of inteUigence in Europe. 
