1883 -] 
On Anthropological Forecasts . 
*3 
III. ON ANTHROPOLOGICAL FORECASTS. 
By F. Ram. 
S RE Darwinian principles to be set aside whenever the 
future of mankind forms the subjedt of philosophical 
speculation ; or is the theory that all organised 
beings are fashioned by the environment — a theory now 
generally admitted to be true as regards the development of 
our species hitherto — to be considered to hold good for the 
bimane of the future also ? No Evolutionist would, I sup- 
pose, maintain in so many words that there exists an 
immutable destiny, which will of necessity exalt generations 
to come into a higher rank — mental, moral, and physical — 
than man now holds, whether the circumstances which beset 
our race are favourable to such desirable amelioration or are 
antagonistic to it ; and yet how many anthropologists, when 
dealing with the subject, appear to be led by their optimistic 
prepossessions into a practical abandonment of the theory 
that the diredtion of development is dependent on the con- 
ditions of life. The lesser lights do, indeed, follow high 
authority in thus sacrificing (as it appears to me) scientific 
principles to philanthropical aspirations, for we find Mr. 
Herbert Spencer expressing his undoubting confidence that 
“ the things we call evil and immorality will disappear,” and 
that man must “ become perfedt * whilst by Mr. Wallace 
we have been assured that, of the race which will some day 
people the earth, no individual “ will be inferior to the 
noblest specimens of existing humanity. ”t But surely, so 
long as we cannot demonstrate beyond dispute what the 
conditions of life will be in the time to come, and can show 
from the experience of the past that such conditions invari- 
ably produce such and such results, the confident anticipa- 
tions of this description which one so frequently meets with 
must be held to be most unscientific, being born of faith and 
hope only, and resting on no sure foundation. 
If two codes of ethics — a superior code A and an inferior 
code B — were placed before a philosopher of the optimistic 
school, and he were asked which he supposed would 
ultimately prevail in the earth, he would give his confident 
* Social Statics, Chapter I., “ On the Evanescence of Evil,” 
f Anthropological Journal, March 1, 1864, p. clvii, 
