1883.] 
On Anthropological Forecasts, 
15 
fatftors affedling the psychical development of the Anthro - 
pidce hitherto have been bringing about what we consider to 
be improvement is no proof whatever that such progress will 
continue. It may, or it may not. Positive assertions either 
way are equally without warrant. But with regard to the 
conditions which appear to affedbthe question at the present 
day we may note one of some importance, which is too often, 
I think, disregarded. By looking around us we may see that 
present circumstances generally favour the social rise of the 
more intelligent individuals of the lower classes of the com- 
munity. Hence many such persons are drawn out of those 
strata of society that earn their bread chiefly by using their 
muscles. It is, I believe, certain that by such abandonment 
of bodily labour they lose something in prolificacy. An 
analogous result among lower animals might lead us to ex- 
pedt this. It is because fertility is increased by physical 
exertion that farmers often put bulls to hard work. An ex- 
perienced breeder of horses told the Lords’ Committee on 
Horse-breeding (1873, Qu. 1157) that a horse could not be 
travelled too much. “ The more the horse is travelled the 
more foals.” * Common observation leads us to the conclu- 
sion that this physical law holds good for mankind also, the 
large family of the labourer being notorious. Thus stupidity, 
by keeping a man in the ranks of labour, may increase the 
comparative abundance of his offspring (inheriting his 
dulness). This must tend to keep down, if not to lower, 
the average intelligence of many communities. 
Mr. Fiske tells us, in his “ Cosmic Philosophy,” that 
though “ mankind is destined to advance during future ages 
in psychical attributes,” he “ is likely to undergo only slight 
changes in outward appearance. ”t On the other hand, we 
have the opinion of Mr. Herbert SpencerJ that in the 
* In this fadt we ought, I think, to see that not only is it incorredl to suppose 
(as is commonly done) that “ Survival of the Fittest ” is to be taken as neces- 
sarily equivalent to the nearest approach to supposed ideally perfedt animal 
types, — which is negatived by those instances of development (of either spe- 
cies or individual) which result in so-called “ degeneration,” — but also that it 
is not a matter of course that Natural Selection will always bring about the 
closest adaptability of a species’ capacity to its needs. For in the case of 
those creatures which unite at the time of year when their food is abundant, a 
defedt in the power of procuring nutriment might entail so much more physical 
labour in the defedtive individuals that their extra exertions make them so much 
the more fertile than those which become plethoric, through their being en- 
dowed with superior power of obtaining their food with ease. Thus in some 
cases a check may be put upon the plenary organisation of a species by Natural 
Seledtion, and the less perfedt animal may thus have the higher claim to be 
called “ the fittest.” 
f Part II., Chapter XXI. 
X Principles of Biology, vol. ii., Chapter XIII. 
