1883.] 
*7 
On Anthropological Forecasts . 
machinery for manual labour may be expelled, however, to 
produce a much greater effect than the change in the nature 
of homicidal weapons. 
That the inhabitants of manufacturing towns should be 
seen to be “ degenerating,” as the process of their reduction 
in stature is — as I consider very inconsiderately— termed, is 
a matter of lamentation to many writers, who apparently 
can only regard the smaller individuals as stunted, or checked 
in growth by their evil physical surroundings ; whereas it 
may, surely, be more reasonably regarded as purely a case 
of natural selection. Are not little people as competent to 
control machinery as their larger mates ; and are they not 
therefore able to earn as good wages at such occupation ? 
As they cannot need to spend so much on food, clothes, or 
even house-room, they are clearly so far at an advantage in 
the struggle for existence with their more bulky competitors, 
and are therefore so much better able to wed, and increase 
and multiply, and to rear the (diminutive) offspring which 
they produce. In the past the big men have had, on the 
whole, the better chance of transmitting their dimensions to 
succeeding generations. In the coming age of machinery 
the smaller men are more likely to transmit their diminu- 
tiveness. 
Inherited sentiment may indeed check the speed of this 
dwarfing process, the smaller people having usually a natural 
liking for taller mates. But this feeling will die out ; for the 
possession of it, inasmuch as it may affedt the matrimonial 
selection, will be apt to lessen the number of an individual’s 
descendants. And thus in every generation there will be a 
greater proportion of marrying people, who, far from sneering 
at small stature in the opposite sex, will — on the principles 
explained in my article on “ Beauty” (No. XCVIII.) — delight 
in it. 
This continued reduction of stature. may very well proceed, 
I should suppose, at the rate (say) of an inch in a century. 
And, since the advantages of the change are more apparent 
than the drawbacks thereto, it seems not unreasonable to 
expert that the operation will thus go on till a very great 
change is effected. The smaller mankind become the more 
elbow-room there will be in every situation, and in greater 
comparative abundance will be all the products of the 
earth’s crust. At the present time, moreover, man is able 
to transport himself rapidly from place to place only on 
roads specially made with much labour and at great expense. 
A material diminution of his weight would go far to facilitate 
aerial locomotion. And it is not, indeed, an altogether 
