be inferred from civilised men having been found, wherever compared, to
be physically stronger than savages. (13. Quatrefages, Revue des Cours
Scientifiques, 1867-68, p. 659.) They appear also to have equal powers
of endurance, as has been proved in many adventurous expeditions. Even
the great luxury of the rich can be but little detrimental; for the
expectation of life of our aristocracy, at all ages and of both sexes,
is very little inferior to that of healthy English lives in the lower
classes. (14. See the fifth and sixth columns, compiled from good
authorities, in the table given in Mr. E.R. Lankester s Comparative
Longevity, 1870, p. 115.)
We will now look to the intellectual faculties. If in each grade of
society the members were divided into two equal bodies, the one
including the intellectually superior and the other the inferior, there
can be little doubt that the former would succeed best in all
occupations, and rear a greater number of children. Even in the lowest
walks of life, skill and ability must be of some advantage; though in
many occupations, owing to the great division of labour, a very small
one. Hence in civilised nations there will be some tendency to an
increase both in the number and in the standard of the intellectually
able. But I do not wish to assert that this tendency may not be more
than counterbalanced in other ways, as by the multiplication of the
reckless and improvident; but even to such as these, ability must be
some advantage.
It has often been objected to views like the foregoing, that the most
eminent men who have ever lived have left no offspring to inherit their
great intellect. Mr. Galton says, I regret I am unable to solve the
simple question whether, and how far, men and women who are prodigies
of genius are infertile. I have, however, shewn that men of eminence
are by no means so. (15. Hereditary Genius, 1870, p. 330.) Great
lawgivers, the founders of beneficent religions, great philosophers and
discoverers in science, aid the progress of mankind in a far higher
degree by their works than by leaving a numerous progeny. In the case
of corporeal structures, it is the selection of the slightly
better-endowed and the elimination of the slightly less well-endowed
individuals, and not the preservation of strongly-marked and rare
anomalies, that leads to the advancement of a species. (16. Origin of
Species (fifth edition, 1869), p. 104.) So it will be with the
intellectual faculties, since the somewhat abler men in each grade of
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