society succeed rather better than the less able, and consequently
increase in number, if not otherwise prevented. When in any nation the
standard of intellect and the number of intellectual men have
increased, we may expect from the law of the deviation from an average,
that prodigies of genius will, as shewn by Mr. Galton, appear somewhat
more frequently than before.
In regard to the moral qualities, some elimination of the worst
dispositions is always in progress even in the most civilised nations.
Malefactors are executed, or imprisoned for long periods, so that they
cannot freely transmit their bad qualities. Melancholic and insane
persons are confined, or commit suicide. Violent and quarrelsome men
often come to a bloody end. The restless who will not follow any steady
occupation and this relic of barbarism is a great check to civilisation
(17. Hereditary Genius, 1870, p. 347.) emigrate to newly-settled
countries; where they prove useful pioneers. Intemperance is so highly
destructive, that the expectation of life of the intemperate, at the
age of thirty for instance, is only 13.8 years; whilst for the rural
labourers of England at the same age it is 40.59 years. (18. E. Ray
Lankester, Comparative Longevity, 1870, p. 115. The table of the
intemperate is from Neison s Vital Statistics. In regard to
profligacy, see Dr. Farr, Influence of Marriage on Mortality, Nat.
Assoc. for the Promotion of Social Science, 1858.) Profligate women
bear few children, and profligate men rarely marry; both suffer from
disease. In the breeding of domestic animals, the elimination of those
individuals, though few in number, which are in any marked manner
inferior, is by no means an unimportant element towards success. This
especially holds good with injurious characters which tend to reappear
through reversion, such as blackness in sheep; and with mankind some of
the worst dispositions, which occasionally without any assignable cause
make their appearance in families, may perhaps be reversions to a
savage state, from which we are not removed by very many generations.
This view seems indeed recognised in the common expression that such
men are the black sheep of the family.
With civilised nations, as far as an advanced standard of morality, and
an increased number of fairly good men are concerned, natural selection
apparently effects but little; though the fundamental social instincts
were originally thus gained. But I have already said enough, whilst
treating of the lower races, on the causes which lead to the advance of
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