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xxii
Hereditary Genius
those who are the most efficient forming our highest class. The question to
be solved relates to the hereditary permanence of the several classes. What
proportion of each class is descended from parents who belong to the same
class, and what proportion is descended from parents who belong to each
of the other classes? Do those persons who have honourably succeeded in
life, and who are presumably, on the whole, the most valuable portion of our
human stock, contribute on the aggregate their fair share of posterity to the
next generation? If not, do they contribute more or less than their fair share,
and in what degree? In other words, is the evolution of man in each
particular country, favourably or injuriously affected by its special form of
civilization?
Enough is already known to make it certain that the productiveness of
both the extreme classes, the best and the worst, falls short of the average
of the nation as a whole. Therefore, the most prolific class necessarily lies
between the two extremes, but at what intermediate point does it lie? Taken
altogether, on any reasonable principle, are the natural gifts of the most
prolific class, bodily, intellectual, and moral, above or below the line of
national mediocrity? If above that line, then the existing conditions are
favourable to the improvement of the race. If they are below that line, they
must work towards its degradation.
These very brief remarks serve to shadow out the problem; it would
require much more space than is now available, before it could be phrased
in a way free from ambiguity, so that its solution would clearly instruct us
whether the conditions of life at any period in any given race were tending
to raise or to depress its natural qualities.
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