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340
Hereditary Genius
natural capacity of the Australian, but not sufficient to induce me to
invite the reader to consider them.
The average standard of the Lowland Scotch and the English
North-country men is decidedly a fraction of a grade superior to that
of the ordinary English, because the number of the former who attain
to eminence is far greater than the proportionate number of their race
would have led us to expect. The same superiority is distinctly shown
by a comparison of the well-being of the masses of the population;
for the Scotch labourer is much less of a drudge than the Englishman
of the Midland counties—he does his work better, and “lives his life”
besides. The peasant women of Northumberland work all day in the
fields, and are not broken down by the work; on the contrary, they
take a pride in their effective labour as girls, and, when married, they
attend well to the comfort of their homes. It is perfectly distressing to
me to witness the draggled, drudged, mean look of the mass of
individuals, especially of the women, that one meets in the streets of
London and other purely English towns. The conditions of their life
seem too hard for their constitutions, and to be crushing them into
degeneracy.
The ablest race of whom history bears record is unquestionably the
ancient Greek, partly because their master-pieces in the principal
departments of intellectual activity are still unsurpassed, and in many
respects unequalled, and partly because the population that gave birth
to the creators of those master-pieces was very small. Of the various
Greek sub-races, that of Attica was the ablest, and she was no doubt
largely indebted to the following cause, for her superiority. Athens
opened her arms to immigrants, but not indiscriminately, for her social
life was such that none but very able men could take any pleasure in
it; on the other hand, she offered attractions
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