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Hereditary Genius
343
morality grew exceedingly lax; marriage became unfashionable, and
was avoided; many of the more ambitious and accomplished women
were avowed courtesans, and consequently infertile, and the mothers
of the incoming population were of a heterogeneous class. In a small
sea-bordered country, where emigration and immigration are
constantly going on, and where the manners are as dissolute as were
those of Greece in the period of which I speak, the purity of a race
would necessarily fail. It can be, therefore, no surprise to us, though it
has been a severe misfortune to humanity, that the high Athenian
breed decayed and disappeared; for if it had maintained its
excellence, and had multiplied and spread over large countries,
displacing inferior populations (which it well might have done, for it
was exceedingly prolific), it would assuredly have accomplished
results advantageous to human civilization, to a degree that
transcends our powers of imagination.
If we could raise the average standard of our race only one grade,
what vast changes would be produced! The number of men of
natural gifts equal to those of the eminent men of the present day,
would be necessarily increased more than tenfold, as will be seen by
the fourth column of the table p. 34, because there would be 2, 423 of
them in each million instead of only 233; but far more important to the
progress of civilization would be the increase in the yet higher orders
of intellect. We know how intimately the course of events is
dependent on the thoughts of a few illustrious men. If the first-rate
men in the different groups had never been born, even if those among
them who have a place in my appendices on account of their
hereditary gifts, had never existed, the world would be very different
to what it is. Now the table shows that the numbers in these, the
loftiest grades of intellect, would be increased in a still higher
proportion than that of which
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