Page:George Archdall Reid 1896 The present evolution of man.djvu/212

200 the ancestral direction has not entirely ceased seems to be proved by the apparently well-ascertained fact, that moderns have on the whole larger bodies and brains than had their ancestors of live hundred years or more ago. The ancient Greeks and Romans were certainly of extraordinary mental prowess, but it is more than probable that they surpassed our less remote ancestors only because the environment in which they lived was more favourable than the mediaeval to the acquirement of fit mental traits; because, in their free intellectual atmosphere, they were trained to the performance of intellectual feats which were impossible to the fettered minds of our forefathers, who could hardly achieve greatness except as priests, or warriors, or as painters, sculptors, architects, musicians, or as other labourers in such arts as subserved the grandeur of the Church or the Throne. The splendour of the Greek and Roman achievements, therefore, does not constitute a proof that the Greeks and Romans were splendidly endowed, but only that the traits which they acquired from their progenitors enabled them to use their endowments splendidly. In judging of the mental capabilities of a people as a whole, as in judging of physical powers, it is safer to take as a test their corporal structures, their bodies and brains, rather than their physical and mental feats, for whether these latter be great or little depends upon circumstances which may be favourable or the reverse.

What awaits the human races in the future it is difficult to forecast. It may be, as modern tendencies seem to indicate, that as our social organization approaches perfection the labourer will receive according to the effort put forth, not according to the result achieved, and therefore that the weak and feeble in body and brain will be rewarded as richly as the strong and capable. In which case the evolution of man on his