promised certain grounds for the acceptance of this belief, but our researches in the work not having been successful on this point, we are forced to consider them non-existent. Without any further attempt to explain elementary difficulties, we are carried "in medias res." As we understand it, the argument runs thus. As it is conceded on all hands that children take after their relations in natural capacity, genius must be hereditary; and as genius goes by reputation, and reputation is in the hands of those who compile handbooks of " Men of the Time," we can learn what is good and true by an arithmetical calculation, based upon one of the said handbooks. The famous subject of debate in the Middle Ages, as to whether sin could have been atoned for had the Saviour appeared in the form of a pumpkin, is hardly equal in gravity and absurdity to this proposition. The term genius is introduced without a word of preface. The very thing that puzzles this as much as all generations to discern, is taken as clearly defined, because a common-place fact is prefixed. We hardly venture to ask if the author is aware of the half-ironical meaning of the word reputation. He is evidently convinced that science conceals many defects. He would be outraged if a theologian were to put to him the ancient logical proof of the existence of a Supreme Being and demand the concession of a perfect, as implied in an imperfect; but he is guilty of the same error when he asks us to accept one thing which he does not define at all, as part and parcel of another, which he gives without any of the needful limitations. Inheritance of excellence is the common order of things, but genius is genius

because it is out of that order. For instance, if in a primitive people the qualifications most esteemed are those of a good bowman, and some one invent a fire-arm, it does not at all follow that his ancestors were good archers on the contrary the chances are that the hereditary powers that culminated in the discovery had until that moment been held in extreme contempt. No reflection, however, of this kind disturbs our author. He proceeds to compare life to an examination, and arranges his double-firsts, his honour-men, and his wooden spoons with a self-confidence that would be comic were he not trespassing on so grave a field.

On page 14,* we are presented with the issue in terms which are beyond the power of benevolence to misinterpret. Mr. Galton says, "I have no patience with the hypothesis occasionally expressed and often implied, especially in tales written to teach children to be good, that babies are born pretty much alike, and that the sole agencies in creating differences between boy and boy and man and man are steady application and mere effort. It is in the most unqualified manner that I object to pretensions of natural equality. The experiences of the nursery, the school, the university, and of professional careers are a chain of proofs to the contrary. I acknowledge freely the the great power of education and social influences in developing the social influences of the mind, just as I acknowledge the effect of use in developing the muscles of a blacksmith's arm and no further. Let the blacksmith labour as he will, he will find that there are certain "Macmillan," 1869.

feats beyond his power, that are well within the strength of a man of Herculean make, even although the latter may have led a sedentary life." This paragraph, beginning, like the first we cited, with the repetition of a commonplace fact, ends like that with an assumption of mental power which has never been proved to be the birth-right of humanity. Amongst us there are undoubtedly differences of strength and intellect, as wide apart as beauty and ugliness; when, however, Mr. Galton asserts that no man can go beyond his tether, he gives a false Turn to his truism. In the case of physical strength even, we have no absolute standard: it is the man who exerts power that wins the laurel, while mere capacity has but a speculative value like the virgin soil of the west. Exertion. itself is conditioned by appreciation. The sophism lies in the confusion of two distinct quantities, the individual man in his relation to individuals, and a society in relation to societies. The individual is to his fellowmen of the same country as the society to the other peoples of the earth. In England, for instance, starting from common ground, we find in truth that the blacksmith can be exceeded in power by many who have not enjoyed his training. If, however, turning hence to some people among whom athletic exertion is not prized so highly, we compare the aggregate of strong men on either side, we shall find, given an approximate equality of race, that the sum of the strength of the trained vastly exceeded that of the untrained. The difference we mark between the individual and the nation has a thousand finer shades separating portions of the same people, as, however

far union may be carried, the principle of individuality of development is always at work. Practically, therefore, the reverse of Mr. Galton's proposition is true. Moral or educational influence is but another name for the opinion of the society, or fraction of society, to which an infant belongs; and as that opinion decides which of its faculties shall be called into play, it is of more importance than the special faculties with which the child is endowed. At this moment we despise idiots and hunchbacks, but that is no reason why all generations should do so. What change may have in store for the future is unknown to us, and without exact pre-science we cannot assert that the time may not come when the idiot or the hunchback may have an easier existence than he whom we call the normal man. In the time of Louis XIV., for instance, the growth of hair was as various as now, but of what use were luxurious tresses to the young noble whom fashion compelled to wear a wig?

The only true way of applying science to humanity, is to concede, for the sake of argument, the full claims of apparent fictions like morality, inasmuch as they are facts, to be studied equally with other more definite data. To doubt their validity is to impose one's own personal opinion on the universe, which is the very tendency in opposition to which science has been raised up.

Education, moral or otherwise, is the transmission of the experience of past generations to the one growing up. That the form is not exact, matters not: the fact remains. When we say that moral and other teaching are more important than the minor distinctions of individuality, we

simply state a truth observable at this hour by any newspaper reader. The Japanese, who triumph so easily in our examinations, could hardly be what they are if mental servility had not been a tradition of their race for centuries. Abundance of opposite qualities may,—nay, we should suppose must-have been present in that people at various times, but they have evidently been suppressed, morally at first, but in due course physiologically.

In truth, when Mr. Galton escapes the difficulty of a definition of genius by omitting any mention of the necessity of doing so, he leaps from the frying pan into the fire. Every human being possesses, in one sense, genius. If a couple of nailers receive so much iron. apiece, though they work according to the same pattern, and be ever so well drilled to their task, the product of their labour will be separate and individual. It is but the inexactitude of language which, reflecting the human tendency to create opposing entities, sanctions. the antagonism between mechanical and mental. The use of a tool or machine narrows indeed the sphere of character, but cannot annihilate its influence.

It is the custom, at the present day, to apply the word genius to him only who opens up a field of action, and to style that which follows up and completes his thought, skill, or talent; but, properly, every individual from the master to the feeblest copyist justifies his claim to the possession of the quality, by the introduction of some modification, good or evil, as circumstances may rule. A clerk cannot even take an impression of a letter in the press without his genius manifesting itself in a greater or