Mr.
Galton has expressed the opinion, which I am not prepared to question,
that the population of Athens, taken as a whole, was as superior to us as
we are to Australian savages. But even if that be so, our civilization,
such as it is, is more diffused, so that unquestionably the general
European level is much higher.
Much, no doubt, is owing to the greater facility of access to the
literature of our country, to that literature, in the words of Macaulay,
"the brightest, the purest, the most durable of all the glories of our
country; to that Literature, so rich in precious truth and precious
fiction; to that Literature which boasts of the prince of all poets, and
of the prince of all philosophers; to that Literature which has exercised
an influence wider than that of our commerce, and mightier than that of
our arms."
Few of us make the most of our minds. The body ceases to grow in a few
years; but the mind, if we will let it, may grow as long as life lasts.
The onward progress of the future will not, we may be sure, be confined to
mere material discoveries.
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