Again, where we speak of “average ability,” it is not correct to compare large populous countries, where great talents are often submerged (see Gray’s “Elegy”) with smaller communities that afford far ampler scope. Take my own State, South Australia, with its huge territory and a population of under half a million, less than that of one of the larger English towns. We have our Premier, Government, Parliament, Town Councils, Heads of Departments, University, schools, judges, lawyers, journalists and literary men, financiers, merchants, men who design and construct railways, irrigation and other important works, mining men, heads of institutions and so on—which means a large number of men of ability and resource in all departments of life. If we compare ourselves with an average half-million of Englishmen, how great our superiority would apparently be! And yet, we know that we are not actually more capable—our ability has been simply brought into play. Mr. W. M. Hughes might himself have been a “flower to blush unseen,” if he had not emigrated to Australia.
We have so far dealt with minor matters, which have nevertheless reduced Galton’s arithmetical estimate by, say, 75 per cent. at the very least. Let us now take the one great misrepresentation that must have immediately flashed upon the minds of all reviewers of Galton’s book, if they had not been blinded by classical enthusiasm. It is truly remarkable that not a single one of them seems to have called attention to the obvious fact that Galton takes the one great Athenian period, as though it were an average period in their history! From Homer’s time to the Fifth Century, B.C., would probably be about as long as from the Norman Conquest to the present time, or from King Alfred to Shakespeare—and there are again the many centuries that followed. Is the “average ability” of the Greeks during hundreds or thousands of years to be estimated on their one most brilliant period? The question needs no discussion. Galton might in the same way have taken our Elizabethan period when London had a population of 150,000, and Great Britain of about three millions—and proved that our own ancestors were as far above ourselves as we are above the negro.[71]
Mr. C. T. Whiting, of the Adelaide Public Library, knowing how my time was limited, very kindly volunteered to make an extensive search for references to Galton’s statement in such of the literature of the time as is available in Adelaide. In addition to a number of books, he has searched through thirty-eight journals. He finds reviews of Galton’s book in the following:—Athenæum, British Quarterly, Saturday Review, Edinburgh Review, Fortnightly Review, Chambers’ Journal, Journal of Anthropology, Atlantic Monthly, Frazer’s Magazine, Nature, Times, and Westminster Review. The first seven do not refer at all to the statement—they apparently accept it as a matter of course. Of the last five Frazer’s mentions the statement, and says vaguely that the chapter in which it is contained “offers several vulnerable points to the critic;” the Westminster states the fact without taking any exception to it; the Atlantic Monthly raises the question whether Miltiades, Aristides, Cimon, and Xenophon were so very illustrious, and enters into an argument on Galton’s figures; the Times considers that we have had other men in different fields of human effort, who could be named with Socrates and Pheidias, and lays stress on the enormous increase of knowledge and activity in modern life; in Nature A. R. Wallace, misreading Galton as referring only to the age of Pericles[72] admits the truth of the statement as applied to the Athenians of that time. None of them refer to the fact that Galton takes the most brilliant period of Greek history as a normal period—and the arguments, taken together, amount to very little. As regards the twenty-six journals which appear to have taken no notice of so startling a statement in an important book, the fact seems to indicate that to the writers for those journals the statement contained nothing of a remarkable or dubious character! (Even Punch missed the chance of an amusing cartoon!)
It may be objected that the reviewers of the book would not be classical men. But first it must be remembered that the writers of 1869 would practically all have had a classical education and secondly it needed no special classical knowledge to see the absurdity of the statement. Every one without exception would know, for example, that the period taken by Galton was the one great Greek period. The statement must also have excited interest on all sides. I myself remember how it was talked of when I was a boy in Melbourne, and I have heard it repeated as an acknowledged fact up to the present time—and, therefore, comment would have been expected in every direction. But apparently the statement was generally accepted. Mr. Whiting finds that in 1892, twenty-three years after, Galton calmly repeated the statement word for word, without reference to any criticisms. Again we find Mr. Zimmern accepting it as a matter of course in his second edition in 1915. As it was in his first edition, which would be reviewed in the classical journals, it must presumably have met with no adverse comments.
But we have to go even further than this. Galton’s was one of those important books that are studied by all Europe. Seeing that he makes no mention of adverse criticism in his second edition, and Mr. Zimmern sees no reason to qualify the statement, it is fair to assume that no serious objection has been made in England or Europe during nearly half a century. So amazingly does classical enthusiasm pervade the thought of the world! I do not think I need say anything further on this subject.[73]
Mr. Zimmern heads one of his chapters “Happiness or the Rule of Love,” the “Rule of Love” being his translation of εὐδαιμονία! This chapter is occupied exclusively by the famous Funeral Speech of Pericles. I invite the reader to look through that terribly hard speech, and see how much love it contains! Again to another chapter the heading is “Gentleness or the Rule of Religion,” followed by two quotations which are evidently intended to be read as parallel passages:
στέργοι δέ με σωφροσύνα
δώρημα κάλλιστον θεῶν.[74]—Eur. Medea, 638.
Give unto us made lowly wise