there will be any general activity or real elevation of thought. We have examples of countries where millions of men have succeeded one another for generations, even for centuries, and produced nothing more than a few competent administrators without statesmanship, soldiers without strategy, and literary men without the power to originate. Civilisation, such as is the outgrowth of populous communities, appears to guarantee little more at best than a wise habit of municipal administration, some energy and deftness of commerce, and certain gracious formalities in human intercourse. The official, the merchant, and the diner-out represent the outcome of city life when society is torpid.
Now the compensating drawbacks to these advantages of general acuteness and occasional distinction are sufficiently formidable. It is very doubtful whether townsmen of many generations do not lose stamina, and decline in stature, to a degree that implies perilous degeneracy.[1] The question, no doubt, is not a simple one. So far as the evidence of coats of armour goes, the ancestors of the English people must have been smaller-chested and of less stature than average men at present. On the other hand, the prowess of the English archers shows that their small stature was compatible with great muscular strength; and it is perhaps reasonable to suppose that incessant wars reduced the average height, as the tallest men were the first picked off. The wars of the first Napoleon produced an effect which is sometimes thought to be still noticeable in the conscription. Yet this argument cannot be pressed, as on the Continent, where the object is that no man should be exempted from military service, it is important to keep the standard of height as low as possible; while
- ↑ Wealth of Nations, book i. chap. viii.
