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318   MEMORIES OF MY LIFE

savages . . . and that after myriads of years of barbarism our race has but very recently grown to be civilised and religious."

The above paragraphs appeared also in Hereditary Genius.

These views published by me forty-five years ago are still up to date, owing to the slow advance of the popular mind in its appreciation of the force of heredity. My fault in other parts of these .articles was a tendency to overrate the speed with which a great improvement of the race of mankind might, theoretically, be effected. I had not then made out the law of Regression. With this qualification the above extracts. express my present views.

Before concluding with these magazine articles, I will make yet another extract in reference to a subject which a friend urged upon me quite recently as a worthy subject of experiment, namely, the breeding of animals for intelligence. The following extract shows that I considered it long ago. I have frequently since thought of making an attempt to carry it out, but it would have occupied more time and money than I could have spared. As it is just possible that the idea may now catch the fancy of some one, and induce him to make a trial, I reprint the passage here:

,,So far as I am aware, no animals have ever been bred for general intelligence. Special aptitudes are thoroughly controlled by the breeder. He breeds Dogs that point, that retrieve, that fondle or that bite ; but no one has ever yet attempted to breed for high general intellect, irrespective of all other qualifications. It would be a most interesting subject for an attempt.