Note 402 — Chapter XVIII

Lest it may appear that I am under-rating the speed with which evolutionary forces have operated among the European races during the last few centuries, I venture to quote the words of one whose opinion is likely to be listened to with respect, and who was the last man to minimise the significance of the conquests made by science. "There can be no doubt that vast changes have taken place in English civilisation since the reign of the Tudors. But I am not aware of a particle of evidence in favour of the conclusion that this evolutionary process has been accompanied by any modification of the physical or the mental characters of the men who have been the subjects of it. I have not met with any grounds for suspecting that the average Englishmen of to-day are sensibly different from those that Shakespeare knew and drew.... In my belief the innate qualities, physical, intellectual and moral, of our nation have remained substantially the same for the last four or five centuries" (T. H. Huxley, Prolegomena to Evolution and Ethics).