[Sidenote: Modern Man Stronger than his Ancestors] As respects the strength of the average individual man, the inquiry is less simple. Palæolithic man and neolithic man were apparently (though here and there may have been exceptions) comparatively feeble creatures, as are the relics of the most backward tribes known to us, such as the Veddas of Ceylon, the Bushmen, the Fuegians. Some savages, as, for instance, the Patagonians, are men of great stature, and some of the North American Indians possess amazing powers of endurance. The Greeks of the fifth century B.C., and the Teutons of the time of Julius Cæsar, had reached a high physical development. Pheidippides is said to have traversed one hundred and fifty miles on foot in forty-eight hours. But if we think of single feats of strength, feats have been performed in our own day--such as Captain Webb’s swimming across the Straits of Dover--equal to anything recorded from ancient or mediæval times. To swim across the much narrower Hellespont was then deemed a surprising exploit. Nor do we know of any race more to be commended for physical power and vigour of constitution than the American backwoodsmen of Kentucky or Oregon to-day. The swords used by the knights of the fifteenth century have usually handles too small for many a modern English or German hand to grasp. [Sidenote: America’s Mingled Races] Isolated feats do not prove very much, but there is good reason to believe that the average European is as strong as ever he was, and probably more healthy, at least if longevity is a test of health. One may fairly conclude that with better and more abundant food, the average of stature and strength has improved over the world at large, so that in this respect also the force of mankind as a whole has advanced. Whether this advance will continue is more doubtful. In modern industrial communities the law of the survival of the fittest may turn out to be reversed, for it is the poorer and lower sections of the population that marry at an early age, and have the largest families, while prudential considerations keep down the birth-rate among the upper middle-class. In Transylvania, for instance, the Saxons are dying out, because very few children are born to each pair, while the less educated and cultured Rumans increase fast. In North America, the Old New England stock of comparatively pure British blood has begun to be swamped by the offspring of the recent immigrants, mostly Irish or French Canadians; and although the sons of New England, who have gone West, continue to be prolific, it is probable that the phenomena of New England will recur in the Mississippi Valley, and that the newcomers from Europe who form the less cultivated strata of the population--Irish, Germans, Italians, Czechs, Poles, Slovaks, Rumans--will contribute an increasing proportion of the inhabitants. Some of these, and especially the Irish and the Germans and the