The diminution in the firmness and thickness of the bones in the higher classes, and many another mark of civilization, must be looked at from the point of view of panmixia and germinal selection; perhaps also the smaller hands and feet which frequently occur along with a more graceful general build in the higher ranks of European peoples. It would certainly not be surprising if in families which usually intermarry, and which in no way depend for their material subsistence on the possession of large and powerful hands and feet or bones generally, a downward variation of the relevant germ-determinants should have developed, but this could never overstep a certain limit, because it would then be prejudicial even in civilized life. That we must be very careful not to regard large hands and feet as the direct result of hard physical toil was brought home to me by an observation of Strasburger's. He was particularly struck by the fact that the peasants of the high Tatra (Carpathians) were distinguished by the smallness of their hands and feet. But while civilization has excited numerous downward variations in the germ, it has, on the other hand, been the cause of numerous hereditary improvements--variations in an upward direction. This opens up new ground, for hitherto we have been confronted with the alternative of either accepting the inheritance of acquired characters, and on this basis referring the talents and mental endowments of civilized Man to exercise continued throughout many generations, or of admitting an increase of mental powers only in as far as they possess 'selection value,' that is, as they may be decisive in the struggle for existence. To these mental qualities belong cleverness and ingenuity in all directions, courage, endurance, power of combination, inventive power, with its roots in imagination and fertility of ideas, as well as desire for achievement, and industry. Throughout the long history of human civilization these mental qualities must have increased through the struggle for existence, but how have the specific talents such as those exhibited in music, painting, and mathematics come into existence? And how have the moral virtues of civilized Man been evolved, and particularly unselfishness? For it can hardly be maintained of any of these endowments that they possess selection-value for the individual.