286 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [n. s., i, 1899
the inevitable attribution of wealth and power to the most intelli- gent individuals, which, according to Ammon, is and always has been a fact through a sort of providential necessity. Is it quite certain, he will ask, that in the lottery of greatness and fortune the greatest prizes are drawn by the best? Is it true that rich and intelligent, poor and dull, are and always have been synony- mous? But these childish doubts, the marks of profound ignor- ance of anthropologic laws, are received by the author with a smile of superiority. Above all, he says, if we compare the curve of incomes with the curve of geniuses, we find a marvelous corre- spondence between them — few great geniuses and cretins, and few greatest and least incomes ; the greatest number of medium intellects, and the greatest number also of those of medium prop- erty ; a gradual decrease in the number of those who stand be- tween mediocrity and genius on the one side and cretinism on the other, just as there is a gradual decrease in the number of those whose wealth is between medium and the milliard on one side and the most abject pauperism on the other. Now, this parallel- ism demonstrates precisely that the individuals who occupy the points on the first curve are the same as those who occupy the cor- responding points on the second curve ; in other words, it fur- nishes the irresistible proof of the necessary correlation between the conditions of intelligence and of wealth. Furthermore, there is abundant proof, more direct and convincing, of such correla- tion. De Candolle showed long ago that the noble and high- placed families of the cities have produced a number of scientists far above the average. Again, " from the anthropologic studies I made in Baden from 1886 to 1894," continues the author, "it appears that among the higher classes the long heads predom- inate, while among the medium classes the broad heads predom- inate." Is anything further needed to give to every laborer on the globe a patent of imbecility and to every bourgeois a diploma of intellectuality ? But that is not all. " Prof. Julius Wolf has found that the hats of laborers have lower numbers than those of
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