SOURCE: "Not Hopeless," in National Review, New York, Vol. XLVI, No. 23, December 5, 1994, pp. 38, 40.

[In the following essay, Van Den Haag favorably assesses The Bell Curve, applauding it as thorough and accurate.]

In 1971 Richard Herrnstein, co-author with Charles Murray of this weighty volume, published an article in The Atlantic Monthly arguing that success—status, income, power—now depends on intelligence. We are becoming a "meritocracy" with great hereditary inequalities. The Bell Curve lucidly organizes an immense amount of data demonstrating empirically that, despite costly efforts to stave it off, meritocracy is becoming a reality. Before continuing, let me dispose of two distractions which have produced hysterical and silly columns—e. g., in The New Republic (unexpected) and the New York Times (expected); although, to be fair, elsewhere the Times was rational.

1. The Bell Curve shows that cognitive ability measured by IQ tests reliably predicts success—professional, academic, pecuniary—and...