Such a correlation between complexion and ability would be taboo today, but there is little reason to doubt that a very real correlation existed among Europeans as of the time when this observation was made. The fact that Northern Europe and Western Europe would move ahead of Southern Europe economically and technologically many centuries later was a heartening sign that backwardness in a given era does not mean backwardness forever. But that does not deny that great economic and social disparities have existed among peoples and nations at given times and places.