How natural selection works on the mind is still uncertain, but if the attributes of mind are substantially genetically determined then they must be subject to natural selection. If this is the case then natural selection would favour differences in mentality which are suited to particular environments.
The mechanics of a rising average IQ would seem to be simple. If IQ is genetically determined, in part or whole, it will be subjected to natural selection. If a higher IQ is advantageous in an environment it will be preferentially selected. That will result in an increase in the average IQ within the group. From that increase will arise the possibility, but not the necessity, of more complex social arrangements. If such arrangements occur, natural selection will favour ever more strongly the high IQ which in turn will provide the opportunity for a yet more complex society. And so on ad infinitum or at least to the limits of what can be achieved within homo sapiens. (Of course, it may become possible for Man to go beyond what natural selection can achieve by means such as cybernetics or genetic engineering.)
The ability of a racial group to naturally evolve into more sophisticated societies is not a certain or rapid thing. The vast periods of time in which, from the palaeontological and archaeological evidence we have, little social change appears to have occurred are testimony to that. More certainly we know that throughout historical times different human populations have lived in very different stages of social evolution. Even today we see people living around the world in every social state from hunter-gatherer to the most sophisticated form of the modern industrialised society.
What we are talking about is the potential to evolve socially. This potential may lay untapped for tens of thousands of years, perhaps even hundreds of thousands, because the point is not reached where an increase in average group IQ coincides with an environment favourable to utilise the potential of the increased average group IQ.
Social evolution could also be delayed if the move from a simpler to a more complex society requires a certain average group IQ to be reached, a critical mass if you will. For example, imagine that a group of hunter-gatherers starts with an average IQ of 50 and this gradually rises. Imagine further that to become a settled community indulging in farming requires and average IQ of 70. Of course, such radical cultural change is unlikely to ever have been so brutally direct or mechanical for any hunter-gather group will have moved by degrees from hunter-gathering to farming, but the general principle holds good.
It is noticeable that the major racial groups have reached different degrees of social evolution. It is not that any single racial group has reached a uniform level of social evolution, rather that the different racial groups seem to have an upper limit to the level of general social and cultural evolution each can achieve. For example, no black society created a system of writing as far as is known and nowhere outside of Europe did forms of government which went beyond monarchical autocracy evolve naturally – countries outside Europe have of course mimicked, at least in form if often not in content, non-autocratic systems after contact with Europeans.
Another way of judging whether racial type places limits to social evolution is to look at how the various major racial groups have responded to the example of more sophisticated societies. Whites in Europe and their descendents abroad have shown a general ability to imitate the leaders in social evolution, whether that be Rome and Greece in the ancient world, Italy in the Renaissance or Britain during the Industrial Revolution. Asians have shown themselves capable of rapidly copying the white example in some respects at least, most notably by industrialising. Blacks are the odd man out. Nowhere is there a black majority society which has managed to modernise by its own efforts. Indeed, it is not possible to find a black majority society of any size which has been capable of modernising successfully even with a great deal of outside support from the First World.