Chapter XXII (part 2 of 3)

Chapter XXII (part 2 of 3)

Such always are the conditions among cultivators in a settled country; it is forced to the notice of every one that not more than a certain number of hands are required and postponement of marriage is thus imposed upon the younger people. Neither land nor houses are available for them at an early age. ‘Before the Reformation, not only were early marriages determinately discouraged, but the opportunity for them did not exist. A labourer living in a cottage by himself was a rare exception to the rule; and the work of the fields was performed generally ... by servants who lived in the families of the squire or farmer, and who, while in that position, commonly remained single, and married only when by prudence they had saved a sufficient sum to enable them to enter some other position.’[1460] Miss Davies, working on figures for the parish of Corsley, found reason for thinking that at any one time there was usually a number of younger people who were debarred from marrying and were waiting their turn, so to speak, until they could step into places vacated by members of an older generation.[1461]

9. In addition to those who cultivated the land there were merchants and craftsmen who for the most part lived in the towns. ‘The essence of the mediaeval town was the formation of gilds of merchants and craftsmen’ and ‘within the limits of the corporation gilds had the monopoly of manufacture or trade’.[1462] Membership of a guild was a birthright or an inheritance, and newcomers could only enter after a long period of apprenticeship. The result of this system of apprenticeship was to bring about the postponement of marriage, and thus to limit the undue increase of population. ‘The position of a son who acquired a holding when his parent died is analogous to that of an apprentice who cannot set up as a master till given permission by the proper authorities. It is quite plain that in the eyes of the ordinary man in the sixteenth century one of the advantages of a system of compulsory apprenticeship was that it prevented youths marrying at a very early age, e. g. an Act (2 and 3 Philip and Mary) forbids the admitting of any one to the freedom of the City of London before the age of twenty-four, and enacts that apprentices are not to be taken so young that they will come out of their time before they are twenty-four. The reason alleged for this rule is that distress in the city of which “one of the chief occasions is by reason of the over-hasty marriages and the over soon setting up of householdes by the younge folke of the city ... be they never so younge and so unskilful”.’ Again a petition of the weavers states (Hist. MSS. Com. Cd. 784, p. 114): ‘whereas by the former good laws of their trade none could exercise the same until he had served an apprenticeship for seven years and attained the age of twenty-four, now in these disordered times many apprentices having forsaken parents and masters ... refuse to serve out their time, but before they are 18 or 20 years old betake themselves to marriage.’[1463]

Rubin, whose conclusions regarding the age at marriage in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries have already been quoted, sums up the position in these words: ‘The domestic servant class then, as now, was unmarried, but that class was much more numerous than at present. Subordinates in the industrial class and in handicrafts were not, as in our own time, free and independent, but lived for the most part in the houses of their masters, and, at any rate, were accustomed to wait until they became masters before marrying; the chances of attaining the position of master were greater than now. The same rule applied to other journeymen in various employments, whether in town or country.’[1464]

Thus in the town as well as on the land the pressure was at work. The result was twofold. Marriage was made difficult, and many sought refuge in lifelong celibacy in religious institutions. Again, a standard of skill was insisted upon which tended to ensure that young husbands would be able to support a family as well as ensuring that they would not have a family at all until there was a place for them. And it must be assumed that the number of families felt to be desirable was somewhere about that which given all circumstances produces the maximum benefit from co-operation. It may also be observed that we can in evidence of the above kind detect the recognition of a standard of living—the essential feature in any community in which an approach to the desirable number is to be attained. For this standard of living is only the income per head which, given all the circumstances, is the highest within reach.

10. Regulations prohibiting the marriage of the poor were not uncommon in this period. ‘In Bavaria ... the regulations of the Government and the Police Ordinances of 1616 forbade the marriage of servants, day labourers, and others without property, and the punishments by which those were threatened by the legislation of 1751 who, without the permission of the superior authorities, entered into wedlock, and were afterwards unable to support themselves without begging or the like, extended to corporal chastisement and the like.’[1465] The Poor Law Commission of 1834 obtained reports regarding the regulations in various European countries. Of Denmark we hear that ‘all those persons who are in receipt of parish relief are not allowed to marry unless by permission granted on special grounds by the Commissioners’.[1466] In Würtemberg no subject of the state could marry until he possessed ‘the rights of a member of a community or a settled non-freeman. But even such a one must prove to the magistrates before his marriage that he possesses sufficient means of subsistence. The want of such means of subsistence is considered as existing, (a) in every one who is not primarily qualified in the exercises of a liberal art or science, or for exercising on his own account, commerce, a profession, agriculture or some other business sufficient for the support of a family, or possesses sufficient property for the independent support of a family; and (b) in every one who, at the time of the intended marriage, is the subject of political or police investigation, for vagabondage, prodigality, habitual idleness, notorious propensity to drinking, or repeated fraud, repeated theft or systematic begging, or who has been punished for the same, during the two years immediately preceding, or who in the course of the three preceding years (except in the case of misfortune not incurred by his own fault) has received assistance from public funds for his own support, or is in receipt of such at the time of the intended marriage.’[1467]

11. Somewhat similar conditions to those which led to postponement of marriage in England were operative elsewhere. Looking at this period in general there is little doubt that the restrictions upon increase were upon the whole effective. There were fluctuations in the nearness of approach to the desirable number; at times for some reason too great an increase became noticeable. Adjustment, however, soon followed. ‘There was reason to believe that towards the middle of the fifteenth century there was a considerable increase in population, unaccompanied by any great improvement in the means of production, and consequently a relative over-population in many European countries. The frequent complaints of poverty and lack of employment which led eventually to stringent measures against foreign competitors, confirms the evidence from other sources to show that the gilds were being overstocked with journeymen who could hardly hope to attain the position of householders and employers. In the callings where the old-world organization was effective there was an increasing tendency, during the fifteenth century, to restrict the avenues by which the freedom to exercise a craft could be obtained; larger fines were demanded on admission, while the social qualifications of those who were eligible as apprentices were raised.’[1468] At other times certain social changes caused over-population. Such was the case in the sixteenth century owing to the enclosures. ‘According to one calculation made in 1548 three hundred thousand men had been thrown out of work by the decay of agriculture—or about ten per cent. of the whole population.’[1469] What is important, however, is that in general the determination of the people to maintain the standard of living brought about adjustment—which at this period usually took the form of making marriage more difficult.

There were also instances of a definite failure over a long period to achieve adjustment. Such a case is that of Ireland in the eighteenth century. The potato was introduced about 1585, and when taken into cultivation throughout the country could have enabled a larger population to subsist at a higher standard of living. So degraded, however, did the social conditions become, that the introduction of the potato merely enabled a larger population to subsist at the lowest standard which would support life. The conditions of that period have been described in the following passage by Goldwin Smith: ‘The mass of the people were socially and economically in a state the most deplorable, perhaps, which history records as having existed in any civilized nation.... The Irish gentry were probably the very worst upper class with which a country was ever afflicted. Their habits grew beyond measure brutal and reckless. Their drunkenness, their blasphemy, their ferocious duelling, left the squires of England far behind.... Over the Roman Catholic poor on their estates these “vermin of the kingdom”, as Arthur Young calls them, exercised a tyranny compared with which the arbitrary rule of the old chiefs over their clans was probably a parental authority used with beneficence and justly repaid by gratitude and affection.... All moral restraints on the growth of population were removed by the compulsory ignorance into which Protestant ascendancy and the penal laws had plunged the Catholic peasantry and by the abject wretchedness of their lot.... The island became utterly overcharged with population.’[1470]

In this period it is not common to find over-population on this scale for so long a time. In all countries there were periods when population was excessive, but as a rule the circumstances were seldom such that the vigour of the people did not before long bring about a return to a higher standard.

12. In the fourth sub-group there is available a far larger amount of information, and more exact estimates as to the position are rendered possible than could be the case before. We have first to ask whether there is evidence of over-population. Where, as in this period, there has been a rapid increase in numbers the question is more easy to answer than when asked in connexion with periods which, compared with the present conditions, were relatively static. We can form a judgement based upon the relative increase in wealth and in population and upon the average real wages over a number of years. The following figures show that wealth has grown more quickly than population.[1471]

_Wealth of Great Population. Britain._ £ 1865 6,113,000,000 1861 28,927,485 1875 8,548,000,000 1871 31,484,661 1885 10,037,000,000 1881 34,884,848 1895 10,663,000,000 1891 37,732,922 1905 13,036,000,000 1901 41,458,721 1909 13,986,000,000 1911 45,216,665

The following figures show that real wages have risen during the period.[1472] With regard to the drop in real wages in the last years shown in this table it has to be remembered that such minor fluctuations may be due under complex modern conditions to a variety of causes. The condition of credit, the share taken of the total income by capital and many other factors, the action of some of which, there is good reason to think, was the cause of the decline in real wages noticeable in the early years of the present century, all affect real wages.

Nominal Wages. Cost of Living. Real Wages. 1880 100 100 100 1881–5 101 96 105 1886–90 104 89 117 1891–5 110 88 125 1896–1900 115 87 132 1901–5 121 91 133 1906–10 126 94 134 1911 128 96 133 1912 132 100 132 1913 134 100 134

All the evidence points to the same conclusion—namely, that throughout this period there has, on the whole, been an increase in the average real income per head, and that therefore there has been no over-population in England. On the whole the same conclusion applies to other countries in which the industrial conditions are more or less similar. It is well known that during this period there have been very remarkable fluctuations in the birth-rate. In England it was stationary from about 1840 to 1880. Since that date it has declined by about one-third.[1473] It seems clear that during this latter period the rapid increase of the former period ceased to be economically advantageous. In other words the decline has been in response to changing economic conditions. What we have now to ask is how the desirability of a limited increase under the conditions existing in this period can have been so realized that the adjustment of numbers to economic requirements took place.

13. The factors bearing upon fertility and elimination are in this sub-group in the main the same as those in the former sub-group. The factors which did or may have limited fertility in the earlier groups are again absent. Postponement of marriage is, as in the third sub-group, an important factor and in addition for the first time contraceptive practices play a large part. The importance of contraceptive practices, together with the decline in the birth-rate, due to the start made in this period towards the mastering of disease, are the chief differences to be noticed when comparing conditions in this sub-group with those in the former. It may also be noticed that the factors of elimination are more regular in their operation; epidemics of disease are rare and war does not now, as so often formerly, indirectly cause a large death-rate. The methods of limiting increase are confined to those which reduce fertility with the exception of the practice of abortion, which is still of some importance in the lower social classes. It is important to observe that, although the postponement of marriage has throughout the period had an important bearing upon fertility, it has not been, as in the former sub-group, by raising or reducing the age of marriage that the change in fertility has been chiefly due.[1474] This change has been due to diminished fertility which is to be chiefly accounted for by the conscious limitation of fertility in the form either of abstention from intercourse between married persons or of the use of contraceptive practices. We are not able to measure the prevalence of the different forms of conscious limitation and thus definitely to associate them with the declining birth-rate. We do not find, however, any such increase in other factors, such as venereal disease, which diminish fertility, as will account for the facts. We have no reason for supposing that fecundity has diminished, and as we have strong reasons for thinking that conscious limitation has been increasingly practised, we must attribute the changes to this cause.[1475]

14. In this sub-group we may roughly distinguish between property owners, professional classes, peasant proprietors, and wage earners. The distinguishing feature has been the rise of a very large wage-earning class not possessed of property. The peasant proprietor, who, though a property owner, is to be distinguished from other property owners, is of little importance in England. In other countries, however, the class of peasant proprietors is of importance, and we may first ask how the desirability of limiting increase is brought home to them.

As we have seen, wherever men owe their living to the produce of a definite area of land, whether ownership is vested in families or in village communities, the situation is in the main always much the same. That more than a certain number cannot maintain the standard of living upon a certain area must be obvious. It may be more or less definitely realized by each individual; it is also enshrined in the social conventions of such people. The conditions in French rural districts have been much studied, and there is a large amount of evidence pointing to the conclusion that families are consciously limited owing to the realization that large families are not economically advantageous. Legal regulations and social customs as to the inheritance of landed property are of considerable importance in France and other countries in this connexion, but there is no space to enter upon the subject here. The conditions are, generally speaking, clear; any one who is acquainted with the conditions of life in the country districts of France, Switzerland, or Norway, for instance, has probably observed what is going on. Somewhat as has been described for the Middle Ages in England, the number of houses, and consequently the number of families, is not increased. Further, when marriage takes place the number of children is clearly limited by considerations based on the economic conditions. There is, of course, always an opportunity for the young people to go to the towns and work for wages, and we must now ask what the conditions are among the wage-earning classes.

Hitherto, with the exception of the artisans of the Middle Ages, we have always found men in groups of varying size supporting themselves upon a restricted area. In the case of the wage earners it is more difficult to understand how the desirability of limitation can become translated into customs or habits whether consciously or unconsciously followed, because, first, we are no longer dealing with a small group confined in the knowledge of all of them to a certain area, and, secondly, because restrictive customs in the nature of taboos have little chance of establishing themselves to-day. There are no restrictions of importance on the entrance to various trades; there is at least nothing comparable to the restrictions imposed by the guilds. A young man of the wage-earning class finds no hindrance to marriage and further finds that the maximum rate of earning he is ever likely to attain to is within his grasp at an early age. Why therefore should he not marry early? Compared with the mediaeval period he does marry early. As Rubin says, ‘the journeymen and servants of former times were as a rule unmarried, while in our times skilled workmen and factory employees, on account of the high level of their earnings (and the fact that they are received in money, not in kind), and because, for the greater part, as stated earlier, they attain no better position by waiting—are married as journeymen or labourers.’[1476] We have now to ask why the wage earners should, if they do not limit fertility by postponing marriage, limit fertility by conscious restriction of their families.

This is not an easy question to answer. As there are no barriers to marriage, so to the production of a large family there are no barriers in the form of social conditions or customs which must be conformed to. There is apparently no hindrance to the production of as many children as can be fed—that is to say, to the increase of population to the level at which life can just be supported. Such an increase, however, does not take place. To understand why it is so we must first realize how powerful the desire to better the social conditions and to raise the standard of living has been among the wage earners. Mr. and Mrs. Hammond have lately described the conditions under which the village labourer existed in the earlier years of the last century.[1477] During the agricultural depression which followed the Napoleonic Wars the most determined effort was made by the governing classes to induce the labourer to lower his standard of living in the very mistaken hope that such a change would ease the position. Above all things the labourers were urged to abandon the use of wheaten bread and to accept some substitute. All kinds of arguments and many forms of pressure were employed. The labourers, however, were obstinate. They clung to their standard of living and in England, at least since the Industrial Revolution, this determination to maintain, and if possible to raise, the standard has been powerfully manifested by the wage-earning class.[1478] Returning now to the question we have to answer, we may say that this determination becomes translated into a system of family limitation, and that the decline in the birth-rate which is due to conscious limitation has been in correspondence with changing economic conditions. The previous rate of increase was no longer desirable in the interest of the wage-earning classes, and it has been checked. Nevertheless it has not been checked by a fully conscious realization of the position. At the most there has only been a semi-conscious understanding of what is involved. In the main we have to think of this determination as achieving its end by an unconscious adaptation of social habits and practices to the needs of the time. There have been other factors at work tending in the same direction. The influence of factory legislation in restricting the employment of children has been to render large families of less economic advantage. Again among more highly paid sections of the wage-earning classes certain influences, which are not economic at all but rather social, have also tended towards reduction in fertility.

It may be observed that, where the determination to maintain the standard of living is not strongly manifested, there over-population may occur. Thus in England, and in all industrial countries, there is at the bottom of the social scale a thriftless, unskilled, and casually employed class in which the limitation of families is little, if at all, practised. Among this class the desire to improve conditions is seldom shown and in consequence the birth-rate is not limited. If the members of this class ‘restricted considerably their rate of growth, there is’, says Hobson, ‘reasonable ground for holding that they would make a double economic gain, being paid at a higher rate, for more efficient and more regular work.’[1479]

The conditions among the professional classes need not detain us. In addition to feeling, as do the working classes, the benefit in a general way of restriction, there are many other factors which come in. Of these perhaps the most important is the question of the age at which the maximum income is attained. As these classes form only a small proportion of the population, and as we shall have to discuss in the following chapter the causes of the lower rate of increase in these classes than among the wage-earning class—having in view the possible bearing upon certain problems of qualitative change—we can omit any further discussion here, merely observing that no question of over-population arises. Possibly there may be relative under-population in something the same way as there is over-population in the lowest grade—whether this is so or not depending largely upon the ease with which the professional classes are recruited from below.

15. The discussion of historical races has been brief and was only entered upon in order to round off the subject. There are other points in connexion with the adjustment of numbers to which allusion must be made. It will be convenient, however, first to review shortly our conclusions regarding the problem of adjustment as a whole and then to ask in respect of the various periods in turn what we are led to think that the position must have been.

Reasons have been given for thinking that, if any general change in fecundity has taken place in the course of history, it has been in the direction of increase. In any case fecundity is very large—the theoretical power of increase, that is to say, is very great. Some figures were given at the end of the fourth chapter in illustration of this fact. There is a tendency noticeable in nearly all discussions of questions of quantity to under-estimate the power of increase. Another calculation previously given may therefore be recalled. It has been shown that at the present average rate of increase of the population of the world—a rate of increase which is obviously everywhere very severely restricted—a single pair would produce in 1,750 years descendants equal in number to the present population of the world.

In connexion with the under-estimation of the power of increase, is the over-estimation of the relief given by any factor which allows of a growth of population—increase in skill or migration, for example. It is constantly assumed that, when such a factor can be detected in operation, there is, so to speak, a complete outlet for fecundity. This is the idea which lies at the basis of such statements as those which speak of ‘surplus population’ as being drawn off by migration. When, however, a calculation is made, it is seen that the relief given is, except under very unusual circumstances, almost negligible. It was shown on p. 105 that under the circumstances mentioned a population of 1,000,000 would remain stable so long as to each married woman there was born an average of two children. But if the average was 2½ children, then in a hundred years the population would be 3,050,000. It follows, therefore, that most unusually favourable circumstances only make room for a fraction of the possible increase and that migration likewise only draws off an insignificant fraction of the possible additions to the population.

Starting with such considerations and taking into account the fact that, wherever social co-operation exists, there must be within any area a certain desirable density of population—the optimum number—it has been argued that there will come about an approximation to this number owing to the practice of certain habits and customs restrictive of increase. It has further been argued that, except under most unusual circumstances, habits and customs having primarily, and not merely incidentally, this result, must everywhere exist. This is seldom realized. Professor Myres, for instance, after remarking upon the fertility of ancient Egypt and of Assyria, says that ‘anything like infanticide was out of the question’.[1480] It is clear from the context that he is thinking not of infanticide in particular but of any practices restrictive of increase—the implication being that in a fertile country, where skill is increasing, there is a sufficient outlet for the increase of population resulting from the power of human increase. Again, it has been asserted that the Bantu races do not commit infanticide—at least on a large scale—as do many other primitive races, because, inasmuch as they have been in movement for an unknown length of time, the attrition following upon the war that is always in progress at the fringe of the movement is sufficient to absorb the ‘surplus population’. But it has been forgotten that the Bantu races practise prolonged abstention from intercourse—a custom quite as effective as abortion and infanticide—as may be seen when the evidence as to the small average number in a family is considered;[1481] for the average number in a Bantu family is as small as among primitive races in general, and it cannot be held that attrition through war falls seriously upon others than adults. It therefore follows that war among these people affords but an insignificant amount of relief.

16. Turning now to the methods of adjustment, we may take the first two groups together and afterwards the third group. War and migration, however, may be put aside and considered separately at the end of the chapter. As regards the first two groups it is necessary to say no more than this: evidence has been produced to show that everywhere among primitive races either abortion, infanticide, or prolonged abstention from intercourse are practised in such a degree and in such a manner as to have as their primary result the restriction of increase.

The question as to how far these practices are effective in bringing about an approximation to the desirable number is not easily answered. As regards those primitive races which have come under European observation there is no definite evidence because, before exact observation could be made, the conditions of life had wholly changed. But, putting aside the fact that the evidence, such as it is, does suggest an approximation, it may be observed that conditions were such as to render an approximation easy. Skill increased so slowly that for long periods of time the desirable number remained about the same; the factors of elimination, such as war and disease, were not erratic in their action; social organization was not complex in the economic sense and therefore the danger of break-downs followed by changes in the desirable number was absent. Thus we may conclude that, in all probability, in primitive society an approximation was normally attained.

In the third period we meet with wholly different conditions. Social organization becomes elaborate in the economic sense, war and disease become erratic in their operation, and, relatively to what was the case before, skill increases rapidly. As a result the desirable number frequently changes, becoming on the whole larger, particularly in those periods with which we are best acquainted. There has in consequence grown up an idea that throughout human history population has been increasing, whereas in fact it is far more correct to regard population as normally having been stable. It may not improbably turn out that the third period is in this respect peculiar and we may be approaching a period when population will again normally be stable. However that may be, the changes mentioned tend to make adjustment more difficult; on the other hand, there have been at the same time at work changes tending to facilitate adjustment among which growing freedom from convention and increasing sensitiveness to the economic situation may be particularly noticed. As regards the methods of adjustment, evidence has been adduced to show that, up to the opening of what we have called the mediaeval period, one or other of the same methods were in use that were in vogue before, that all these methods ceased to be practised in the mediaeval period and were replaced by postponement of marriage, and that finally in the modern period deliberate restriction has replaced postponement of marriage.

The question of the effectiveness of adjustment in this period has been touched upon. In general it may be said that under-population is rare. Under-population seldom arises and then generally as a result of the abnormal incidence of war or disease. It sometimes happens that for a long period an area once densely populated maintains but a sparse population and this is not infrequently taken to indicate under-population. But such situations generally arise when for one reason or another—such as the destruction of capital during prolonged war, or the breakdown of artificial works upon which the food-supply depends—there has been a decrease in the density desirable. Thus the Mesopotamian watercourses were neglected by the Mongol conquerors in the thirteenth century and in consequence the optimum number for that area declined. Such a situation should therefore not be taken as indicating, without further inquiry, under-population.

Over-population is less rare. It may be due to the neglect of ancient practices having as their effort the restriction of increase without the taking into use at the same time of new practices. This sometimes happens when a higher and a lower civilization come into contact and has been one of the causes of over-population in India. It may also arise when on the passing away of old practices some influence may militate against the taking up of new practices. In this manner the influence of the Catholic Church, which has been directed against contraceptive practices, may have tended to produce over-population in Ireland. More commonly, however, over-population arises in this period as the result of a spirit of apathy and listlessness. Under such circumstances, which are usually the result of social oppression or political misfortunes, no effort is made to keep up the standard of living and in consequence the machinery designed to restrict increase breaks down.

Taking the third period in more detail, we have as regards the last section of that period definite evidence to the effect that approximation is fairly close. There are minor fluctuations in the nearness of approach to the desirable number. That, however, which it is in any broad view of the whole problem of quantity desirable to emphasize, is the nearness of approach—the fact that in any country at any given time within this period the numbers present are, roughly speaking, those economically desirable. We shall, indeed, find later, when dealing with war and when referring again to this subject in the next chapter, that minor differences in the nearness of approach as between countries in close proximity may be of considerable importance.

Within the mediaeval period, in spite of the very high death-rate from disease, over-population occurred in England from time to time. The fact that wages rose after the Black Death, and that, after the decline in the population which took place in the last years of the seventeenth century and in the opening years of the eighteenth century, the average man was more prosperous, points to this conclusion, as does the fact that frequent attempts were made to render the restrictions upon marriage more severe. It seems probable that there was a similar tendency towards over-population in most European countries, and the reason would appear to be that postponement of marriage did not bring about a sufficient restriction of increase; postponement of marriage was not in fact a sufficient substitute for abortion, infanticide, and abstinence from intercourse, in spite of the prevalence of disease. Under-population was less frequent; when it occurred it was sometimes due in part to a spirit of luxury and selfishness following upon a period of expansion and prosperity, as in the later history of Spain. There may for similar reasons be under-population among the richer classes in Europe and America to-day.

With regard to the preceding period we have considerable knowledge of the conditions in Greece and Rome. The history of both countries presents very similar features. In the earlier times practices restrictive of increase comparable with those found among primitive races were operative. There followed a vigorous epoch of colonization and then a period of decadence. These periods of decadence have been much discussed. In these discussions it is sometimes forgotten that the destruction of capital in civil war on a large scale, especially in the last century B. C. in Rome, must have diminished the numbers desirable. But in spite of this it is clear that we are here again in the presence of examples of decline, at least among the richer classes, owing to the presence of selfishness and luxury; this is certainly the conclusion to which a study of Polybius leads as regards Greece, while the admirable works of Sir Samuel Dill render the position in Rome equally clear.[1482] Our knowledge of Egypt, Assyria, and Babylonia is insufficient to enable any judgement to be passed on conditions in these countries.

18. Our conclusions, therefore, are broadly as follows. Within the first two periods failure to approach the optimum number is rare. Within the third period departures away from the desirable number are less rare but are usually checked so long as the tone of society remains healthy and vigorous. In an oppressed society over-population not infrequently arises; in a selfish and luxurious society there may at times be under-population.

In the main, changes in numbers come about in response to economic requirements. We should not therefore attribute directly to changes in the quantity of population great historical events. Thus we may agree with Mr. Keynes when he says that ‘some of the catastrophes of past history, which have thrown back human progress for centuries, have been due to the reactions following on the sudden termination, whether in the course of Nature or by the act of man, of temporarily favourable conditions which have permitted the growth of population beyond what could be provided for when the favourable conditions were at an end’.[1483] But we cannot agree when he says that ‘the great events of history are often due to secular changes in the growth of population and other fundamental economic causes, which, escaping by their gradual character the notice of contemporary observers, are attributed to the follies of statesmen or the fanaticism of atheists. Thus the extraordinary occurrences of the past two years in Russia, that vast upheaval of Society, which has overturned what seemed most stable—religion, the basis of property, the ownership of land, as well as forms of government and the hierarchy of classes—may owe more to the deep influences of expanding numbers than to Lenin or Nicholas; and the disruptive powers of excessive national fecundity may have played a greater part in bursting the bonds of convention than either the power of ideas or the errors of autocracy.’[1484] In the first passage it is suggested that consequences of great import may follow when events so derange social organization that the numbers previously maintained cannot be supported. To this we may agree; the attribution of the catastrophe is not directly to changes in numbers. In the second passage it is suggested that national fertility may be so much in excess of requirements as to disrupt social organization. To this we cannot agree. In general increase is in response to economic requirements and, when it is in excess and is not within a reasonable time curbed, the conditions which result are not those which, though they may have important consequences, produce the kind of result here attributed to them.

19. Both war and migration are frequently said to be the consequences of over-population. We may take migration first.

It may be as well to give some typical expressions of this point of view. Mr. Haddon says, ‘when reduced to its simplest terms a migration is caused by an expulsion and an attraction, the former nearly always resulting from a dearth of food or from over-population, which practically comes to the same thing. Sooner or later a time comes when the increase of the population of a country exceeds its normal food-supply.’[1485] In the Report of the National Birth-Rate Commission we read that ‘a pressure of population in any country brings as a chief historic consequence overflows and migrations into neighbouring and other accessible countries’.[1486] Professor Myres, speaking of the Greek migrations of the eighth to the sixth centuries B. C., attributes them to the fact that ‘population had overtaken the means of subsistence’.[1487]

It is not altogether clear what is meant by such statements. Very frequently it seems to be implied that there commonly exists a condition in which there is more than enough food in an area occupied by an existing population, that sooner or later population catches up, so to speak, the food-supply and that migration afterwards follows any further increase of population. We may first look at this point of view. All that has so far been said goes to show that only for very short periods and under very unusual circumstances can there be under any conditions of social organization a state of under-population. Even if we put aside the idea of an optimum number, we must regard the population, which any area is capable of supporting, as strictly limited. Given the vast power of increase that we know always to be present, there cannot commonly be a condition of under-population—a condition, that is to say, in which population has ceased to increase before it was checked by the food limit. For we are not dealing with the spread of population into unoccupied areas; that occurred perhaps before there was any social organization. We are dealing with a period in which all portions of the earth’s surface, relative to the degree of skill attained, had long been fully occupied. Though increase of skill may at times enable regions previously quite infertile to be occupied, this is altogether an exceptional case; increase of skill normally merely allows of an increase of density in the same area. General considerations point to the normal condition being of necessity either one in which population has increased up to the level of subsistence or one in which it has increased to the optimum level, and the evidence presented shows that as a rule some approximation to the latter condition is attained. General considerations on the one hand and the evidence on the other both render wholly unacceptable the idea that commonly there is a condition of under-population which is followed by migration when the pressure due to the catching up of the amount of food available by the increase of population begins to be felt. Further, no support is given to this view by the facts known regarding any particular migration. What evidence is there, with regard to the Greek migrations referred to by Professor Myres, that for some unknown length of time, for some unknown reason, the increase of population had not reached the limit made possible by the food-supply? Unless there is definite evidence of peculiar circumstances in some peculiar combination, such a theory cannot be held to account for migration. The idea of population catching up the means of subsistence and bringing about a crisis followed by migration is the product of an altogether unhistorical view of the matter.[1488]

We do know, indeed, that at times a condition of under-population arises chiefly owing to the irregular action of certain factors of elimination. Disease has been known to remove one-third of the population of a country in two or three years. There does not, however, appear to be a single instance in which migration can be traced to the recovery from such a catastrophe. What appears usually to happen is that there is a certain relaxation of the pressure which before either hindered marriage or caused abortion or infanticide to be practised; population increases until the pressure again makes itself felt. And it may be observed that it is not following upon exceptional conditions such as these that migration is supposed by the authors quoted to take place. It is supposed to take place because not infrequently there is a condition of under-population for which there is in fact no evidence whatever. This view further clearly implies an over-estimate of the relief afforded by migration. The calculations given on a previous page apply here.

The view criticized above is sometimes so expressed as not to lay stress upon under-population as the condition which ultimately gives rise to migration. It is merely asserted that over-population is in some manner the cause of migration, and we may now examine this view. Let us recall what we found to be the condition in those countries in which over-population had undoubtedly occurred. We found the distinguishing feature of the social conditions of those countries to be the absence of hope, of a spirit of enterprise, and of a determination to maintain a standard of living. It most emphatically is not where such conditions are prevalent that migration takes place. All that we know of migration points to precisely the opposite. It is not from countries in the condition of India and China at the present day or of Ireland in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that waves of migration arise. Migrating races exhibit the opposite characters. With them we associate enterprise, hopefulness, courage, and so on. The conclusion cannot on general grounds be doubtful. Migration does not arise where a condition of over-population has come about. Further, if we examine the evidence of particular migration in no case can it be shown that migration has begun as a direct result of those conditions.[1489] It is true that compared with the numerous migrations of which we have knowledge, there are but few cases concerning which we have detailed information of the social conditions. But where this information does exist, in no instance do we find evidence that migration began after a condition of over-population had come about.

It may be that what is implied by those who put forward the view that migration is somehow connected with over-population is somewhat different. It may be implied that migration occurs when what we have called the optimum number has been attained. If our general conclusions on this subject are borne in mind, it is clear that something more than this is required as an explanation. Migration occurs irregularly at long intervals; adjustment of population to some point approximating to the desirable level is always going on. Clearly it cannot be in the ordinary process of adjustment that some impetus to migration occurs; there must be some particular predisposing factor or factors at work. What are these factors? It would seem to rest with those who put forward the theory to show what they are, and this has not been done.

On the other hand, there is another explanation which appears to account at least in part for nearly every migration of which we have some knowledge of the circumstances, and it may be that an explanation on similar lines accounts at least in part for most of the later migrations in history. There is nothing novel in this explanation; it is admitted as an explanation of many migrations by Mr. Haddon.[1490] He admits that many migrations have been undertaken for political or religious reasons and instances the voyage of the Mayflower and the Islamic and Buddhistic movements. That which is common to these explanations is that migration is undertaken in response to some idea. There is no question of over-population at all, and in all those cases in which we have any detailed knowledge of the conditions connected with migration we find that we can point to some idea as the motive force. Why, therefore, when details are not known, should another explanation be sought? It is suggested that essentially the same explanation is the most reasonable explanation of all migrations, at least in historical times. With regard to the earlier movements we find that migrations appear to occur where a high level of skill has been reached in some area. Where races are in contact with others of a markedly lower degree of skill there arises a tendency for the former to eject the latter. The immediate motive is desire to possess their land where the land is fertile relative to the skill of the first mentioned race. Thus the Bantu people have pushed back the Bushmen until the latter were left with regions infertile relatively to the Bantu culture. Throughout human history there must have been this tendency for migrations to follow the great steps in the acquirement of power over nature. But there is no reason to think that, even in early times, migrations only arose as a result of increase of skill. What we know of even the most primitive races, such as the Australians, shows that we can imagine movements to have been initiated quite apart from any differences in skill. The accounts given of the respect in which the older men are held among the Australians renders it possible to understand how an impulse to movement might be initiated by them which, once having taken shape, might have far-reaching consequences. We have further accounts of the existence of a spirit of restlessness among primitive races. This restlessness proves on analysis to be nothing more than the currency of an idea—an idea that some benefit would arise if a movement took place.

We have, however, to remember when dealing with this matter that many if not most of the migrations of pre-history were probably not migrations at all in the usual sense of the term. They are probably better thought of as driftings of people; they may have occupied very long periods of time and have been connected with slow changes in climate. At any one time the movement may have been quite imperceptible, and, when this was so, such driftings are seen clearly enough to have had nothing to do with over-population if the immensity of the power of increase is borne in mind.

Some reference may now be made to the much-discussed theory to the effect that historical migrations are due to climatic changes. Ellsworth Huntington has put forward in a number of publications the view that not only have important climatic changes occurred within the historical period, but that these changes have been what he calls ‘pulsatory’—that is to say, there has been an alteration between humid and arid conditions in many parts of the world.[1491] This view has been contested.[1492] In particular doubt has been cast upon the ‘pulsatory’ nature of such changes as have taken place. Whether this view as to climatic change is correct or not is of no particular importance for our present purpose; for on the one hand it has been shown that certain migrations, particularly those in Central Asia, where the evidence as to the pulsatory nature of the change is said to be most clear, are explicable as due to political changes,[1493] while on the other hand it does not appear to be possible in general to correlate the migrations of history, which are essentially rapid movements, with slow changes of climate. It seems likely that population would adjust itself to slow climatic changes without difficulty or with as little difficulty as it adjusts itself to other changes which alter the optimum density. Extreme climatic changes very slowly brought about, as doubtless took place in pre-history, might result in driftings,[1494] but the less extreme changes in climate during the historical period have in all probability been without any pronounced effect upon movement.

Enough has been said to show that, whereas there is much that can be adduced both on theoretical grounds and after a review of the evidence against the theory attributing migration to over-population, there is much to recommend the extension of the explanation already admitted in many cases. But even if migration is not a result of over-population, it may seriously affect the adjustment of population, once it has been set on foot. And it is to the observation of the secondary disturbing effect of migration on population that we may attribute the error of tracing migration to over-population.

When, however, all allowances are made, the easy manner in which the common theory of migration is assumed to be true and is used by writers of great authority is very surprising. Mr. Hogarth, for instance, in a well-known and very delightful book alluding to the Chaldean or fourth great wave of migration from Arabia, is led to explain all these Arabian migrations as follows: ‘The great Southern Peninsula’, he says, ‘is for the most part a highland steppe endowed with a singularly pure air and an uncontaminated soil. It breeds, consequently, a healthy population whose mortality, compared with its death-rate, is unusually high; but since the peculiar conditions of its surface preclude the development of its internal food-supply beyond a point long ago reached, the surplus population which rapidly accumulates within it is forced from time to time to seek its sustenance elsewhere.’[1495] Let us consider this theory for a moment. To begin with, so far as relatively to the civilizations of the valleys of the Nile and of the Euphrates disease was rare and the death-rate on that account low, so far the position in Arabia merely approximated to that normal among primitive races. Therefore the healthy conditions taken by themselves do not necessarily form an incentive to migration. The remainder of the argument rests upon an over-estimate of the relief afforded either by increased skill or by migration. It is implied by Mr. Hogarth that, could additional skill have been applied to the increase of food, the ‘surplus population’ would have been absorbed; but that it was not so absorbed and found relief in migration. The calculations already given show how illusory is the idea that relief can be thus afforded. In such arguments the strength of human fecundity is always under-estimated. Further the theory assumes a condition of things within Arabia which is very difficult to understand. The Chaldean migration took place about 800 B. C., the third or Aramean, about 1500 B. C., the second or Canaanite, about 2500 B. C., and we may add a fifth or Islamic in the seventh century A. D. The shortest interval between these movements is 800 years. We are asked to suppose that for several hundred years there was an increase of population over and above that which could properly be supported; for evidently it is not supposed that the increases occurred only shortly before the migrations. Now we know that abortion and infanticide were practised regularly in Arabia. The increase therefore must have been small compared with the possible increase, and yet these methods were not according to the theory effective in producing that position which it must be the object of every vigorous society to attain. A very small increase in the degree to which these practices were performed would have brought about this result, and is it not far more reasonable to suppose that an approximation to this desirable position was normally attained rather than to suppose that there was a chronic failure the results of which could only have been socially disastrous?

There are two other considerations which may be adduced in favour of the view here advanced. Migration, in the first place, takes place rather from vigorous communities than from countries where social conditions have long been depressed by over-population. In the second place, the migrations in question are susceptible of another explanation. Regarding the only one of these migrations of which we have detailed knowledge—the Islamic—we know that it was prompted by the currency of an idea, and why should we not assume that the previous migrations were so prompted rather than fall back on the theory of over-population which raises so many difficulties?

20. It has often been said that war is a ‘biological necessity’. ‘Wherever we look in nature’, says General von Bernhardi, ‘we find that war is a fundamental law of development. This great verity, which has been recognized in past ages, has been convincingly demonstrated in modern times by Charles Darwin. He proved that nature is ruled by an unceasing struggle for existence, by the right of the stronger, and that this struggle in its apparent cruelty brings about a selection eliminating the weak and the unwholesome.’[1496] This has been a favourite contention of German publicists.[1497] It is not necessary to show here that such views rest upon a fundamental misunderstanding as to what is implied by the term ‘struggle for existence’. The error has been recently exposed by Mr. Chalmers Mitchell, who in particular has pointed out that there is nothing in the relationship between species in a state of nature which can in any sense be called war and further that modern nations are not units of the same order as species.[1498]

It has also been held that war originates from the necessity for the search for food. ‘La guerre’, said Comte, ‘constitue à l’origine le moyen le plus simple de se procurer les subsistances.’[1499] There is no foundation whatever for this view based either on what we know of species in a state of nature or of the conditions obtaining among primitive races. The same may be said of the theory that ‘eagerness to acquire property was originally the cause and object of war’.[1500]

The idea that over-population is the cause of war is sometimes carried back to some such ‘biological’ origin as that indicated above; in disproof of such views no more need be said. More often we meet with statements such as the following: ‘The population question pushes Germany on. For the most part it is inland peoples that have most severely felt that pressure of a growing population. Islanders and coast dwellers can expand over the seas. But when inland peoples outgrow their bounds, they must burst them.’[1501] Such a statement is a striking example of the over-estimation of the relief afforded by war and by migration and of the under-estimation of the power of fecundity. What has been said above regarding migration is again applicable here.

If our contention that over-population is not the cause of migration is well founded, then the argument that war is also due to over-population falls to the ground. Precisely the same conditions which are supposed to push nations on to fight are also supposed to push them on to migrate. As we shall see later, this by no means implies that questions of population do not at times enter into the situation when war breaks out.

What then is the cause of war? It is probable that the instinct of pugnacity led to fighting when men lived in groups of families—at least between the males for the headship of the family. It is further probable that, as social organization slowly evolved, sporadic fighting of this kind was continued and led to fighting between groups. But in very early times tradition began to overlay and obscure the manifestations of instinct; the manner in which this occurs will form an important part of the discussion in the second part of this book. It is enough to say here that among primitive races tradition can be of such a nature as altogether to overlay the instinct of pugnacity, as among certain peoples, who though not devoid of the instinct scarcely ever fight because of the existence of powerful social conventions and customs inhibiting its expression. Thus, though war may form an outlet for pugnacity, it can no longer be said that it is the direct consequence of pugnacity. War, in fact, gradually becomes a custom. That this is now essentially the nature of war needs no proof. It is obviously at the present day a mode of action whereby the highly organized governments of modern nations try to achieve some political end.[1502]

It has, however, to be remembered that warfare takes a place among the factors of elimination and that the greater the amount of elimination through war, the less need there is for the practices of abortion and infanticide. But this is quite a different thing from saying that warfare results from over-population or from the pressure of population. It merely implies that, given the power of increase, warfare is a factor which may perform to a small degree the elimination necessary in order that numbers should not exceed the desirable limit and is therefore tolerated—other things being equal—as a factor in social life by the natural selection of customs.

It has nevertheless to be allowed that, when war breaks out, the position as regards population may form an element in the situation—just as the passions which have been aroused may do so though they cannot be regarded as the cause of modern war. Let us consider the late war. Broadly speaking in all European countries increase in population was in response to economic requirements. Yet there were what we have called minor fluctuations away from the desirable economic density. France and Germany represented two opposite tendencies—towards under- and over-population respectively. These relatively slight differences were greatly exaggerated in popular opinion owing to the attention paid to the birth-rate. The Germans were thinking and talking of expansion whereas the French were stay-at-home people. The Germans looked across the frontier and thought they saw a half-empty country which they could well develop with their ‘surplus’ population, while the French thought they saw a teeming population ready to burst its bonds and overwhelm them. Again, as between England and Germany it appeared to many Germans that, while Germany had little or no opportunity of expansion, Great Britain had owing to her overseas dominions ample opportunity. But increase is governed by the conditions within a country, and the fact that emigration from Great Britain to Greater Britain was possible did not enter into the situation as regards the control of increase in Great Britain; very many people in this country, however, as well as in Germany, if they did not actually think that it did so, at least held opinions which were in fact founded upon this supposition. Thus though in actual fact England broadly speaking restricted her population as did Germany in accordance with the economic situation within the country, yet the position of England with reference to Greater Britain had an influence upon the situation, and many Germans thought that unless there was an outlet for ‘surplus population’ Germany would eventually be over-populated, whereas the fact is that, as we have seen, so long as conditions remain healthy in a country, over-population does not arise.[1503]

This subject could be elaborated at great length. Upon analysis it would always be found that, though certain aspects of the population problem and certain mistaken views of the position may and do predispose nations and governments towards war, it is not true strictly speaking to say that the population question is in any sense a cause of war. War has now merely become a mode of action whereby an organized state tries to achieve certain political ends. It is within the power of mankind to renounce this mode of action. There is nothing in the nature of man or of social organization which renders war inevitable. ‘Dieu ne leur a donné ni des canons de vingt-quatre ni des baïonnettes, et ils se sont fait des baïonnettes et des canons pour se détruire.’[1504]

XII SOME MODERN PROBLEMS

1. The present period, which may be dated from 1760 in England and from rather a later date in most European countries, has been marked by an unparalleled increase of population. The rate of increase has for some years been slowing down. This outburst of population is sometimes referred to as though there was something mysterious about it. It was, in fact, merely the response to increase in skill, and similarly the declining birth-rate is, at least for the most part, merely the response to the fact that skill is no longer increasing so fast.[1505] The fact that the upper social classes began to restrict their increase before the lower social classes is partly due to the fact that they are more sensitive to economic requirements. This point is almost always overlooked in discussions of the question of differential fertility, and when forming any judgement on this subject the possible loss in quality has—though it is a very difficult problem—to be balanced against the gain in arriving at an adjustment of quantity. There may be more to be said for Mill’s opinion quoted on a previous page than most eugenists would be willing to admit.

Before we go on to notice some of the many problems that arise, something may be said as to the future. So deeply have men been impressed by this increase that the most pessimistic prophecies have been published as to the fate in store for the human race. Numerous calculations have been made to show that within a certain length of time there will only be standing room. Mr. Knibbs has calculated that, if the rate of increase of the population of the world obtaining in the five years preceding 1911 was to be continued, there would in 500 years be 246,114 millions. He is appalled by the prospect. ‘No artifices of cultivation,’ he says, ‘nor any possible diminutions of human stature, so as to decrease the necessary quantity of food per person, can possibly relieve the gravity of the situation. In no case can the increase of 1 per cent. per annum be maintained for five centuries.’[1506] This pessimism is baseless; he appears to regard increase as something inevitable that cannot be stopped—forgetting that throughout the greater part of human history numbers have been for all practical purposes stationary, and that increase only exceptionally outruns economic requirements.[1507] There is no room, it is true, for mere complacency. Though the desirable density may as a rule result from economic pressure without conscious effort, it does not follow that it would not be better if adjustment was consciously brought about. And it may be that if and when men begin consciously to adjust numbers, they may have to take some criterion other than the economic into account. To this point we may now turn.

2. So far we have proceeded on the assumption that the only criterion was the economic criterion—that the only test whereby the desirable number might be ascertained was the test founded on the average income per head. There does not seem to be any reason for supposing that there is any limit to the increase of skill in the production of food, and that therefore there is any limit to the desirable number so long as the criterion remains economic. This suggests that at some point mankind will have to introduce another method of estimating what density is desirable, as it is clear that the economic advantages of increase somewhere come into conflict with other ideals as to desirable social conditions. In other words, at some point a larger income would not be worth having if it necessitated too large a population.

It would require a lengthy discussion of many points and the weighing up of many factors before it would be possible to come to any definite conclusion on this subject. It may be observed that there are those who with some apparent reason doubt whether, taking the broadest view of human welfare, a denser population than that now existing in Belgium can be thought desirable. It also seems reasonable to hold that our great cities, and in particular London, have passed the limit that allows of the development of the most healthy social conditions. It is a matter of doubt whether such agglomerations of population are or will remain necessary even if the total population of the country was to increase. There are two considerations which are relevant here. First it may be objected that in spite of the high average density of population in this and other countries, it is still easy to find large areas which are sparsely populated, and that their existence shows that there can be as yet no question of overcrowding beyond what is the socially desirable limit. But it must be remembered that the great mass of the population scarcely ever moves out of the densely populated areas, and that if they attempted to get out into the country, if only for holidays—as with increased leisure and higher incomes they will soon attempt to do—there would soon be little left of the solitude which can now be easily found.

The other consideration that is very relevant in this connexion is the average income per head. ‘Before the war’, says Professor Bowley, ‘the home income would not have yielded more than £230 gross annually per family of five, or £170 net after all rates and taxes were paid and an adequate sum invested in home industries.’[1508] No one can regard this position as satisfactory. On all hands it is agreed that it must be increased even by those who with justice insist upon the fact that any general improvement must be accompanied by a decrease in the emphasis now laid upon material comfort. Income can, of course, be increased without increasing population, but probably it cannot be increased so fast.

3. There are at least two other points of view from which the density desirable may be considered. England, for instance, is in a peculiar position with regard to her food-supply, a fraction only of which is produced in the country while the rest is imported. Only by this method can England maintain her present population. How far in the case of war, or in a lesser degree in the case of social or economic disturbances elsewhere, such a position is compatible with national safety is certainly a matter for careful consideration. It seems scarcely likely that the decision would ever be taken to limit population on this account alone in view of the economic sacrifices which it would entail.

In addition to treating the question as it affects safety in the sense just alluded to, it may also be treated from the purely military point of view. The desire for a dense population so frequently expressed from the sixteenth century onwards, as noted in the first chapter, is largely based on the fact that the larger the population the more potential soldiers there are. Harrison, for instance, wrote as follows: ‘Some also do grudge at the great increase of people in these days thinking a necessary brood of cattle far better than a superfluous augmentation of mankind. But if it should come to pass that any foreign invasion should be made, which the Lord God forbid for his mercy’s sake, then should these men find that a wall of men is far better than stacks of corn and bags of money, and complain of the want when it is too late to seek the remedy.’[1509] This attitude was especially noticeable in Germany before the war. A German author comments on the ‘mad craze for numbers’, and goes on to add that ‘at the back is rather the desire, which I admit is often vague, for as many soldiers as possible’.[1510] It is by no means absent in England. In the second Report of the National Birth-Rate Commission we read as follows: ‘But in the event of a war similar to that which we have just experienced, what would happen to us with a greatly reduced birth-rate? Surely all we have would be taken, and we must become slaves—as we should be to-day if we had entered on the struggle with Germany without adequate man-power. Moreover what would happen to our Empire?’[1511] It may be doubted whether there has been produced by such considerations in recent times even in Germany any effect upon numbers; probably economic forces have overruled such considerations altogether. It is possible that they may have had some influence upon military nations in earlier days. It is to be imagined and certainly to be hoped that they will not mould views on this subject in future.

4. As has been indicated, such departures as there are among European nations at the present day from the desirable density are of the nature of minor fluctuations. Europe is not from the point of view of productiveness over-populated (or was not in 1914; it is very difficult to sum up the position in this respect since the loss of capital owing to the war). There is no ground for the pessimism of Sir Thomas Holdich, who says that ‘Asia affords no asylum for overcrowded Europe’.[1512]

It may be observed that the phenomenon of unemployment as generally seen in industrial countries is not evidence of over-population. It has been shown by Beveridge that unemployment, such as now occurs in England, is in no way connected with over-population. It is due to certain maladjustments in the industrial system, such as the decay of industries, the seasonal and cyclical fluctuations of trade, and the position as to the normal reserve of labour. The industrial system so functions that, unless special measures are adopted, there is always a certain amount of unemployment. Unemployment is thus ‘a problem of industry’ as Beveridge has called it.[1513] It may also be observed that the remarkable differences in the return per head as between different countries are in any case very largely due to the amount of skill employed and not to the nearness of approximation to the desirable number.[1514]

At any given time in any nation it is desirable either that population should be stable or that there should be a certain ratio of increase. It is clear that increase may be brought about under many different conditions. A high birth-rate and a high death-rate may give the same ratio of increase as a low birth-rate and a low death-rate. These conditions have been much studied; the consideration of them falls outside this book. But we may note that, as far as numbers and the direct effect of the environment are concerned, but not necessarily so far as quality is concerned, a low birth-rate and a low death-rate represent more healthy conditions than a high birth-rate and a high death-rate. There is a certain correlation between the birth-rate and the death-rate, though it is often exaggerated. In Japan, for instance, there has recently been a tendency towards a decrease in the birth-rate and an increase in the death-rate. It is necessary to beware of those sweeping generalizations which assert that a high birth-rate means a high death-rate and vice versa. It may also be noted that the decrease in the birth-rate has been attained in different European countries in very different ways. Thus, whereas in England the decrease has been general throughout the country, in Germany it has been almost entirely confined to the towns.[1515]

Here, however, the discussion is limited to general principles; problems of this nature cannot be further inquired into. We have already noted that minor fluctuations in the nearness of approach to the optimum number as between neighbouring countries may increase, if it does not give rise to, friction between them. We may further note here that such consequences only follow when there are differences of nationality involved. When within an area inhabited by one nationality some part of it is becoming under-populated—say the urban districts—population flows in from other districts and in this case from the country. But when one country is tending towards under-population and a neighbouring country towards over-population, there is but little flow of population and but little adjustment. Various difficulties, some legal, others sentimental, check the movement towards the less fully populated country. Nevertheless, there is some movement. Thus there were resident in France in 1911 1,132,696 foreigners.[1516] But this immigration only went a little way towards bringing up the population towards the level which was apparently economically desirable, and there thus arose a position which aggravated the tension between France and Germany.

There are certain ‘new’ countries where curious conditions obtain. Their position cannot be judged in the same manner as can that of a country which has long been settled. The occupation of such countries can only proceed at a certain pace, and if it went more quickly we should have a peculiar condition of relative over-population. There is reason to think that population in many of these countries has not grown as quickly as it might have done, and that there is, in fact, a condition of relative under-population.

5. This leads us to refer to the methods of limiting increase in use at the present day. It is clear that some methods are necessary. Even if it should be thought advisable that population should increase, it cannot possibly be desirable that it should increase as fast as is possible. It therefore falls to those who disapprove of certain methods to suggest others. This problem is seldom faced by those who would dissuade men and women from certain practices. The attempt to advise in these matters without regarding the problem as a whole is strongly to be deprecated.[1517]

Abortion is condemned on every hand, and we are thus left with postponement of marriage, restriction of intercourse between married persons, and the use of contraceptive methods as the means of bringing about the limitation of families. There is much to be said for the postponement of marriage for a certain period after the age of puberty. That education should be completed, and that a certain experience of life should be gained, before the choice of a partner is made and the responsibilities of setting up a home are undertaken, are obviously desirable. In order, however, that postponement of marriage should be effective, it would require that the average age at marriage should be so late as to produce many undesirable consequences. It seems certain that, not only under present conditions, but under almost any conditions of social life that we can picture, late marriage must be accompanied by a system of prostitution and irregular sexual habits which nearly every one agrees in deploring. Apart from this almost overwhelming argument against late marriages, there are many other objections. It is not a good thing on the whole for children that their parents, should be beyond a certain age.[1518] Much can be urged with force against late marriage on the lines that after a certain age the outlook and habits of celibates so change as to render them less fitted to bring up a family. As few will be found to advocate late marriage as the only method, we may leave the matter at this point.

With regard to restriction of intercourse, the most important question is whether it can possibly be effective. Very serious doubts arise on this account when it is proposed to rely on this method alone. Late marriage might be in practice effective because sexual desire would find its satisfaction apart from marriage. Abstention from intercourse implies that sexual desire will not find its satisfaction; on this account it is likely that it can only be effective when accompanied by a system of prostitution that we have already agreed to regard as undesirable. Apart from this there are strong arguments against this method founded on the undesirable psychological results of abstention. It is in fact perhaps scarcely possible to think of a marriage system as satisfactory in which what we must regard as the physical object of marriage is not realized.

We are thus led to speak of the use of contraceptive methods and we may glance at two sides of the matter—ethical and physiological. It is a notable fact that all religious bodies, so far as their opinions can be discovered, are strongly opposed to this method.[1519] This objection is founded upon many considerations, of which the most striking is perhaps that the method allows of, or rather that it encourages, self-indulgence. Those whose attention has been drawn to the problem of the causes of the progress and decay of civilization will not fail to feel the force of any argument against the spread of habits which encourage self-indulgence. But it may be suggested that the normal exercise of any physical function can scarcely be called self-indulgence. There is a mean in the satisfaction of physical appetites, on the one side of which is self-indulgence and on the other side asceticism. It is a question whether those who disapprove of these methods because they encourage self-indulgence are not in fact demanding an ascetic life. As a form of self-discipline there may be much to recommend ascetic practices, but that is another matter. The fact is that in the use of these methods there is nothing which necessarily encourages self-indulgence. They make it possible to exercise a normal function; they do not necessarily lead to its over-use. This would seem to be without doubt the most tangible objection to these methods. The other objections are on the whole rather of a religious than of an ethical nature, and as such fall outside the scope of this book.[1520]

In addition to the ethical there is the physiological aspect of the matter. There are several different methods employed to prevent conception. It is a matter of great importance to know which of them can be employed without causing ill health. With regard to this little is known and opinions vary. More than this need not be said.

It is no part of the object of this book to advocate any particular methods;[1521] it is only intended here to show what problems arise at the present day from the quantitative aspect of the whole matter. It may be suggested that upon the question of the methods of limiting population it is desirable that there should be some consensus of opinion. Man has not only to settle how far he is going to limit population, but how he is going to do it.

6. We may now glance at certain questions which if they are to be referred to at all in this part of the book are most easily introduced here. These questions are not directly concerned with the quantitative aspect of the problem; their importance lies chiefly in their bearing upon the qualitative aspect.

It is a familiar fact that at the present day the birth-rate is higher among certain sections of the population than among others. There is reason to believe that this was also the case in some of the older civilizations—notably in Rome. We may first look at the facts and afterwards at the causes. Many investigations have shown that there is a higher fertility among the lower social grades. Heron found that there is a high average correlation between the birth-rate and conditions which indicate a lower social grade, such as the number of pawnbrokers per 1,000 inhabitants, the amount of child employment, pauperism, overcrowding, and other indications of poverty and lack of culture.[1522] Whether a differential birth-rate results or not in a differential contribution to the next generation depends on whether there is a differential survival rate, and if so, whether it compensates for or not the differences in the birth-rate. The following extract from the Report of the National Birth-Rate Commission throws light upon this point. Using material provided by the Registrar-General for England and Wales giving the births for 1911 classified according to the occupation of the father, the following is the position:

‘Classifying into groups arranged in descending order of social grade we have:

Social Class. _Births per 1,000 married males aged under 55 years._ Upper and middle classes 119 Intermediate 132 Skilled workmen 153 Intermediate 158 Unskilled workmen 213

‘The rate of mortality in the first year of life is also provided in these groups, and follows the same order, viz. 76·4, 106·4, 112·7, 121·5, 152·5. If, however, we multiply the birth-rate by the difference between unity and the proportion of deaths, i. e. the proportion of survivals in the first year, the resulting effective birth-rates are still in the same order, viz. 110, 118, 136, 139, 181, after the hazards of the first twelve months have passed. We must conclude, therefore, that the initially higher birth-rate of the lower classes is not so reduced by heavier infant mortality that their effective birth-rates are brought into approximate equality with those of the wealthier classes. We have no material allowing us to extend the comparison to later years of life; but equally we have no reason to suppose that such an extension would change the order.’[1523]

All available evidence goes to support this conclusion, namely, that the higher the social status the lower is the fertility, and that this initial difference is not removed by subsequent differential mortality. This is apparently true not only for England but also for other countries in which the economic situation is similar, and is a relatively recent phenomenon.[1524]

7. In looking for the causes of this differential increase as between various sections of the population, we have to remember that, in accordance with what has been said in the last chapter, we suppose the position in regard to population in the nation as a whole to be ruled by economic factors. If there is an increase, then we suppose that increase to be somewhere about that which the economic situation demands in order that the greatest income per head should be gained. It follows that generally speaking the conditions we find among the mass of the industrial population excluding the lowest class approximate to those which are demanded; but it is possible that, just as the increase among the lowest class is excessive, so the increase among the higher social class may be too small judging from the economic standpoint. We have here to ask what factors there are which bring about a lower fertility among the upper classes, recollecting that this low fertility may not be wholly due to an approximation to economic requirements, but may represent a failure in adjusting increase to the economic situation.

Among the factors which bring about a low fertility in these classes, those connected with differences in education and the age at which the maximum income is obtained are the most important. Education is continued in these classes up to an age at which men in the industrial classes are earning almost the maximum wage to which they will ever attain. Even when education in the ordinary sense of the word is finished, there usually follows a period when the salary gained is low, or when perhaps a premium has to be paid in order to obtain a start in whatever profession is chosen. Doctors and barristers seldom begin to earn until some years after their education is complete. Further, when they do begin to earn, the income is often for many years low, and may in some cases not reach the maximum until late in life. Among the industrial population conditions are wholly different, and the maximum rate of wages is soon reached. Whatever forces, therefore, may be playing upon the industrial population, there are in addition the above forces playing upon the professional classes which account for the lower rate of increase among them.

There are also many other factors at work in the same direction. In the life led by the upper social classes there are more numerous ways in which the desire for relaxation, change, and pleasure may find satisfaction than among the lower classes. Life is in many ways more varied. This has an influence upon fertility in two ways. When a marriage takes place among the upper social classes it involves to a far more considerable extent than among the lower classes a renunciation of much that has given pleasure hitherto. When a man marries and ‘settles down’ he gives up, as a rule, many activities from which he had derived pleasure before. Further, after marriage the possibility of indulging in many of the pleasures which this varied life offers is often incompatible with the bringing up of a family. Children are often in the way. Again, though children are no longer the economic asset among the lower classes which they were before the passing of the Factory Acts, the possession of children is generally looked upon among those classes as a support in old age when the power of earning has gone. Children, on the other hand, among the upper classes have rather to be provided for, and in any case are seldom regarded as a support.[1525]

Very many other factors might be mentioned, but enough has been said to show how in the main the different fertilities may be explained. The insufficient income of many of the less well-paid groups of the higher classes is often alleged as a cause of low fertility. This view is well founded when, as often occurs, social conventions force a so-called higher standard of living upon them—a standard which merely involves the expenditure of more money than among the industrial classes in preserving appearances without adding to welfare. When, however, this is extended to classes in which income has reached, say, between £600 and £1,000 a year, it cannot be allowed that income is truly insufficient. It is in such cases only insufficient when more than is reasonable is expended in the way of material satisfaction. A man cannot be heard to say that he cannot afford a large family as otherwise he will not be able to keep a motor-car—so long, that is to say, as the motor-car is not necessary to his profession.

7. This differential fertility occurs in countries where the population is less homogeneous than in England, and thus assumes importance in another aspect. For whether we assume the differences between the elements in the population to be due to inherited characters or to varying social traditions—a question to be discussed later—a change in the proportion of the different elements will be of great importance. According to Hill, who has investigated this matter in America, the percentage of white women of native parentage under 45 years of age bearing no children is 13·1, while the percentage of foreign women is 5·7. The average number of children for white married women of native parentage is 2·7, and for similar women of foreign parentage 4·4. Among the foreign women the average number of children for a married English woman is 3·4, for a German 4·3, for an Italian 4·9, for a Pole 6·2.[1526] The above is only one example of conditions which obtain in many countries raising difficult problems.

The same problem arises in an even more important form when there are in the same country races as different as the white and the negro. In the United States and in South Africa the problem assumes greater importance than elsewhere. In the latter country the negroes are increasing faster than the white element of the population. In America this has not been the case in the last hundred years; but the fact that the white element has maintained its relative position is due to the fact that in addition to the increase in the native-born white population there has been an increase due to immigration.[1527]

8. The question of the relative rate of increase of the population of different countries is a somewhat different matter. It is due to many factors, one of the less important of which is that the population of various countries does not approach equally closely to the number desirable in each country. The chief factor is the variation in the arts of production in use in each country. It is only an extension of this fact that the natural resources of different countries have been more exploited in some cases than in others. In Russia the arts of production in use are less advanced than in more western countries. The introduction of western methods into such a country enables a rapid increase of population to take place. During the same period the increase can only be slow in countries which already use these methods, and thus, so long as the knowledge of the arts of production is not equal in all countries, different rates of increase are liable to arise when knowledge spreads into a more backward country.[1528]

Such changes are altering the composition of the population of the world. The following figures have been given for Europe. Out of 1,000 inhabitants there were in the years named the following proportion of Teutonic, Romance, and Slav elements:

1801 1850 1905 Teutonic 375 369 273 Romance 355 321 251 Slav 268 310 375

XIII THE QUALITATIVE PROBLEM

We now approach the second part of the problem, and turn from a consideration of the quantity to a consideration of the quality of the population. In the second and third chapters we found that reproduction was a necessity, and that to the fact of reproduction can be traced the origin of problems both of quantity and of quality. In the third chapter we further found that the position of animals and plants in a state of nature as regards problems of quality was in its broadest aspect simple. The changes in the forms of organisms, which, when viewed as a whole, we call evolution, are due to changes in the physical basis from which new generations arise. The long procession of organisms, usually of increasing complexity, from the simplest type to the immediate ancestor of rational man, thus owes its being to a long procession of changes in the germ-cells.

When treating of the quantitative problem among men, we considered a large amount of evidence which bears also upon quality, and this evidence, supplemented as and where necessary, will enable us to make some estimate of the importance of qualitative changes among men. This is the object of the remaining chapters. We have to try and estimate how far human history is comparable with changes among species in a state of nature—is due, in other words, to germinal changes. There are two other possible causes of change among men—the direct influence of the environment and the influence of tradition—and in order to estimate the importance of germinal change, it will be necessary also to consider what importance is attributable to these two factors. To one of them—namely to tradition—we shall find reason to attribute great importance. Tradition, in fact, comes ultimately to be of more importance than germinal change among the underlying causes of history. But tradition is profoundly influenced by the quantity of population among other factors, and, therefore, to the extent to which this is so, the determining factor in human history is still bound up with the population problem. As history ceases to be strictly correlated with changes in quality, it comes to be influenced by a factor the nature and strength of which is largely determined by the quantity of population. Thus the two aspects of the whole problem are linked together in the case of man in a manner that does not obtain among species in a state of nature.

The attempt to deal with this problem will be undertaken in the following manner. In Chapter III reference was made to the influence of the environment upon growth and upon the adult form. In Chapter XIV this subject will be developed so far as species in a state of nature are concerned, and the results of the inquiry will be applied to man in Chapter XV. The subject-matter of Chapter XV will be confined to the influence of the environment upon human bodily and mental characters. The influence of the environment as a stimulus affecting the direction in which mental characters are used will be left to a future chapter.

We next turn to inquire what influence changes in the germ-cells have had. Before we can make any progress it is necessary to ask what characters—physical and mental—have their basis in the germ-cells, and an inquiry into this subject will occupy Chapter XVI. In Chapters XVII and XVIII we ask what evidence there is of selection and other factors throughout human history which we have reason to suppose have a bearing on change in the average germinal constitution of the human species. This will among other things necessitate an examination of the facts in Chapters VII, VIII, and X in order to ascertain what bearing they have upon selection. Having thus some knowledge of what is inherited, and having discussed the occurrence of such factors as in human history may have brought about changes from one generation to another in the character inherited, we shall be in a position in Chapter XVII to attempt an estimate of the results which the factors—selection and others—have had upon physical characters. We shall find that as regards these characters the position is more or less clear; we shall find, that is to say, that the influence of selection and other factors, considered in conjunction with the influence of the environment discussed in Chapter XV, does enable us in the main to understand how the physical evolution of man has come about. With regard to mental characters to be discussed in Chapter XVIII, we shall find that the task cannot be similarly completed. With a far less degree of certainty than in the case of physical characters we shall arrive at some idea as to how mental characters have evolved. This, however, still leaves unanswered the problem as to how far the evolution of mental characters accounts for what we call history. To attack this problem it is necessary to consider how the environment acts as a stimulus upon the mind, conditions the degree to which and the direction in which the mind is used, and thus leads to the building up of tradition. In Chapter XIX we consider the nature of human mental endowment and the manner in which tradition is built up and handed on. In Chapter XX we consider the nature of the environment under which human mental activities have been exerted. This will enable us in Chapter XXI to survey the broad facts of history and to come to some conclusion as to the parts played respectively by the changes in human mental endowment, by the direct influence of the environment upon the mental faculties, and by its influence as a stimulus upon the exercise of these faculties. In a concluding chapter the results of the whole inquiry will be summed up.

XIV THE INFLUENCE OF THE ENVIRONMENT AMONG ANIMALS AND PLANTS

1. A brief inquiry into the part played by the environment among animals and plants forms a necessary introduction to a similar inquiry as regards man such as we shall undertake in the next chapter.

In the second chapter something was said as to fertilization and as to the development of the zygote or fertilized egg to the adult form. It has been shown by Herbst that, if this process of development is to result in a normal adult, all the factors comprising the normal environment must be present. Herbst ascertained the exact composition of sea-water at Naples.[1529] Using as his material the larvae of sea-urchins, he changed slightly in many different ways the composition of the water. The experiments were very exhaustive. At every stage in the development he observed the results of abstracting one or more of the constituents of sea-water—the normal environment of the larvae. Commenting upon the results of these experiments, Jenkinson says: ‘Whatever may be the ultimate explanation of the facts, there can be no doubt whatever that the most complete demonstration has been given of the absolute necessity of many of the elements occurring in ordinary sea-water, its normal environment, for the proper growth and differentiation of the larva of the sea-urchin. Nor is this all. Some of the substances are necessary for one part or phase of development, some for another, some at the very beginning, others only later on. Thus potassium, magnesium and some degree of alkalinity are essential for fertilization, chlorine and sodium for segmentation, calcium for the adequate cohesion of the blastomeres, potassium, calcium and the hydroxyl-ion for securing the internal osmotic pressure necessary for growth, while without the sulph-ion and magnesium the due differentiation of the alimentary tract and the proper formation of the skeleton cannot occur; the secretion of the skeleton depends on the presence of some sulphate and alkalinity, the skeleton requires calcium carbonate, cilia will only beat in an alkaline medium containing potassium and magnesium, and muscle will only contract when potassium and calcium are there.’[1530]

Summing up the results of these and other experiments, Jenkinson says: ‘Every factor, or nearly every factor [of the environment], is necessary for this or that phase or part of the process, some for the whole. Light of a certain wave length will accelerate development; light of another kind, or, in some instances, darkness, will retard it, or will stop it altogether; a certain degree of heat is indispensable; oxygen is required for respiration, water for growth; some eggs demand constant agitation, others complete rest; fertilization or segmentation or gastrulation, or some one or other of the later phases of development may depend absolutely on the presence of some particular chemical element; remove the factor in question, whatever it may be, and that particular process will not occur, and the specific typical end which is reached in normal development will not be attained.’[1531]

Putting aside until later the question as to what is implied by the term normal environment, we may now ask what the relation is between heredity and environment. To regard a developing organism as subject to the action of two forces, one tending to thrust it in one direction and the other in another, is to view the matter in a wholly false light. Heredity and environment are, as is clear from the evidence given above, complementary one to the other; without a germinal constitution there can be no organism; without appropriate stimuli an organism cannot develop. Similarly it is misleading to speak of the relative importance of the two factors unless the terms are very clearly defined. To see that careful definition is necessary, we have only to remember that, because, with the exception of the anaerobic bacteria, all organisms require free oxygen, environment might be held to be all important. Here, however, we are not concerned with the problem as to the conditions under which we might speak of the relative importance of the two factors; we have merely to note that they are essentially complementary.

2. We may now observe that, just as a normal adult only develops under normal stimuli, abnormal stimuli experimentally induced may be followed by every kind of result from the most extreme to the most insignificant changes both of form and of life-cycle. We may note the results of a few of the vast number of experiments which have been made. With regard to plants it has been shown that ‘each developmental stage depends upon special external conditions, and in cases where our knowledge is sufficient, a particular stage may be obtained at will. In the Green Algae, as in the case of the Fungi, we may classify the stages of development into purely vegetative growth (growth, cell-division, branching), asexual reproduction (formation of zöospores, conidia), and sexual process (formation of male and female sexual organs). By modifying the external conditions, it is possible to induce algae or fungi ... to grow continuously for several years, or, in the course of a few days, to die after an enormous production of asexual or sexual cells. In some instances even an almost complete stoppage of growth may be caused, reproductive cells scarcely being formed before the organism is again compelled to resort to reproduction. Then again the sequence of different stages of development may be modified as we desire.’[1532]

Another kind of experiment shows that foliage shoots can be converted into runners and vice versa; it is, for instance, possible to induce a germinating tuber of the potato to form foliage shoots under the influence of a higher temperature. The transfer of plants from one environment to another is often followed by remarkable changes. MacLeod, for instance, states that a species of Philodendron which has large leaves pierced with round holes was cultivated for many years in the Botanical Gardens at Ghent in a greenhouse which was rather cool and dry. The holes were found to be rare; at times it was not possible to observe a single perforation in any of the leaves of a specimen. In every other respect the plants were healthy. The plants were later transferred to a greenhouse that was warm and moist and after a few months the new leaves were found to be abundantly perforated.[1533] Bonnier made some very interesting observations on the dandelion. He found that the plant, when sown at a high altitude in the Pyrenees, produced very short stems with hairy, dark green leaves and a compact flower. On the other hand, seeds gathered from such plants growing at a high altitude and sown in the neighbourhood of Paris produced after three years elongated stems with less hairy and brighter leaves, or, in other words, plants very similar to those grown from seeds obtained in the neighbourhood of Paris. The modifications acquired during a given time by a lowland plant grown at a high altitude, or by a highland plant grown at a low altitude, took about the same time to disappear on returning the plants to their original climates.[1534] Similarly ‘Schubeler sowed seeds of various plants in different latitudes in Norway and proved that the brilliancy of the flowers increased with the latitude. So great was the difference that it was difficult to conceive that they were produced from the same batch of seeds.’[1535] Observations on European peach-trees transported to Réunion were made by Bordage. Such trees lost their deciduous habit and became evergreen, though in some cases it took twenty years before the change was complete.[1536] Lastly the red primrose ‘reared at a temperature of 30°–35° C. (with moisture and shade) has pure white flowers, but the same plants reared at 15°–20° C. have red flowers. If the white-bearing plants are brought into a cooler place, the flowers that are already in bloom remain white, but those that develop later in the cooler temperature are red.’[1537]

We may also notice the results of some of the experiments upon developing animals. Stockard experimented with the fish Fundulus heteroclitus. He subjected the eggs both before cleavage began, and after the two- and four-celled stages had been reached, to solutions of magnesium salts in sea-water. The eyes of a large percentage of the embryos were abnormal. In some cases there was a single median eye; in other cases there was a median eye showing signs of a double structure.[1538] ‘In a long series of experiments Féré has shown that monstrosities can be produced by exposing the hen’s egg to the unfavourable influence of a large variety of substances. Vapour of ether, alcohol, essential oils, nicotine, mercury and phosphorus, injection of alkaloids such as morphine, nicotine, strychnine and others, of bacterial toxins (those of tubercle and diphtheria), of peptone, dextrose, and glycerine, several alcohols, certain salts ... are all harmful, retarding and distorting the embryo to a greater or less extent.’[1539] Many experiments show the effect of differences in food, temperature, and humidity upon developing organisms. Agar carried out some experiments on a small water-flea, Simocephalus. This animal is enclosed in a kind of shell composed of two valves, somewhat like a mussel. Normally the edges of the valves nearly meet, so that if a section is cut across the animal transversely the shape of the body enclosed in the valves is oval. When the food was varied in a certain way, Agar found that the edges of the valves were turned outwards so that the shape of a transverse section was no longer oval but bell-like. He also found that the length was reduced by exposure to a high temperature.[1540] Experimenting with a beetle, Tower found that both the colour and the colour pattern could be modified by changes in temperature and humidity.[1541] Similarly Morgan showed that a species of the fruit fly exhibited a peculiar formation of the abdomen in the presence of moisture; when raised in dry conditions the abnormality disappeared.[1542] Poulton obtained some remarkable results when working with the larvae of moths. ‘Larvae surrounded by the leaves on which they fed, became, in the majority of species, light brown or light grey in colour. If, however, an abundance of twigs had been mixed with the leaves of the food plant, they became dark in colour. The larvae of the Peppered Moth afforded the most striking result of all, for when reared among green leaves and shoots they became bright green without exception, whilst in the presence of dark brown twigs they nearly all assumed a corresponding colour.’[1543]

A Japanese experimenter exercised rats for 90 to 180 days; he found that this long-continued exercise markedly increased the weight of the heart, kidneys, and other organs on an average to about 20 per cent.[1544] A thickening has been observed in the stomach of a gull fed on grain for a year and this change is said to take place under natural conditions in the herring gull, which feeds in winter on fish and in summer on grain. Conversely if graminivorous birds are fed on a carnivorous diet, the gizzard assumes the form of a carnivorous bird’s stomach. Cuvier found the length of the intestine of the wild boar is as 9 to 1 and of the domestic boar as 13·5 to 1, a difference which is in part probably due to diet.[1545] The colour of birds’ plumage is affected by their diet. Hempseed causes bullfinches and other birds to become black. Cayenne pepper causes yellow to change to orange red. In the New York Zoological Gardens it has been shown that some birds, such as the bobolink, may be so dieted that they keep their breeding plumage throughout the year and will sing their spring song in mid-winter.[1546] Warren produced marked changes in the common water-flea, Daphnia, by keeping them in a confined space for many generations. ‘Semper and de Varigny found that when fresh-water snails were reared in vessels of a shape that allowed them abundant water but very little surface in which to take exercise they developed into dwarf forms. Every precaution was taken to procure abundant food, perfect aeration and thorough removal of waste products. De Varigny’s experiments were particularly careful and point convincingly to the conclusion that the condition of dwarfing was the restricted area for exercise.’[1547] Lastly it may be remembered that, as is well known, parasites may induce remarkable changes in their hosts.

3. From what was said in the third chapter it follows that the results of artificial subjection to abnormal stimuli just described are to be interpreted as examples of the fact that different responses are given to different stimuli by the same or approximately the same germinal constitution. But large and conspicuous changes of this nature are not visible only as the result of artificial circumstances. Many species are normally subject to more or less definite and sudden changes in the surroundings, and some of them exhibit more or less definite responses to such changes. This is especially obvious in the case of sessile organisms the outward form of which is clearly modified by the surroundings. Thus ‘the water ranunculus, when growing submerged beneath the surface of a pond, produces leaves the blades of which are cut up into a number of fine thread-like segments. As soon as the top of the plant reaches the surface of the water, those leaf-rudiments which are just commencing their existence, proceed to develop in a totally different fashion. The leaves to which they give rise possess a wide and unpointed blade, which floats upon the surface of the water. The two sets of leaves are as utterly different in their appearance as it is possible for leaves to be. Yet the effect of the external conditions upon the young leaf-rudiment determines which of the kinds is to appear.’[1548]

Examples may also be found in the life-history of free-living organisms. One is afforded by the common honey-bee. As is well known, a queen bee differs markedly from a worker bee in shape. Both queens and workers arise from fertilized eggs; whether a queen or a worker develops from any one egg appears to depend wholly on the environment—a larva that gives rise to a queen receiving in the first place different and presumably more nutritious food than that received by a larva giving rise to a worker, and, in the second place, inhabiting a cell which differs in size and shape from that inhabited by a worker larva. Another is afforded by the life-history of the plant lice (Aphids). At certain seasons of the year winged forms appear. It has long been suspected that the appearance of winged forms depends on some environmental stimulus. That this is so has been rendered practically certain by the work of Shinji, who has shown that aphids reared on plants watered with certain solutions are winged almost without exception.[1549]

Among mammals the assumption of a winter coat by the lemming, ptarmigan, and variable hare is a similar phenomenon. Sir John Ross has told how a Hudson Bay lemming was protected from the cold on board his ship by keeping it in the cabin. It retained its normal summer coat during the winter. On exposing it in a cage on deck to a temperature of 30° below zero, the fur on the cheeks and a patch on each shoulder became perfectly white during the first night. After another day’s exposure ‘the patches on each shoulder had extended considerably, and the posterior part of the body and the flanks had turned a dirty white.... At the end of a week it was entirely white except in a dark band across the shoulders prolonged posteriorly down the middle of the back.’[1550]

A curious example of the importance of the environment before birth is afforded by the difference between the mule and the jennet. The former is the product of a cross between a stallion and a she-ass, the latter between a jackass and a mare. There is every reason to believe that it is not the fact that horse-ancestry is in one case traced through the father and in the other case through the mother that gives rise to the difference; the difference can only be attributed to the fact that in one case the period before birth is passed within a mother of one species and in the other case is passed within a mother of another species.

4. We are now in a position to discuss what is meant by the term ‘normal environment’. There is a more or less definite range of variations of the environmental stimuli to which species in a state of nature are subject. The range may differ greatly from species to species, but remains more or less constant for any species. So long as the variations fall within this range, the environment may be described as normal. Such variations will be followed by different responses on the part of similar germinal constitutions, and the variations among the members of any species under a normal environment are due to the combined influence of differences in the environment and of differences in the germinal constitutions. From time to time in a state of nature organisms are subject to variations of the environmental stimuli which fall outside the normal range, and there are thus produced extreme modifications similar to those which can be experimentally induced. Thus Gemmill on examining a large number of fish embryos found monsters with a single eye very similar to those experimentally produced by Stockard.[1551]

It may next be observed that there is a marked difference in the degree to which sessile organisms on the one hand and free-living organisms on the other hand respond to differences in the normal environment. The former are much more susceptible to differences—or at least to certain differences. Sessile organisms, for instance, differ from one another very greatly in form and such variations are known to be chiefly due to differences in the environmental stimuli. Free-living organisms do not vary in this manner. The reason is fairly clear. All species are adapted to a particular niche in nature, and among the former the mode of adaptation of necessity takes the form of susceptibility to surrounding conditions; a tree or a sponge must be able to adapt itself to its actual surroundings. A free-living organism is, on the other hand, adapted by its specific form to its niche in nature and, in order that it may reach and maintain this form, it must exhibit a relative lack of susceptibility to surrounding conditions.

5. The broad features of the situation among species in a state of nature are now fairly clear. By outward inspection it cannot be ascertained whether any particular characteristic is of the nature of a modification or of a mutation. But we know that among sessile organisms outward form is largely of the nature of modification, whereas among free-living organisms, which interest us more closely because conditions are more nearly comparable to those obtaining among men, modifications play a much smaller part. A large number of measurements has been made of certain features of particular species in a state of nature as, for instance, by Allen for the squirrel and Weldon for the common shrimp. Though on general grounds we may have reason to suspect how far the variations recorded are of the nature of modifications, we can arrive at no certain answer. Observations made on members of a species in a state of nature, some of which are subject to conditions that differ from those to which the rest of the members are subject, are of more assistance for our present purpose. Thus the tiger ranges from tropical to temperate regions. Tigers from the former regions exhibit certain differences from those from the latter regions in respect of the condition of the coat. It is possible that these differences are purely environmental. Again certain marine molluscs from cold waters exhibit differences when compared with members of the same species from warmer waters; these differences may again be purely environmental. In those cases in which a species has within recent years spread to a new environment, it is often found the degree of variation has increased. Thus Bumpus found that the egg of the common sparrow is more variable in the United States than in England;[1552] it has also been noticed that the variation of the common periwinkle is greater in America than in England—both these species having been recently introduced into America.[1553] It is also of interest to observe that Montgomery found greater variations among migratory than among non-migratory species of birds and the greatest variation among those that had the widest range.[1554] Though, until the matter has been put to the test of experiment, nothing can be affirmed as to the nature of these differences, it is probable that in part at least these differences are environmental. Such observations help to exhibit the degree of importance that we are led to attribute to modifications among free-living animals in a state of nature. It must also be borne in mind that departures from the normal range of variations of the environmental stimuli are not so very infrequent and that more or less extreme modifications, as result, for instance, from the attacks of parasites, do occur.

Lastly we may go a step farther and ask what happens when the environment changes. This inquiry, if pursued, would lead us beyond the scope of this chapter. A reference, however, to this problem may assist to render the relation of a species under natural conditions to its environment rather more clear. Change of environment may be due either to the migration of some or all the members of a species to a locality where the environment is different, or to an actual change in the environment in the same locality. If the change is at all marked, then there will be a different response on the part of the germinal constitution to the new conditions. Let us suppose that the diet is changed and that some members of a species of bird take to a diet of grain having previously existed on a diet of fish. There will be a different response in that the stomach will assume a different form. But it is most unlikely that the old germinal constitution will be that which gives the best response to the new conditions. Almost certainly a somewhat different type of germinal constitution will be that which will give the best response to the new conditions, will be that, in other words, from which there will arise the form of stomach most suited to dealing with grain. If and when, therefore, a mutation arises exhibiting this changed type of germinal constitution, it will be favoured, and in this manner a new variety and ultimately a new species may be formed. It has thus to be remembered that, although the germinal constitution to some extent responds differently to different stimuli, it is very unlikely that any average type of germinal constitution will give the best response to any other environment than that to which the species is now subject. It does not therefore follow that, because the responses of the germinal constitution are various, there are not factors making for a change in the germinal constitution when the environment changes.

Summing up what we have said, we have to think of every species as living under a more or less clearly defined environment into which very many elements enter; whether the variations in these elements are great or small, there is an average condition, and to that average condition a certain type of germinal constitution gives the best response. In the case of a free-living animal in the adult form the germinal constitution does not respond readily to ordinary variations from the normal, though it has to be remembered that extreme influences such as those caused by parasites may cause marked reactions. Further, it has always to be borne in mind that during development all animals and plants are particularly susceptible to environmental changes. It is not possible to make any precise statement as to how far the differences we see under natural conditions are modifications and how far mutations. All that we can say is that the part played by the environment in producing modifications is on the whole smaller in the case of free-living animals than in the case of sessile animals and of plants.

XV THE INFLUENCE OF THE ENVIRONMENT UPON MAN

1. The way has now been cleared for a consideration of the influence of the environment upon man. The relation of the ancestors of man to the environment must have been the same as that between any wild species and its environment. In the course of his history man has moved away from this position until his relation to the environment has become so different from that described for other animals and plants that we can no longer speak of a normal environment. This has not come about because man is not subject to the same laws as are other organisms. It has come about because his relation to the environment has been modified in many ways.

The conception of the normal environment involved the idea that, much as the different elements composing the environment might vary, there was some more or less clearly defined limit to their variations. In one sense this remains true for man; but the variations are so much greater in degree and in kind that there is a clear distinction between the conditions obtaining among civilized races and those obtaining among any wild species. Let us glance for a moment at what has happened. It is obvious that man has varied his surroundings in every respect, not only with regard to what we may call external circumstances, but also with regard to nutrition and to customs and habits that we sum up under the name of use. The most obvious changes in external circumstances are those connected with the spread of man to every corner of every continent. Man has become subject to every extreme of heat and cold, humidity and aridity, of barometric pressure and all that goes to make up climate. There is in addition a vast mass of artificial influences, due in the first place to various methods of protection adopted against climate. Every description of house is known, involving all degrees of access to fresh air. Dress again varies almost infinitely—the variations all being of possible influence upon the development of mental and physical characters. The aggregation of men into towns involves exposure to smoke, noise, and vibration among other factors. Modern industrial conditions in particular expose workers to varied surroundings. Human diet has become equally varied. The cooking of food was an innovation involving great changes in the factors which play upon the digestive organs. Innumerable animals and plants have been drawn upon by man as food. Perhaps more important than the variations in what man eats are the variations in what he drinks. Under the heading of use come all those habits such as reading, washing, smoking, and shaving. Various occupations bring with them various degrees of muscular activity or involve its reduction to next to nothing. There are various modes of riding and various ways of sitting. Lastly the prevalence of disease has introduced another factor which has a profound influence upon mental and physical characters.

This varying of the environment has come about gradually, slowly at first and with increasing speed latterly, until at the present day, of four men having their homes in the same town one may do clerical work involving no exercise, another may labour in a cotton mill where it is warm and moist, a third may perform hard physical labour in a mine in semi-darkness where the air is full of a particular kind of dust, and a fourth may work on board ship exposed to all the rigours of the Atlantic. To such differences may be added all the differences between meat-eaters and vegetarians, smokers and non-smokers, alcoholic drinkers and abstainers, and so on. Contrast the variations in the environment of modern man with the variations in the environment of any species in a state of nature and it will be apparent why it was said above that the relation of man to his environment was clearly distinguishable from that of any species in a state of nature to its environment.

We are about to consider in this chapter the influence of the environment upon the physical basis of life; we shall be concerned, in other words, with its function as the complement of the germinal constitution. The discussion will be limited to the notice of such factors as are in operation; of the possible effects of the environment there is no need to speak. From two other points of view also the environment is of importance; as a factor in selection it will be considered in Chapters XVII and XVIII; as the subject-matter, so to speak, upon which mental processes work, it will be considered in Chapters XIX and XX. It is important to distinguish the influence of the environment in this latter respect from the sense in which it is considered in this chapter. The failure to do so has vitiated many contributions to the subject. It is felt that the environment is somehow of great influence in social life and it is not realized that, if in the respect in which it is considered in this chapter we find reason to conclude that its influence is not great, there is another field in which its influence may be established.

When considering the influence of the environment on man, it is convenient to distinguish between physical and mental characters. Mental characters may be considered under the head of the intellect, the disposition, and the temperament. It must, however, be clearly understood that this is merely a distinction convenient for our present purpose which is not based upon, and does not imply, any fundamental distinction. Mental characters, such as the instinct of gregariousness, and physical characters, such as head form, are for our purpose merely characters resulting from the play of certain stimuli upon a certain germinal constitution.

2. It is remarkable how little on the whole is known with regard to the influence of the environment on man. For the most part we have to depend upon observations as distinguished from experiments. Though a few experiments have been made, some deliberately but others accidentally, we are for the most part in the position with regard to man that we should be with regard to other animals, had we only such observations to go on as those quoted respecting the size of marine molluscs, the variation in the coat of the tiger, and the changes in the sparrow and the periwinkle when introduced into America. Though such observations may strongly suggest certain conclusions as to the part played by the environment, no definite or precise results can be reached.

We may first consider some evidence bearing upon the influence of particular factors such as exercise and climate. We may disregard those rare cases of extreme modifications deliberately induced, such as the distortion of the shape of the head or of the feet by pressure. These extreme modifications approximate to mutilations such as amputation of the finger-joints or the knocking out of the incisor teeth.

It is well known that exercise has considerable effect upon the development of the muscles. It is also well known that there is a clearly defined point for each individual beyond which exercise will produce no further effect. Though exercise has a considerable effect upon other organs, especially certain internal organs, it is probable, not only that it has more effect upon the muscles than upon any other system of organs, but that the effect upon the muscles is relatively at least as great as, if not greater than, the effect upon any organ of any other factor that we shall consider except disease. Owing to differences in the amount of exercise the bodily development of man in a modern community varies very considerably; owing to such modifications clerical workers differ from blacksmiths, whether or not there are also germinal differences. So too owing to differences in habits men of one race differ from men of another race. Darwin, for instance, refers to the thin legs and thick arms of the Payagua Indians who spend a large part of their lives in canoes.[1555] It is certain that all such physical differences are not due to germinal differences and that environment in the shape of use is in part the cause. The position is similar with regard to certain peculiarities observable among races that have adopted unusual modes of squatting.

Little is known as to the effects of use upon mental characters. To some degree no doubt the intellect is developed by use, though, perhaps, the degree to which this is so is apt to be exaggerated in popular estimation owing to the fact that modes of thinking acquired through education add to the efficiency of the faculty, which result is mistaken for the effects of use. That the effects of exercise are not great is shown by the experience of the Workers’ Education Association. This institution gives advanced courses to men often of middle age who have received but little intellectual training in early life. It does not appear that the strength of their intellects is much less than it would have been had they received a university training. It seems at any rate certain that the differences in the amount of use now obtaining between the various professions and classes in England have less effect generally upon mental than upon physical characters. Given, for example, two men of equal intellect, one of whom received the best educational training of the day, and the other of whom received the training given to the working classes, it does not seem that at the end of the training there would be anything like the same difference as regards strength of intellect between them as there would be between two men, one of whom received an athletic training and the other of whom did not.

3. Physical changes are not infrequently observed to follow upon changes in the environment, though, when these changes are complex, it is often impossible to say with which features of the environment the changes are connected. Thus ‘the Anthropological Committee of the British Association long ago showed the beneficent effects of the Factory Acts, which rescued young children from the hardships of daily toil. Boys of nine years in 1873 had a height and weight equivalent to the height and weight of boys of ten years old in 1833.’[1556]

It is known that stature has increased in certain European countries during the last century. Soren Hansen gives the following figures for Denmark:[1557]

1852 to 1856 165·42 cm. average height. 1879 „ 1888 167·78 „ „ „ 1891 „ 1900 168·43 „ „ „ 1904 „ 1905 169·11 „ „ „

Similarly the stature of the Dutch has increased from 165·5 cm. in 1866 to 167 cm. in 1883 and to 168 cm. in 1899. A number of reasons has been suggested to account for this marked increase, the higher standard of living, the decrease in the incidence of disease which is known to inhibit growth, and the smaller number of children in a family. This last factor is certainly of importance at the present day. From some observations made in an English manufacturing town Ewart concludes that when children are born at a longer interval than two years they are on an average three inches taller and three pounds heavier than children born at a shorter interval.[1558] It is a fair assumption that in families, where the income is small, the fewer the children the more favourable would be the environmental conditions.

The physical inferiority of people living in poorly endowed surroundings is often thought to be at least in part due to modifications induced by hard conditions. Thus physical inferiority is noticeable in districts in Europe that are markedly poorly endowed, as for instance in the area between Limoges and Périgueux in France. So far as this is so, the causes may have to be sought in climatic differences as well as in other differences more directly comparable with those which exist between well- and ill-treated children in the same country.

4. The influence of climate upon man has long attracted attention. Statistical evidence has been produced showing that the shape of the head—a characteristic usually considered not to be in any way susceptible to such differences in the environment as occur between one climate and another—is modified by climate. Boas produced figures showing that the cephalic index (a measure obtained by calculating the relation of breadth of the head to the length which is put at 100) of Sicilians born in America to be 80, while that of Sicilians born in Sicily is 78, and of Hebrews born in America to be 81, while that of Hebrews born in Eastern Europe, whence the immigrants came, is 83. It would appear that the Hebrews who are broad-headed in Europe become narrower-headed in America, and that the Sicilians who are narrow-headed in Europe become broader-headed in America. There would thus seem to be an approximation in America to a cephalic index the mean of which lies between 80 and 81.[1559] These results have been severely criticized from many points of view. Sergi claims to have shown that the results are the ‘pure effect of illusion due to the statistical methods employed by the author’.[1560] It has also been suggested that the results are due to selection. In this connexion it is interesting to note that both Ammon and Levi obtained somewhat similar results and that they both attributed them to selection. The former, working with figures from Baden, found that the inhabitants of cities tended to become longer-headed and concluded that the short-headed type tended to die out under the conditions of city life.[1561] Levi, working on Italian figures, came to the same conclusion and attributed it to the same cause.[1562] Others have suggested that the methods of nursing children may affect the shape of the head and that the changed habits of the immigrants in America may account for the changes in the shape of the head. Though it has certainly not been proved that the environment can in the manner suggested change the shape of the head, the question cannot be regarded as settled.

Observations have been made on the cephalic index of Jews which may perhaps be held to lend support to the views of Boas. Huntington gives the following table:[1563]

Country. _Cephalic Index of _Cephalic Index of Difference Jews. other Races. Caucasus 87·5 87·4 0·1 Galicia 83·6 84·4 0·8 Baden 83·5 84·1 0·6 Little Russia 82·9 83·2 0·3 Turin 82·4 84·9 2·5 Lithuania 81·7 80·6 1·1 Russian Poland 81·9 80·9 1·0 White Russia 80·9 82·5 1·6

It would appear that there is a tendency for the cephalic index of Jews to vary as does that of the surrounding types. Fishberg has attributed this fact to intermarriage[1564] and this may be in part at least the explanation, though in the present state of our knowledge the possible influence of the environment cannot be altogether excluded.

The uncertainty surrounding the matter is in fact a good example of the state of our knowledge regarding many similar problems affecting man.[1565] Boas himself, it may be noticed, only believes in a ‘strictly limited plasticity’[1566] of head form; it is indeed evident that this and other physical characters which distinguish the races of man are for the most part of the nature of mutations and not of modifications. Europeans who migrate to tropical climates and the inhabitants of tropical climates who come to live in Europe retain the greater part of their distinguishing physical characters.

The manner and degree in which tropical climates influence Europeans is a matter of considerable interest. There is as yet but little known on the subject. Sir Patrick Manson, writing in 1907, said that ‘although many attempts have been made to trace and explain the effect of temperature on the physiological processes of the human body, more especially in reference to the pathological proclivities to which atmospheric heat and cold may conduce, it cannot be said that any important conclusions have been attained.... But though we may not be able to indicate precisely the way in which our bodies are physiologically affected by extremes of atmospheric temperature, especially prolonged high temperature, our sensations, the loss of physical and mental energy, the modification of physical characteristics undergone by white races when placed for several generations in tropical conditions, and the dark skins of all tropical races indicate that the white races on first arrival are not in all respects adapted for tropical conditions, that they are somehow prejudicially affected thereby, and that while living in tropical countries they are more open to certain pathological risks than are the natives of those countries.’[1567] Since the year in which Sir Patrick Manson wrote further information has been obtained on this subject. Our knowledge is, however, still scanty. With regard to actual facts it is known that the pulse, rate of breathing, and temperature of the body do not vary when measured in Europe and when measured among white men under tropical conditions. The number of red blood-corpuscles and the amount of haemoglobin in the blood is the same and metabolism is not less intense. On the other hand the rate by which a nervous impulse travels along a nerve decreases in Europeans the longer they live in the tropics. The muscles and the connective tissue become more elastic. The well-known pallor of Europeans living in the tropics is due to a thickening and softening of the epidermis, which becomes opaque.[1568]

It is very difficult to arrive at any conclusions as to what the effects of a tropical climate upon Europeans really are. It is necessary to discount the effect of tropical diseases and of the habits and customs of Europeans living in the tropics. On the whole it is probable that the popular notion of the considerable and generally injurious nature of the modifications undergone by Europeans living in the tropics is exaggerated. It is said that, for example, in Java, when sanitary conditions are good and reasonable habits adopted, the death-rate among European children is less than in Europe. Nevertheless a tropical climate does have an injurious effect upon Europeans. There is no doubt that Europeans in the tropics are more irritable and in general more highly strung than in their native land. Clearly in some fashion the nervous tone is injuriously affected by residence in tropical climates. In a similar manner nervous tone is affected by many elements in the environment in civilized countries, such as vibration, noise, and so on, leaving aside the effect of food, drink, and disease. To the importance of disease in this respect we shall return later. As regards noise, vibration, and so on, but little is known—their influence being possibly considerably greater than is usually suspected.

5. Ellsworth Huntingdon has in recent years in a number of publications elaborated a theory according to which climate has been one of the main factors in determining where civilization shall develop and flourish. As this theory depends upon the supposed direct influence of the environment on man, it may be noticed here. He has made observations which are interpreted as showing that there are optimum climatic conditions under which the maximum energy is exhibited. These conditions arise when the average temperature of day and night together lies between 58° F. and 71° F. and when there is a certain degree of moisture. His observations, made in America, were based on the output in piece-work factories and on similar data and tend to show that not only do all European races, including the Finns, display most energy under these optimum conditions, but also the Japanese and the negroes. He then proceeds to show that where these optimum conditions prevail in the world, there to-day are to be found the highest forms of civilization. Upon these data he raises a very far-reaching theory to the effect that throughout history civilization has arisen and flourished only where there has been an approximation to these climatic conditions. To the obvious difficulty that former civilizations have often flourished in countries the climate of which at the present day is far from these optimum conditions, he replies that climate has changed, a theory which he has for some years strongly advocated.[1569]

It may be said that there is nothing novel in the idea of optimum climatic conditions.[1570] In the previous section it was pointed out that Europeans in tropical climates suffer from injurious mental disturbances. What is remarkable is that the optimum conditions for negroes should be the same as for Europeans. It will require more proof than has yet been advanced before this can be accepted. Further, the changes in climate which the theory demands have not been proved. Professor Gregory has reviewed the question and his conclusions do not support those of Huntingdon—at any rate not in such a manner as to render the theory tenable.[1571] Nevertheless, whatever the fate of the theory in its present form may be, its enunciation has raised many interesting questions and has incidentally helped to show how little we know at present regarding the effect of the surroundings on man.

6. When men move from one climate to another they come under the influence not only of changes in temperature and moisture but also of food and sometimes of altitude and other factors about the effects of which there is a considerable amount of information. A vegetarian diet is said to produce changes in the gut; but changes in beverages are probably of far greater importance than changes in food. The effects of alcohol have been closely studied, chiefly with regard to its influence upon nervous tone. Nervous tone is affected in an important manner by many drugs, as for instance by opium, and in a lesser degree by tea and coffee. Changes in nervous tone are of such importance that its susceptibility to various influences has to be borne in mind. It is quite possible that the introduction of a new form of beverage into a country might have a perceptible effect upon the average condition of nervous tone and thus have a bearing upon the course of history.

Altitude is known to have various effects upon physical characters. The fact that the larger lung capacity of those who live at high altitudes diminishes on descent to the plains, as recorded by Darwin of the Quicha Indians, is evidence that this character is in part at least environmental.[1572] The effect of high altitudes has lately been studied in much detail. It is known that there is among other changes an increase in the number of red blood-corpuscles in the blood.[1573]

7. Attempts have been made to obtain more precise information by the use of statistical methods. Thus the correlations have been measured between the state of children’s eyesight and fifteen environmental conditions. The mean of the correlations was found to be 0·04—only one reaching 0·1.[1574] Again the association between various intellectual and physical characters and conditions, which were taken as representing a good or bad environment, has been measured. A slight association was found between intelligence in boys and few people per room and no association between eyesight, condition of glands and hearing, and bad economic and moral surroundings.[1575] Somewhat different results have been reached by American workers, who find that by employing psychological tests a fairly well-marked difference can be detected between children in the same school whose parents belong to different social classes and who would therefore be subject to different home conditions.[1576]

The interpretation of these results is difficult. Before any definite conclusion could be reached with regard to any one character, it would be necessary to measure the effect of every factor in the environment upon that character. As the matter stands there is strong but not conclusive evidence of the small influence of the surroundings, so long as we suppose that innate differences do not exist between the subjects measured. But if innate differences exist, then the interpretation of the absence of any marked degree of correlation must be that the common elements of the environment supplied by the community are of greater importance than the innate differences. We shall find reason to conclude in later chapters that small innate differences do exist, and, if this is so, then the interpretation of these results is not at variance with the general, though necessarily vague, conclusions derived from the evidence previously given, i.e. that the influence of the environment as represented by the variations actually occurring in the elements of the surroundings hitherto mentioned is small.

8. There is another class of factors which may be summed up under the heading of disease. It was remarked that disease may produce notable results among species in a state of nature. Compared, however, with the state of things among men, and especially in the later stages of history, disease is rare among such species. Among men it comes to assume a peculiar importance.

Disease results both from the attacks of parasites and from other causes. The various classes of disease will be referred to in the next chapter. We are here concerned only with the results, and we may think of the disease as affecting particular organs in the body and as affecting the general functioning of the organs. Every organ in the body is liable to be attacked by disease and the modifications produced are in many cases familiar. Thus all physical and mental characters may be directly and to almost any degree modified by disease. Again it is known that the result of disease in children is to inhibit growth, and that the growth thus lost is not subsequently made up. Disease may thus be said to draw upon the capital and not upon the income of children.[1577] We may here confine ourselves to some notice of the effect of disease on the general functioning of the bodily organs which though not so familiar is more important from our point of view.

The functioning of the bodily organs has been found in late years largely to depend upon certain glands—known as the endocrinous or ductless glands—in a manner and to a degree altogether unsuspected. The thyroid gland, for example, manufactures a secretion which is essential to the proper growth and normal metabolic functions of the whole body. If it is removed from a child, the whole body is stunted and mental deficiency results. Certain maladies, such as goitre, cretinism, and others are known to be connected with a diseased condition of the thyroid. Profound modifications of both physical and mental characters may thus follow when these glands cease to function normally, which is known to be the case in certain specific diseases and may arise in other ways which are not fully understood.

Temperament depends upon the general functioning of the bodily organs and upon the actual condition of the nervous system. Disease, whether it takes the form of a failure of the ductless glands to function as they should, or some other form, always affects the general functioning of the body and thus has a direct bearing upon temperament. Thus ‘we know now’, says Mr. McDougall, ‘that defect of the functions of this organ (thyroid) may reduce any one of us to a state of mental apathy bordering upon idiocy, and that its excessive activity produces the opposite effect and may throw the mind into an over-excitable condition verging upon maniacal excitement. Again we know that certain diseases tend to produce specific changes of temperament, that phthisis often gives it a bright and hopeful turn, diabetes a dissatisfied and cantankerous turn. It is clear that in some such cases of profound alteration of temperament by bodily disorder the effects are produced by means of the chemical products of metabolism, which, being thrown out of the diseased tissues into the blood and reaching the nervous system by way of the blood-stream, chemically modify its processes. It is probable that every organ in the body exerts in this way some influence upon our mental life, and that temperament is in large measure the balance or resultant of all these many contributory influences.’[1578]

Thus in addition to the more obvious direct effects of disease upon mental and physical characters, there are the more subtle and profound effects upon temperament, and in our general summing-up we shall find reason to attribute no small importance to temperament in its influence upon progress. It thus becomes of importance to observe that in particular regions of the world certain chronic and non-lethal diseases are very common. Clearly the result of disease upon temperament is greatest when it takes the form, not of kill or cure—which is on the whole the case in temperate climates—but of chronic non-lethal maladies which are common in tropical climates, especially in Africa. The hook-worm disease is an African disease which has been introduced into America. The hook-worm (Ancylostomum duodenale) is an internal parasite which attaches itself to the lining of the intestine and causes bleeding and anaemia. Death may ensue, but the patient usually lives a long time. It is a most debilitating disease; it is said to affect some 50 per cent. of the inhabitants of some tropical and sub-tropical countries. Even as a mild infection it is the cause of much invalidity and heavy economic loss. The laziness and degeneracy of the ‘poor white trash’, who are said to belong to the purest-blooded English stock in the United States, are due not so much to the environment[1579] and heredity as to the ravages of these parasites. In a public lecture, delivered before the University of Pennsylvania, in 1915, Allan Smith, citing the factors which have caused the Southern States to lag in American progress, mentioned that the hook-worm disease ‘stands with malaria as worse than wars and the devastations of battles and worse than all other pathogenic agencies in combination’. Through the influence of these diseases ‘the men and women of the South, bred from the best colonial stock, offspring of pioneers, with the blood of English gentry and of continental cavaliers in their veins, sank lower and lower in physical degeneration and squalor, were derided and denounced as lazy and shiftless and condemned in popular opinion as worthless and a disgrace’.[1580]

There are many other tropical and sub-tropical diseases of a somewhat similar nature. Among them may be mentioned the ‘yaws’—marked by various eruptions probably due to a spirochaete—the guinea-worm, which lives buried in connective tissue; bilharzia, a trematode worm which lives in the bladder and infects nearly 50 per cent. of the inhabitants of Egypt; and elephantiasis, due to a worm related to the guinea-worm. The manner and degree in which these various diseases affect the nervous tone varies very much. In general the result is debility and a lowering of the nervous tone. So too malaria is a cause of debility, and the main reason for the decadence of Ancient Greece has been sought in this disease.[1581]

9. The results of the inquiry so far, though illuminating, are indefinite. This is largely because we are ignorant regarding innate differences. The consideration of the evidence as to identical twins offers a way out of this difficulty. It is known that there are two kinds of twins. There are the so-called identical twins, between whom there is a very close resemblance, and other twins between whom there is no greater resemblance than between any two children of the same parents. It was formerly thought that there was a sharp distinction between the two kinds of twins—identical twins arising from a single ovum, which completely separated into two halves during early development, each half giving rise to one child, ordinary twins arising from the simultaneous fertilization of two ova. If this was so, then identical twins would always have approximately the same germinal constitution, whereas other twins would have germinal constitutions as different as on the average are those of the offspring of the same parents. That identical twins do thus at times arise is practically certain, but it has recently been shown that the supposed sharp distinction between identical and other twins does not exist.[1582] This may be explained by various assumptions. It may be supposed that some ova are binucleate or that some ova are penetrated by two spermatozoa; again the earlier or later separation of the blastomeres may have a bearing upon the position. Under any of these circumstances twins intermediate between identical twins and ordinary twins would arise—twins, that is to say, not having approximately similar germinal constitutions, but germinal constitutions more nearly alike than those of ordinary twins. However this may be, it is sufficient for our purpose to note that so-called identical twins are always more alike in their germinal constitutions than are ordinary twins and may quite frequently have practically similar germinal constitutions. It, therefore, follows that differences between identical twins must be very largely of the nature of modifications. It is thus of great interest to ask in what these differences consist.

Galton collected data regarding thirty-five cases of identical twins. He summarizes the information about them up to the time at which they left the family circle as follows. ‘In a few of these not a single point of difference could be specified. In the remainder, the colour of the hair and eyes were almost always identical; the height, weight, and strength were nearly always so. Nevertheless I have a few cases of a notable difference in height, weight, and strength, although the resemblance was otherwise very near. The manner and personal address of the thirty-five pairs of twins are usually described as very similar, but are accompanied by slight differences of expression, familiar to near relatives though unperceived by strangers. The intonation of the voice when speaking is commonly the same, but it frequently happens that the twins sing in different keys.’[1583] He goes on to say that ‘both twins are apt to sicken at the same time in no less than nine out of the thirty-five cases. Either the illnesses, to which I refer, were non-contagious, or, if contagious, the twins caught them simultaneously; they did not catch them the one from the other. This implies so intimate a constitutional resemblance, that it is proper to give some quotations in evidence,’[1584] and he proceeds to give detailed evidence. Later he remarks on the ‘similarity in the association of ideas. No less than 11 out of the 35 cases testify to this. They make the same remarks on the same occasions, begin singing the same song at the same moment and so on.’[1585] With regard to tastes and dispositions Galton says that ‘in 16 cases—that is in nearly one-half of them—these were described as closely similar; in the remaining 19 they were much alike, but subject to certain named differences. These differences belonged almost wholly to such groups of qualities as these: the one was more vigorous, fearless, energetic, the other was gentle, clinging, and timid; or the one was more ardent, the other more calm and placid; or again the one was the more independent, original, and self-contained; the other the more generous, hearty, and vivacious. In short the difference was that of intensity or energy in one or other of its protean forms; it did not extend more deeply into the structures of the characters. The more vivacious might be subdued by ill health, until he assumed the character of the other; or the latter might be raised by excellent health to that of the former. The difference was in the key-note, not in the melody.’[1586] Galton sums up the evidence as follows: ‘It follows from what has been said concerning the similar dispositions of the twins, the similarity in the association of their ideas, of their special ailments, and of their illnesses generally, that the resemblances are not superficial, but extremely intimate. I have only two cases of a strong bodily resemblance being accompanied by mental diversity, and one case only of the converse kind.’[1587]

It has to be remembered that up to this period the twins had been reared under very similar conditions indeed; Galton in fact says that they had been reared ‘exactly alike’.[1588] He goes on to ask what changes were produced when they left the family and went out into the world. He sums up the result of his inquiries into this point as follows: ‘Here are 35 cases of twins who were “closely alike” in body and mind when they were young, and who have been reared exactly alike up to their early manhood and womanhood. Since then the condition of their lives has changed; what change of nurture has produced the most variation?... They (the 35 cases) showed me that in some cases the resemblance of body and mind had continued unaltered up to old age, notwithstanding very different conditions of life; they showed me that in other cases the parents ascribed such dissimilarity as there was, wholly or almost wholly to some form of illness.’[1589] ‘We may, therefore, broadly conclude that the only circumstance, within the range of those by which persons of similar conditions of life are affected, that is capable of producing a marked effect on the character of adults, is illness or some accident which causes physical infirmity.’[1590] Galton then turns to consider the details regarding twenty cases of unlike twins and he finds that in spite of similar surroundings no growing resemblance can be traced.[1591]

10. In attempting to sum up our conclusions on this subject, we may first ask what influence is to be attributed to the environment and then ask what bearing such influence has upon the main problem under review in these later chapters. It has always to be recollected that changes in the environment may have the most extreme results. Some examples were given of experiments upon developing animals, and it was shown that in the case of fish, for example, monsters of various kinds can be produced. So too doubtless extreme modifications could be produced in the case of man and are occasionally produced by untoward surroundings and by such customs as those of the distortion of the head and of the feet. What we want to know, however, is not what modifications can be produced, nor what exceptional modifications sometimes arise, but what changes are induced by the variations in the environment which usually occur.

The answer is that, putting aside disease among the factors and leaving out for the moment temperament among the characters, such variations as occur are of little importance. This applies to both physical and mental predispositions and includes the effect of not only such factors as climate and so on but also of such factors as are summed up in a good or bad home environment. It is probable that physical predispositions are on the whole more susceptible to such changes as occur than are mental predispositions. There is no reason, for instance, to think that the normal variation of any factor which influences mental predispositions produces as much effect as does use upon muscular development. But it is also further clear that, though we must, keeping aside for the moment questions connected with disease and with temperament, think of such modifications as occur as not of much importance, nevertheless these modifications are of greater importance than among species in a state of nature closely related to man. Consider for a moment muscular development. Side by side in the same street may live a man whose daily work is wholly sedentary and whose muscles are in consequence undeveloped, and a man who works in a mine or engineering shop and develops his muscles accordingly. Nowhere among vertebrate animals in a state of nature are such differences found.

Though but little is definitely known on the subject, it seems that temperament is more susceptible to changes in the environment than are other mental or physical characters. Changes of climate, for example, appear to produce more marked changes in temperament than in any other character. Temperament is certainly very susceptible to the influence of disease, which may also profoundly affect all characters both mental and physical. It is probably in its effects upon temperament that disease has its chief importance. We may even have to recognize in the effects produced by certain tropical diseases a serious hindrance to progress in tropical countries. It is difficult, however, to disentangle from the effects of disease in this sense the effects which it produces in the sense awaiting consideration in later chapters. Clearly the wide prevalence of disease, where such is the case, must form an important factor in the surroundings which the mind has for the subject-matter of its activities—but on this and on allied subjects there will be more to say later.

We have already in what has just been said referred to one kind of modification in its effect upon progress. Upon this subject in general it may in the first place again be emphasized that, so far as is at present known, there are no grounds for believing that modifications of the kind considered in this chapter give rise to mutations. From this it follows that the results of modifications are not cumulative. Unless in every successive generation the modification is induced, it will not reappear. Secondly these modifications on the whole tend, as in the case of the effect of disease upon temperament, to be connected with a condition of things that acts as a drag upon progress rather than as a spur to progress. The reason for this is clear in the light of what has been said in the last chapter. It was there shown that the germinal constitution among species in a state of nature has come to be through the action of selection of such a kind that under certain stimuli it gives rise to a certain form. This form is that which is best adapted to meet the normal features which characterize the niche in the organic world which the species occupies. Large modifications only become apparent when the species or certain members of it are no longer subject to their normal environment. To meet the new surroundings a somewhat different germinal constitution would give a better response. In other words the most satisfactory conditions are those under which considerable modifications do not arise.

Lastly we may again refer to a point that has already been alluded to. Great stress has been laid by certain authors, for instance by Professor Ridgeway, upon the influence of the environment upon man. Ridgeway in one passage speaks as follows: ‘My argument was, and is, that as the ice sheet receded, man passed upwards from the south or south-east into Europe, and settled in the three southern peninsulas, gradually spreading northwards over the Alps and extending eventually up to the Baltic. As they gradually spread upwards, under the influence of the environment (and in the environment I, of course, include food), they grew less dark, those of them who settled permanently along the axis of the Alps tending to have shorter skulls, while those who had passed upwards earliest became the most blonde and tallest people in the world.’[1592] It is clear from other passages that Ridgeway is including two very different things under the phrase—the influence of the environment. He is thinking of the production of modifications such as have been studied here, and also of the elimination of certain types under the influence of the environment. He does not make it as clear, as is perhaps desirable, to which of these two factors he attributes most importance. But what is more relevant to our argument is that to include the results of selection under the heading of the influence of the environment is somewhat misleading. Selection is a wholly different matter and, unless it is carefully distinguished from other factors, confusion of thought results. The effects which follow from elimination owing to climate and food should not be summed up under the heading of the influence of the environment; in this book they are considered in Chapters XVII and XVIII.

XVI HEREDITY IN MAN

1. Having touched upon the influence of the environment in producing modifications, we have now to approach the subject of the selection of characters, both mental and physical. It is proposed to consider in this chapter what it is that is inherited, and in the two following chapters to consider the results of selection.

What is meant by saying that any character is inherited is clear from former chapters. There are certain predispositions in the germinal constitution of every individual—predispositions to give rise to certain characters under certain conditions and to other characters under other conditions. There is a predisposition, for instance, in the species of primrose referred to in Chapter XIV to give rise to red flowers at a certain temperature and to white flowers at a different temperature, the colour of the flower being equally inherited in both cases. We may therefore take as our starting-point the fact that there are in the constitution of every individual many such predispositions.

From the results of breeding experiments upon Mendelian lines certain conclusions have been reached which carry us farther. These experiments have shown that certain unit-characters can be isolated which behave in a certain manner when crossed, and from the manner in which they behave it is deduced that they depend upon unit-factors in the germinal constitution which are invariable. The number of unit-characters which have been detected in any one species is not large; it is true that in one species of insect about two hundred unit-factors have been found, but even this number can only form a small proportion of the total number if it is the case that the germinal constitution consists entirely of unit-factors which on crossing give the Mendelian ratio. This is the working hypothesis which is put forward as the explanation of inheritance, and which it is the object of investigators now to test. We may consider for a moment what it is that this hypothesis implies.

We have to think of the germinal constitution as containing a very large number of factors—predispositions in other words. The characters to which these factors give rise may be the characters which we see when we examine any individual, but more often they are not. There are, for instance, cases in which the colour of a flower or of the coat of a mammal are unit-characters but more often such visible characters are the product of two or more unit-factors. There are many cases now known in which the visible character is in this fashion due to the presence of several unit-factors. With regard to this hypothesis in general all that can be said is that at present no facts are known which are definitely in contradiction to it. It is the only hypothesis which holds the field.[1593]

Up to the present very few unit-factors have been distinguished in man. It has been found that brachydactyly—a peculiar malformation of the hand—presenile cataract, tylosis—a thickening of the hands and of the soles of the feet—epidermolysis bullosa—a blistering of the skin—and night blindness behave as simple Mendelian characters. So too does eye colour, pigment in front of the iris being dominant to its absence—in other words, brown, green, and hazel being dominant to pure grey and blue. There is also some reason for thinking that musical ability is a recessive character. On the hypothesis outlined above it must be supposed that most of the visible characters of man are the product of several unit-factors which have not yet been identified. What appears to happen when matings take place between people of different colour, stature, and so on is that there is a blending of characters in the offspring. Such appearances are not incompatible with the hypothesis—the assumption being that many unit-characters are concerned.

This question as to the ultimate nature of inheritance has been introduced here because of its inherent interest. It is not as a matter of fact strictly relevant. What we require to know is rather what predispositions are present in the germinal constitution. It is this which is essential; the precise manner in which the predispositions are represented in the gametes, whether by unit-factors or not, is not essential to the present inquiry. We require to be able to give some answer to such questions as whether disease, intellect, and temperament are represented in the germinal constitution or not, and we can find an answer to these questions without concerning ourselves with the ultimate nature of inheritance.

2. Since studies of inheritance on Mendelian lines do not at present enable us to say what human characters are inherited, we are dependent for our knowledge of this subject chiefly upon biometry. The method pursued by biometricians is as follows. The particulars with respect to any character—say stature—are noted both for the parents and for the children. The average degree of resemblance between parents and children can thus be measured and expressed numerically. If the resemblance was complete, if, that is to say, in respect of any character children exactly resembled their parents, the fact would be expressed by saying that the correlation was equal to unity. When the resemblance is less, the fact is expressed by representing the degree of resemblance as a fraction. It must be emphasized that this method merely measures the average degree of resemblance; it does not without further inquiry tell us how far that resemblance is due to inheritance. So far as such degrees of resemblance are found, it is quite possible, supposing that we had no further knowledge of the subject at all, that they might arise as follows. It might be that all men had the same germinal constitution, and that the degree of resemblance was due to the fact that fathers and their children were brought up under more or less similar surroundings. Though this fact should be borne in mind, such an explanation of the resemblances found in the cases that will be quoted in what follows is as a matter of fact shut out, and we may accept the correlations as a measure of the degree of likeness due to inheritance.

The correlations between parents and children and between children of the same parents have been determined in respect of many characters—both mental and physical—and found to be about 0·5. Thus, in respect of height the correlation between father and son was found to be 0·514, between father and daughter 0·510, between mother and son 0·494, between mother and daughter 0·507, between brother and brother 0·511, between sister and sister 0·537, between brother and sister 0·553. So too the average parental correlation in respect to eye colour is 0·495, and the average fraternal correlation is 0·475. With regard to ability the fraternal correlation is 0·46, the correlation between sisters 0·47, and that between brother and sister 0·44.

All that has been said with regard to the nature of fertilization and development lead to a similar conclusion. In the processes of maturation and fertilization we can detect a mechanism whereby the bearers of inherited qualities are transmitted from parent to child. In development we see how, when the appropriate stimulus plays upon the fertilized egg, an adult member of the species grows up. It is only when we suppose that within the fertilized egg there are certain predispositions in respect of every character which are derived from the parents that we can in any way understand how adult individuals come into being.[1594] And it must be emphasized that, however much opinions may differ regarding the precise nature of the mechanism of inheritance, there is no difference regarding the fact of inheritance. All biologists are agreed on this subject up to a point; the matters in debate are not strictly relevant here.

3. There are certain points, however, which, in view of the form which the discussion in the following chapters will take, require further treatment. As regards physical characters, it is sufficient to think of all such characters whether great or small as inherited. But with regard to disease it may be as well to consider further to what degree it can be said to be inherited.

What we call disease falls under two headings: disease due to the attacks of parasites and disease due to structural defects or weaknesses. Parasitic infections are of post-conceptional acquirement; they may be acquired, it is true, before birth, but such an acquirement is strictly analogous to the ‘catching’ of a disease after birth. In the sense, therefore, that parasites are not transmitted from the parent to the ovum, as the germinal constitution is transmitted, disease is never inherited.

It has been shown, however, that in the case of certain diseases, such as tuberculosis, a definite susceptibility to contract the disease is inherited. In other words, given an equal exposure to infection, some men do not ‘catch’ the disease, some only experience a mild form, and others die rapidly of it. It is probable that there are innately given degrees of susceptibility to all diseases which are caused by the invasion of the body by small, chiefly unicellular, parasites, which produce their harmful effects by the secretion of toxins. The same does not apply to the diseases caused by the attacks of the larger multicellular parasites, such as tapeworms, which, at any rate to a large extent, produce their harmful effects directly by causing lesions of the tissues. As to how far we have to think of different kinds of susceptibility to different diseases, or how far diseases go in classes, so that susceptibility to one disease goes with susceptibility to another disease and vice versa, little is known, but it is probable that in some cases at least there is a linkage of susceptibilities, that, for instance, susceptibility to scarlet fever is to some extent linked with susceptibility to measles. We must suppose that there are structural peculiarities which underlie these different susceptibilities. Though various hypotheses have been put forward, we are still ignorant as to their nature. But whatever the exact nature of these structural differences, it is clear that they are inherited like any other physical character.

We have therefore to note that (a) susceptibility to specific infections is inherited. If gross anomalies, such as polydactyly and syndactyly (malformations of the hand) are to be accounted as diseases, then we may note that (b) gross anomalies are inherited. (c) Minor anomalies are also inherited. Under this head come haemophilia, due to some peculiarity in the blood-vessels, which results in their not contracting as they should and to the absence of coagulating power in the blood, albuminuria, due to some defect in the filtering apparatus in the kidney, albinism, myopia, icthyosis, and others, all of which are clearly due to structural peculiarities. Further, we may note that (d) ‘other conditions due, it would seem, to disturbances of metabolism, underlying which may very possibly be finer anatomical variations, have for long been noted as tending to be inherited; such as obesity, diabetes, gout, and chronic rheumatism’.[1595] Lastly (e) certain nervous diseases are inherited. We may distinguish two classes of nervous disease—the homeomorphic and the heteromorphic. ‘In the former the offspring show the same lesions and symptoms as the parents. These are cases more particularly of lack of development or of premature atrophy of certain groups of nerve cells.’[1596] In the latter the parent may suffer from one kind of disease, while the offspring may exhibit one or more of a group of other diseases. This is attributed to a lack of development of the highest nerve-centres as a whole. There is a lack of ‘perfect stability and co-ordination of various parts so that according to the strains to which the individual members of family are subjected, now one, now the other series of centres may show itself unable to respond adequately, and one or the other form of mental disturbance and nervous disease may result. Here are to be included the condition of insanity, familial epilepsy and the neuroses.’[1597] In other words, we sometimes find stocks in which there is a nervous weakness, which may manifest itself in very various ways, including hysteria, epilepsy, inability to control impulse, delusion, and so on. Alcoholism is sometimes spoken of as though it was to be regarded as an irresistible impulse to drink. Probably we should rather imagine that a condition of general nervous weakness may at times manifest itself in the form of a loss of control with regard to the use of alcohol. According to Mott ‘there can be no doubt that neurasthenics, epileptics, imbeciles, degenerates, eccentrics, and potential lunatics—all those indeed with an inherent narrow margin of highest control—possess a marked intolerance to the effects of alcohol’.[1598] Certain facts are, however, very puzzling. Suicide, for example, would seem to be a manner in which general nervous weakness may manifest itself. Nevertheless, the tendency to suicide appears sometimes as a very definite and peculiar disease which manifests itself generation after generation at a certain age. Perhaps in these cases we should rather see an example of how the same outward circumstances—here the knowledge of the family history—tends to cause a general nervous weakness to manifest itself in the same way, rather than an example of a specific nervous weakness.[1599]

4. What we know as temperament stands half-way between physical and mental characters. As we have seen, temperament depends upon influences exerted by the functioning of the bodily organs on the nervous system and upon the peculiarities of the nervous system itself. Though on this account temperament or nervous tone is peculiarly susceptible to environmental influences, a certain condition of nervous tone is innately given. We must suppose the actual structure of the nervous system to be largely inherited, and we must suppose that the manner in which the bodily organs function is largely due to their innate organization. We have thus to think of a certain temperament as always given in the germinal constitution. An extreme example is an innate defect of the thyroid gland which can produce any degree of mental apathy. Again, such characters as excitability, rapidity of response, and differences in respect of fatiguability and recuperation are largely inherited.

Habit is best considered under this heading. The essential fact about habit is that, if the nervous system is stimulated in a certain fashion, so that a stimulus passes along certain paths, the next stimulus of the same kind will produce an impulse which passes more easily along those paths. Thus in time the same result, whatever it may be, is achieved by the application of a weaker stimulus. This fact, which is of great importance, suggests an actual modification of structure—an actual fashioning of a path. Whether this is so or not, we do not know. What is noticeable here is that the ease with which habits are formed undoubtedly differs from man to man, and we have again to postulate predispositions in the germinal constitution which tend towards a definite degree of development of the power of the formation of habits.

5. The greatest difficulties arise when dealing with the purely mental characters. There is a general agreement among biologists that mental characters are inherited just as physical characters are inherited. As we have pointed out, there is evidence to this effect derived from studies on biometric lines. The difficulties arise when we attempt to give more precision to the statement that mental characters are inherited. One method of approaching this problem is to analyse mental behaviour, and to ascertain if possible what faculties there are which cannot be explained in terms of other faculties. Such faculties are the least that we must suppose to be given in the germinal constitution. It does not, of course, follow that irreducible characters are Mendelian characters. In all probability they are due to the presence of many Mendelian factors. This analysis is a matter of great difficulty, and there is at present no agreement among psychologists as to what ultimate faculties of the mind are given out of which the characters we observe are compounded. Modern analysis leads to the idea of mental process as the activity of a subject. But though we may not think of the mind merely as a bundle of faculties, we have to attribute certain faculties to the subject, and the question arises as to what these faculties are.

There is less difficulty with regard to the affective and conative faculties, that is to say, those that are connected with feeling and striving, than with regard to the cognitive faculties. Psychologists are to some extent agreed as to what instincts can be recognized. McDougall, for instance, gives the following list, associating in each case with the impulse an emotion representing the conative or affective aspect.[1600] (1) Instinct of flight and emotion of fear. (2) Instinct of repulsion and emotion of disgust. (3) Instinct of curiosity and emotion of wonder. (4) Instinct of pugnacity and the combative emotion. (5) Instinct of self-assertion and the emotion of elation. (6) Instinct of self-abasement and the emotion of subjection. (7) Parental instinct and the tender emotion. To the remaining instincts which he names a special emotion is less definitely attached. These instincts are those of reproduction, sexual jealousy, female coyness, gregariousness, acquisition, and construction. This list is not exhaustive; there are other instincts of less importance, such as the instinct which tends to make a boy at a certain age leave his home. The list, however, includes all the more important instincts.

There are a number of other emotions often described as primary which McDougall describes as complex. Thus, according to his view admiration is a combination of wonder and self-abasement. When fear is added, we have the emotion of awe, and when gratitude is added we have the emotion of reverence. Gratitude is itself a combination of tender emotion and self-abasement. In a similar fashion loathing, fascination, and envy can be explained. According to this view, therefore, we should not think of separate predispositions towards these complex emotions as existing in the germinal constitution; we should think of them as determined by the predispositions towards the simpler emotions.

McDougall further describes three general or non-specific tendencies which have sometimes been classed as instincts.[1601] Sympathy, or the sympathetic induction of the emotions, describes the fact that instinctive behaviour incites similar behaviour in the observer. Suggestion is defined as a process of communication resulting in the acceptation with conviction of the communicated proposition in the absence of logically adequate grounds for its acceptance. Imitation, which has often been used to include sympathy and suggestion, is in the limited sense adopted by McDougall, the tendency to copy the bodily actions of some one else. Finally there is the tendency to play.

Apart, therefore, from temperament and the faculties connected with cognition, we have to recognize predispositions towards certain instincts and certain general tendencies. Without question they differ in strength from man to man; without question such differences are in large part attributable to varying predispositions in the germinal constitution, and we must presume that such differences are in some way connected with differences in nervous structure or organization. The subject is one of great difficulty, and nothing can be affirmed regarding it with any certainty. The ultimate modes of feeling seem to be those of pleasure and displeasure, and of excitement and depression. It is scarcely possible to stop at this point, and it seems that we have to go on and attribute the more specific forms of feeling or emotions to primary faculties incapable of further analysis. So, too, conation or striving seems to be distinguishable into striving towards and into striving away from an object. Again as with feeling it appears that we have to go farther and presume certain more clearly-defined faculties as indicated above.

6. The difficulties are still greater with regard to cognition. Analysis seems to bring us to three ultimate faculties—those of judgement, of comparison, and of association.[1602] Judgement consists in affirming or denying, and upon this faculty all higher reasoning is built. Memory should perhaps be considered as a special aspect of this faculty—as the power to think of an object over again, and to affirm or deny it to be the same object. This faculty, together with the faculty of comparing, enables that process of distinction and systematization to be performed upon which all the higher developments are based. To these faculties of analysis and synthesis are to be added the faculty of association, whereby objects come to be thought of in groups according to the sequence in which they came to be presented to the mind quite apart from their intrinsic affinities or distinctions. Thus, in addition to the faculties whereby the mind attains some grasp of the constitution of the world of objects, there is a faculty which in some degree mirrors the history of the world.

It is probable that in addition to these ultimate faculties, there may be many other faculties which cannot be reduced to aspects of the former, and have therefore to be considered also as primary. However that may be, what is important for our present purpose is that the faculty commonly known as ability is undoubtedly innate. It may be very variously composed of specialized forms of these three primary faculties, and perhaps of other faculties combined in very many ways. Every degree of ability is known and there are many forms in which it is specialized, such as in musical, artistic, and other directions. It has been shown that a high development of general ability is correlated with a high development of any special ability. In other words, we have to think of a genius with some marked talent as possessing on an average a high general level of ability. There is ample evidence of the inheritance of ability, both derived from the examination of large numbers of cases and from the analysis of family histories. This evidence also shows that musical and other forms of special ability are inherited. We have therefore to think of predispositions in the germinal constitution, which give rise to abilities of all kinds, although a more correct analysis may refer them to some combination of the ultimate faculties enumerated above, much as certain complex emotions are to be referred to the combination of certain primary emotions, and not thought of as given as such in the germinal constitution.

There are other characters which do not appear to be covered by any extension of the term ability. Such, for instance, are will and self-control. In its essence will seems to be the rising up of some dominating impulse which controls or harmonizes the feelings. The weaker impulse somehow overcomes the stronger. The will is variously explained, and in modern psychological writings often in such a manner as to exclude the idea of a special faculty. It is not necessary here to go into these explanations of the origin of will. It is clear that, if it has to be referred to the working of complex faculties which are themselves explicable in the terms of more ultimate faculties, it is in a sense innately given. Undoubtedly will is in a sense inherited. However much will may be a product of the environment in the second sense, there is clearly an innate tendency towards the development of a will of a certain form and strength. Whether therefore it is an ultimate faculty or not, it is due in some measure either to a definite innate predisposition or to such a combination of other innate predispositions as give rise to the manifestation of a will of a certain nature.

Finally, we may look at the whole problem of the inheritance of mental characters from another point of view. It is known that certain areas in the brain associated with particular functions are differently developed in different individuals, and that there are differences in the speed at which the nervous impulse travels which are doubtless due to anatomical peculiarities and so on—that there are, in fact, differences in the physical basis which underlies the manifestation of mental characters. It is thus easy to understand in a general way how mental characters which are based upon the nervous organization are inherited. A man may inherit a brain in which certain regions are of relatively large size, or a nervous organization by which impulses are swiftly conducted, and thus we can understand how quickness of response, power of concentration, readiness of association, type of mind (whether emotional or intellectual) are inherited.

7. This brief inquiry into what is given in the germinal constitution leads to the conception of large numbers of predispositions which under the stimulus of the environment develop into the characters that we observe. This is true at least of physical characters. In physical characters we observe the result of the play of the environment upon certain predispositions. With regard to mental characters the position is somewhat different. Into mental characters, as presented to us—into ability, for instance—there enters the influence of the environment in the second sense. When we are judging the ability of a man from a practical point of view, we are judging a character into the make-up of which has entered not only certain predispositions and a certain environment—using environment in the sense of the complement to inheritance—but also the results of the influence of the environment in the second sense, such as habit and what may be regarded as tools, namely, modes of thought and so on. In order to get at the characters we must disentangle or allow for these tools. This difficulty does not arise in the case of physical characters. When measuring the physical strength of two men we are not likely to allow one man to throw an object with a throwing-stick and another to use his own unaided strength. But we are apt when comparing ability to forget that one man may have learnt to distinguish between the categories when another may not have done so. To this difficulty we shall refer again later.

These predispositions have their basis in the germinal constitution and are therefore inherited. It is probable that we should regard the germinal constitution as consisting of unit-factors. However that may be, it is clear that either a differential birth-rate (reproductive selection) or a differential death-rate (lethal selection), will change the average germinal constitution of the race among which they are operative. Bearing this in mind, we may inquire when and where in human history we can detect reproductive and lethal selection at work. And we must remember that in the first place not merely obvious factors such as war have been and are at work, but also that subtle changes in social life and social organization may have profound effects, and that in the second place not merely obvious characters may be favoured or eliminated, but the least striking and most minute (though not necessarily the least important) characters both mental and physical may be similarly affected.

XVII THE EVOLUTION OF PHYSICAL CHARACTERS

1. Having discussed what is given in the germinal constitution, we are now in a position to inquire into the question of changes in the germinal constitution. Such changes may affect physical or mental characters. In this chapter we are concerned with physical characters alone. Compared with the evolution of mental characters the evolution of physical characters is a subsidiary matter; as this evolution, however, has gone hand in hand with the evolution of mental characters and furthermore possesses an importance of its own, all reference to it cannot be omitted though the subject will be treated very briefly. As a preliminary to this inquiry we may note certain facts about the selection of physical characters in general.

We know practically nothing as to the cause of mutations. We have, therefore, to take mutations for granted, and to inquire how certain stocks with particular predispositions are favoured and others eliminated. In this process both lethal selection and reproductive selection play a part. Among species in a state of nature lethal selection is more important than reproductive selection; among men the importance of reproductive selection tends to increase until in the latest period it assumes an importance approaching that of lethal selection.

Hitherto we have only referred in passing to the existence of tradition among men. Tradition will be found to form a serious complication when we come to deal with the selection of mental characters. With regard to physical characters it also complicates the position, but only to a relatively unimportant degree. In the first place it makes the environment very varied, especially in industrial societies where men living next door to one another may be subject to very different conditions in their daily occupations. Secondly, the fact that men protect themselves against external conditions—for instance, against cold—may lead to a group of men who are protected surviving, where a less well-protected group perishes, though the former may conceivably be naturally less resistent to cold than the latter. In the broad and rapid survey that we shall make these complications can be disregarded; the existence of tradition does not introduce, so far as physical characters are concerned, that peculiar complication which is the cause of much difficulty when we come to deal with mental characters—namely, the combination of what is acquired through tradition with the underlying character itself in such a way that the manifestation of the character is connected in a varying degree with its innate strength. We shall thus, when dealing with mental characters, have to attempt to strip off the acquirements. When dealing with physical characters we can always get down to the character at once. There is no difficulty in separating the arm from the tool which it employs, and we thus get directly at the character which has developed as the result of the influence of certain stimuli upon a given predisposition. It is, on the other hand, difficult to separate the intellectual characters from all those traditional elements which combine with them in their outward manifestations—to measure, for example, the strength of the instinct of curiosity, which involves discounting all those elements in the tradition which may inhibit or emphasize its expression.

With regard to the strength of selection there is no exact knowledge, with the exception of some work which has been done upon statistics for modern communities. The occurrence of selection in the past is in fact merely a deduction from what we know regarding innate predispositions and regarding elimination and differential fertility. It has been shown, however, that lethal selection does occur at the present day. Professor Karl Pearson has calculated that selection accounts for a very large percentage—perhaps 60 per cent.—of the deaths at the present day,[1603] and Mr. Snow, summing up the results of an inquiry into this subject, states that ‘natural selection in the form of a selective death-rate, is strongly operative in man in the early years of life’.[1604] As it is universally agreed that, if anything, the intensity of natural selection has decreased with civilization, we may take it as certain that it was operative to as great, or to a greater, extent during the emergence of man and during what we have called the first and second periods of his history.

2. During the intermediate period, which was of relatively immense length, the greater part of human bodily evolution was accomplished. Only two or three worn and fragmentary remains have as yet been discovered from this period. It is at least apparent from them that the amount of physical evolution which has been accomplished since the end of that period is slight compared with what was accomplished within that period. We may assume that lethal selection was strongly at work. Changes in mode of life—the assumption, for instance, of a terrestrial for an arboreal existence and the adoption of an upright posture—must have involved lethal selection. These changes of habit must also have brought ancestral man into contact with new enemies. The spreading of man into new climatic zones was doubtless followed by selection, and must again have involved contact with new enemies. So, too, selection followed upon the first great steps in the acquirement of skill—the making of clothes, the use of fire, and so on. In addition to lethal selection, differential fertility acting through polygamy must have been at work. In part no doubt differential fertility merely reinforced lethal selection; but in part also it may have taken the form of sexual selection and have favoured other types.

But when we come to details we find that we are ignorant regarding the causes of even the largest changes. Some guesses have been hazarded. The increase in the capacity of the skull is connected with the evolution of the intellect and may be left for consideration in the next chapter. The decrease in the size of the jaw and the corresponding decrease in the size of the teeth were perhaps connected with a change in diet. The loss of the hairy covering may have been connected with sexual selection or it may have been favoured because it removed a lodging-place for parasites.

3. As we pass from the intermediate to the first period of human history we reach a region of less uncertainty. We are ignorant as to the physical characters of man at the close of the intermediate period, but we know that in the earlier part of the Upper Palaeolithic there was existing one variety—the Grimaldi race—which bears certain resemblances to the negroid type, and that in the latter part of the same period there were existing several varieties closely resembling types of modern European man. It seems, therefore, that, so far as this period is concerned, we have to account not merely for the evolution of the main types but also for the evolution of the less easily distinguishable varieties of man. The splitting up may have begun in the former period but it probably did not go far. As to how this evolution took place certain conclusions may first be drawn from what we know must have been the general conditions of life. Secondly, from what we know as to the position among races of the first group, rather more definite conclusions may be added concerning the nature and direction of selection.

It has already been remarked that in all probability man spread into various climatic zones before the beginning of the first period of history. The consequences of this spreading of man must have been twofold. Mankind became segregated into groups, the surroundings of which differed, first in that they were subject to different climatic environments, and secondly in that they were forced to pursue different modes of life. It is clear that, whereas in some tropical regions man would be supporting himself by hunting and collecting in such a way as to require a certain type of bodily exertion, in a temperate region he would be supporting himself by a very different form of exertion. This difference between the needs of daily life would result in the favouring of different types in the two regions. The type best adapted to gain a living in one region would be different to that best adapted to gain a living in another region.[1605]

Of far more importance in the production of varieties of men than the factors already noted are differences in climate to which man has become exposed. How great these differences are is familiar and need not be laboured. We know little with regard to the manner in which different types of man are suited to different types of climatic zones. But it is clear that in general the races of men are innately adapted to different climates. There is no historical reason why in all parts of North and South America the European races should not have ousted the American Indian as they have done in the United States. In Mexico and other regions, however, where the climate differs most markedly from that in Europe, Europeans have not succeeded in establishing themselves as they have elsewhere in the Continent. In Mexico Indian blood largely predominates over European, and the explanation must be that Europeans are not so well physically adapted to the climate as are the original inhabitants. In this there is nothing surprising. We can understand how certain types of respiratory, excretory, and circulatory organs might be better adapted than others to certain conditions of temperature, moisture, actinic rays, and so on, though we may be ignorant as to what types of circulatory and other organs are best fitted to any particular climatic zone. It would be very remarkable if it were not so, if, that is to say, any type of constitution was equally well fitted to any kind of climate. In this manner to differences in habits and in climate we may attribute the origin of the varieties of mankind.

Nevertheless, differences between races are far from being wholly due to selection on these grounds. Sexual selection is of importance. There grows up within each race a more or less clearly defined type of physical beauty, and differential fertility working through polygamy would evidently favour such types. That differences in colour to some extent represent adaptations to climate is clear; in part such differences are probably to be explained as due to varying ideals of beauty, but there are probably yet other factors entering into the evolution of racial types.

Recently Professor Keith has made an interesting contribution to the problem of racial differences. Reference has already been made to the ductless glands. It is now known that variations in the functioning of these glands have a profound influence upon the bodily organs. Keith has remarked that, if the peculiarities characteristic of the chief racial types of man are considered together, it appears that they are attributable to different degrees of development of these glands in different races. It should be observed that this suggestion does not involve the conclusion that racial differences are of the nature of modifications. It is merely supposed that the innate development of these glands is different in different races—that there is a predisposition in one race to the peculiar development of one gland and in another race to the peculiar development of another gland. The value of the suggestion lies in the fact that it shows how many racial peculiarities, for which there are at least no obvious explanations, may be merely the accompaniments of a difference in the development of one or more of these glands. It must be supposed that one or more of the results of the developments of a gland are of direct value in facing the peculiar conditions, whether climatic or otherwise, to which the race is subject, and that the other consequences of the development of the gland are in any case not prejudicial. These other consequences may possibly take the form of noticeable peculiarities of colour or of bodily structure which thus turn out in themselves not to be of survival value but merely to be, so to speak, accidental peculiarities.

Some quotations from Professor Keith’s exposition of this suggestion may make the matter more clear. ‘When we compare’, he says, ‘the three chief racial types of humanity—the Negro, the Mongol, and the Caucasian or European—we can recognize in the last named a greater predominance of the pituitary than in the other two. The sharp pronounced nasalization of the face, the tendency to strong eyebrow ridges, the prominent chin, the tendency to bulk of body and height of stature in the majority of Europeans, is best explained, so far as the present state of our knowledge goes, in terms of pituitary functions.’[1606] After remarking that the interstitial glands are largely the cause of secondary sexual differences he goes on to say: ‘I am of opinion that the sexual differentiation—the robust manifestation of the male characters—is more emphatic in the Caucasian than in either the Mongol or Negroid racial types. In both Mongol and Negro, in their most representative form, we find a beardless face and an almost hairless body, and in certain negro types, especially in Nilotic tribes, with their long, stork-like legs, we seem to have a manifestation of the abeyance in the action of the interstitial glands. At the close of sexual life we often see the features of a woman assume a coarser and more masculine appearance.’[1607] Later he remarks that the evidence points to the original human colouring as black. Now, the supra-renal bodies cause a clearing away of pigment and ‘there can be no doubt that the supra-renal bodies constitute an important part of the mechanism which regulates the development and growth of the human body and helps in determining the racial characters of mankind. We know that certain races come more quickly to sexual maturity than others, and that races vary in development of hair and of pigment, and it is therefore reasonable to expect a satisfactory explanation of these characters when we have come by a more or less complete knowledge of the supra-renal mechanism.’[1608] The thyroid acts directly upon the skin and the hair and also upon the skeleton. ‘This is particularly the case as regards the base of the skull and the nose, the arrest of growth falls mainly upon the basal parts of the skull with the result that the root of the nose appears to be flattened and drawn backwards between the eyes, the upper forehead appears projecting or bulging, the face appears flattened, and the bony scaffolding of the nose particularly when compared with the prominence of the jaw is greatly reduced. Now these facial features which I have enumerated give the Mongolian face its characteristic aspect, and, to a lesser degree, they are also to be traced in the features of the negro. Indeed, in one aberrant branch of the negro race—the Bushman of South Africa—the thyroid facies is even more emphatically brought out than in the most typical Mongol. You will observe that, in my opinion, the thyroid—or a reduction or alteration in the activity of the thyroid—has been a factor in determining some of the racial characteristics of the Mongol and Negro races. I know of a telling piece of evidence which supports this thesis. Some years ago there died in the East End of London a Chinese giant—the subject one must suppose of an excessive action of the pituitary glands—the gland which I regard as playing a predominant part in shaping the face and bodily form of the European. The skeleton of this giant was prepared and placed in the museum of the London Hospital Medical College by Col. T. H. Openshaw, and any one inspecting that skeleton can see that, although certain Chinese features are still recognizable, the nasal region and the supraorbital ridges of the face have assumed the more prominent European type.’[1609]

4. If we turn now and look at the conditions of life among primitive races, we find that natural selection and differential fertility tend to work towards the preservation of existing types rather than towards further evolution. The Australians may have existed in their present home for many thousands of years without undergoing any considerable change of type, and we have every reason to suppose that, if they had been left untouched by white or other races, the racial type would have remained substantially the same for thousands of years to come. The same holds good if we consider any primitive race in its normal surroundings.

That this is so is clear if we glance at the chief causes of elimination. The heavy child mortality recorded of all these races is put down to neglect and exposure; it must on the whole result in the elimination of the physically weak. Such customs as the bathing of new-born babies in cold water seem designed to ensure this result. Among the adults who on the whole are but little protected against climate there must always be a certain tendency towards the elimination of those less able to withstand the relatively harder seasons. There are also many factors making for the cutting-off of the malformed and the congenitally deficient. Among those races which normally practise infanticide, deformed children are always killed, and among those races, such as the Bantu races of Africa, who never regularly practise infanticide as a custom, abnormal children are nearly always done away with. Similarly the destruction of witches tends towards the same end though they are more often marked by mental than by physical peculiarities. Again the fact that abortion and infanticide are practised to a greater degree among the less fortunate and the lower social classes of the races in the second group has the same result, as in general the stronger and more successful members of the race are those who do not need to practise these customs to the same extent. Finally, the general conditions of life among these races—more particularly among the races of the first group—is such as to bring about a continual elimination of the less physically fit. Speaking of the Seri Indians McGee remarks upon the ‘elimination of the weak and helpless’, and says further that ‘a parallel eliminative process is common among American aborigines; the wandering bands frequently undergo hard marches under the leadership of athletic warriors with whom all are expected to keep pace, which leads both to the desertion of the aged and the feeble’. He calls it ‘a merciless mechanism for improving the fit and eliminating the unfit’.[1610]

As remarked above, the effect of polygamy must be to intensify the action of selection. In this particular case the general result of polygamy must be to preserve the average features of the race; for it will be, so to speak, the all-round man, the man best adapted to the climate, to the peculiar conditions of life and so on who will leave most descendants. It is thus of interest to investigate the frequency of polygamy among the races of the first two groups. This point has been inquired into by Professor Hobhouse and his fellow authors. Polygamy was distinguished by them into general and occasional polygamy, and though it is very difficult to arrive at any exact figures their general conclusions may be summed up as showing that, in all the subdivisions considered by them, general and occasional polygamy was found in from 80–95 per cent. of the cases. General polygamy increases among the races here placed in the second group, though there is no strong correlation between the degree of polygamy and the economic stage. We observe in fact a wide prevalence of polygamy among all races of any economic stage, and upon the basis of these figures we must regard the differential fertility arising from polygamy as a factor of great importance.

It seems, therefore, that within the first and second periods there were two tendencies at work—towards the evolution of varieties and towards the maintenance of the various types. The evolution of varieties was due in the first place to the spreading of man. As soon as spreading was complete, a tendency towards a cessation of progress must have set in. That further evolution took place was due chiefly to migration, with the results of which we have yet to deal. Once varieties had been evolved, apart from migration, and apart from changes in climate and progress in skill, which only slightly and at long intervals modified the surroundings, there was little basis for further evolution. Man had mastered his surroundings up to a point and had made his position secure in the circumstances under which he lived and the tendency was towards the preservation of the types which had achieved these results in different places.

5. In the third of our three periods there has been a remarkable change. We find that there has been a gradual moving away from the conditions under which in normal times there is in the races of the first and second groups a rigorous elimination of those types which depart from the mean. Lethal selection has come largely to take the form of selection through disease.[1611] Though polygamy gradually ceases to be a factor of importance, other forms of differential fertility become prominent.

We may glance at the chief features of these changes. In the last section we mentioned various factors—infanticide of the deformed, customs with regard to the treatment of children, the neglect and exposure of children, the general conditions of life, and so on—all of which have as their result the cutting-off not merely of the deformed and the monstrosities but also of all departures from the type best fitted to contend with the climatic environment and the conditions of daily life. Some of these factors—such as infanticide—disappear; the action of others becomes, if anything, reversed; not only do the less well-fitted types have a better chance of survival than before, because the conditions are less rigorous, but they suffer little or no disadvantage owing to the fact that the conditions have been artificially rendered almost as favourable for the less fitted as for the better-fitted. To take two examples, not only are men with defective eyesight not eliminated, but they are by the invention of spectacles placed in as good a position as those with perfect eyesight. Similarly a woman with a narrow pelvis is, owing to the advance in surgical skill, enabled to bear children and to transmit her peculiarity to her daughters.

It should not be forgotten that, in spite of the gradual lessening of the rigour of selection, selection owing to climate and the general conditions of life still continues. But another factor has within this period come to assume a preponderating importance, and that is selection through disease. It was pointed out that diseases may be roughly distinguished into those due to the attacks of parasites and those due to structural defects. It is to diseases of the first kind that the greater part of selection, which occurs in the third period, is due. Some figures were given in an earlier chapter showing how large a proportion of deaths at the present day is due to one or other of these diseases. In the last chapter it was shown that men differ in their susceptibility to these diseases, and selection has thus very largely come to take the form of the elimination of the more susceptible, and of the favouring of the naturally immune and of those who have a power of resisting disease and of acquiring immunity. There has therefore come to be an increasingly heavy premium upon the type of constitution which can resist disease, and a strong constitution in this sense is not necessarily the same as a strong constitution among primitive races where the premium is rather upon muscular strength, perfect development of the senses of seeing and hearing, and upon resistance to climatic conditions. We have thus to think of the whole course of bodily evolution as changing in the third period so as to meet a new danger rather than as continuing on the former lines so as better to contend with the old difficulties.

It is noteworthy that selection in this period has not been on account of diseases of the second type due directly to structural defects. These diseases are seldom lethal until after maturity has been reached, and the tendency has rather been, as in the case of eyesight, towards the increased chance of survival of those suffering from these defects. Thus, though selection has turned in this period towards the weeding-out of those susceptible to the attacks of parasites, it has come to tolerate those who exhibit defects in structure as distinguished from the peculiarities of structure which must be presumed to constitute the physical basis of susceptibility.

All this is familiar enough. It is not so often realized that the disappearance of polygamy in what we have called the mediaeval and the modern sections of the third period works in precisely the same manner. But the disappearance of polygamy does not mean that reproductive selection ceases to be of importance. In mediaeval and modern times celibacy, postponement of marriage, and restriction of families have come to be practised in varying degrees by different stocks. There is some trace of differential fertility in the earlier periods owing to causes other than polygamy, but it is only in the mediaeval and modern periods that they become important. It is doubtful how far, if at all, the religious celibate class of the mediaeval period differed in physical characters from the average. It would appear that during this period postponement of marriage led to the producing of less children by the lower social classes than by the upper. Therefore, so far as this epoch is concerned, it is not apparent that differential fertility had any considerable effect upon bodily characters one way or the other. Possibly the net result of postponement may have been to favour the better stocks.

Within the latter part of the modern period restriction of families has assumed very great importance. It has been calculated that, as a consequence of the fact that restriction is more practised by certain sections of the population than by others, 50 per cent. of the married population provide 75 per cent. of the next generation. It thus becomes most important to determine whether the various sections of the population are innately different as regards their physical characters. Largely owing to our ignorance respecting the direct influence of the environment, it is not possible to arrive at present at any precise answer. But there can be little doubt that on the whole the most fertile sections of the population are the less physically fit sections.

It is necessary, however, to view these facts in their proper perspective. Though differential fertility of this kind may have been at work among some of the ancient empires in their later years, it is chiefly a very modern phenomenon characteristic of modern European countries and their derivatives only within the last fifty years. Therefore, however important a problem it may be for modern communities, it is a factor which has had but little effect on human history as a whole. It may be noticed that restriction of increase is not the only form of reproductive selection in modern communities. Sexual selection is also at work.[1612]

6. Such has been the direction in which, through selection and differential fertility within races, changes have taken place. But changes also take place through the conflict of races, and the nature of these changes demands some notice. Warfare plays a part in the normal existence of nearly all primitive races. It is sometimes, as among the American Indians, a bloodthirsty affair, but more often than not it is a relatively unimportant cause of elimination. It is not easy to arrive at any conclusion regarding the results of warfare as an agent of selection. Upon the whole, among primitive races, so far as physical characters are concerned, there is probably a tendency towards the preservation of the physically strong and fit. But it has to be remembered that missile weapons were early introduced, and that, as Thucydides remarked, missile weapons kill the strong man in the prime of life as well as the weak. Again, success in warfare very largely depends upon characters other than physical—such as the possession of skill. All that can be said with certainty is that in the first and second periods warfare was not a cause of elimination of the fit which it has come to be in the third period. This latter fact has been lately brought home to the civilized nations of the world in so obvious a manner that it need not be further discussed.[1613]

Warfare following upon migration may exterminate whole races. The Bushmen were apparently on the verge of extinction at the hands of the invading Bantu peoples. In this manner a peculiar physical type may be lost and another may become of relatively greater prevalence. Migration may also be followed by any degree of racial mixture. Many rash statements have been made by historians as to the biological results of crossing. The consequences actually observed to follow upon a mixture of races are to so large a degree the result of a conflict of traditions—a subject with which we shall deal in a later chapter—that the purely biological effects of crossing may be very largely obscured. Bearing this in mind we may briefly refer to the conclusions to be derived from recent biological work which bear on the problem. Roughly speaking there are two possible kinds of crosses between races. First there are crosses between the most clearly distinguished varieties such as white and black. Heterosis, or hybrid vigour, will be exhibited in a marked fashion in the first generation. Heterosis, the underlying cause of which has only recently become apparent, is always at its height in the first cross. The increase of vigour, however, is not long maintained in subsequent generations. Further, each type, such as those which we are considering, has a series of character complexes, built up through ages of selection and compatible with one another, and by crossing such complexes are broken apart. The chance of gain, on the other hand, through the favourable re-combination of characters is small. On the average, therefore, the result of such a cross is unfavourable. There may also be crosses between races exhibiting less differences. Again, heterosis will be visible on crossing. But in distinction to the results of the former kind of cross, the other results may not be unfavourable. Great variability may follow such a cross and this is on the whole advantageous. Valuable character re-combinations may also come to light. Thus we may say that, so long as there is not too great a difference between the races which cross, the results are usually genetically favourable; there will be the advantage of hybrid vigour, though this is always temporary, and there may very possibly be the advantage of valuable character re-combinations.[1614]

Migration is important not only because it is connected with war and racial crossing but also because of the selection which follows upon transfer to new climatic conditions. To the nature of these changes allusion has already been made; it has been pointed out that races adapted to maintain themselves in one environment cannot as a general rule maintain themselves in a very different environment. To new surroundings, which only differ slightly from the old, they may become adapted by selection, and much selection on these lines must have taken place as a result of racial movements in Europe. It is probably now taking place among Europeans who have migrated to America. Dublin and Baker, for instance, have shown that the death-rate varies considerably among the different racial elements who have immigrated, some elements being probably better adapted to the new environment than others.[1615] Similarly selection may be going on within modern races owing to the rapid urbanization of industrial countries. Urban conditions may be more favourable to some types than to others. But it has not yet been shown in what direction these changes, if they are in progress, are taking.

Summing up our conclusions we may say that the great changes in human bodily form were accomplished in the intermediate period when the splitting up into varieties may also have begun. This splitting was continued in the first period and the modern types were formed before the end of that period. The chief characteristic, however, of the first and second periods was the maintenance of the types evolved, though this was interfered with by migration which brought about elimination of certain types, racial mixture, and further climatic adaptation. Finally, in modern times there has been a lessening of the stringency of selection, which previously tended to maintain the existing varieties, and a turning of lethal selection to the building up of immunity against disease.

7. There are one or two other points connected with germinal change about which a word may be said. Of the origin of mutations we know nothing, but since in all probability the ultimate cause of mutations may have to be sought in some kind of environmental change, it should be borne in mind that, as man is subject to an immense variety of environmental stimuli, mutations may be more frequent in man than in any species in a state of nature. It has been suggested that the germinal constitution may be adversely affected by certain factors, especially by the use of alcohol. Of this there is no certain evidence.[1616] It has been supposed that there may be some connexion between the difference in age of the parents on the one hand and the germinal constitution of the offspring on the other. It has been supposed, for instance, that the offspring are innately more vigorous when the parents are at a certain age. So far as investigation has gone at present, it has not been established that there is any such connexion—of sufficient importance at least to deserve consideration here. In other words, the fact that among certain races young men have wives of considerably greater age than themselves and older men young wives, does not to any noteworthy extent affect the germinal constitution of the race. Again it has been stated that the first-born are innately inferior to the later-born children.[1617] This conclusion has been criticized.[1618] As, however, the preponderance of first-born children among the offspring as a whole would not appear to be markedly greater at any one period of history than at another, the inferiority of the first-born, if it exists, would make no difference between men of different races at the same or at different times.

The correlation of characters one with another should not be forgotten. The favouring of one character may involve the favouring of quite other characters. Of this what was said regarding the ductless glands is an example. It has been supposed that liability to disease is correlated with pigmentation and that, owing to selection through disease, a change in the average pigmentation is taking place. Attempts to establish this correlation have, however, failed. It is of particular interest to notice that no correlations have been found between physical and mental characters; this is so even as regards intellect and size of head.

8. A survey of the facts regarding the bodily evolution of man, and of the conditions under which it has taken place, shows that there is at least no more difficulty in understanding how it has come about than in understanding how the varieties of any other species have come into existence. Given mutations, the action of selection and of differential fertility provides an explanation which is in general satisfactory, though we may be a very long way from understanding how any one particular change came about. There are in fact greater difficulties met with from time to time in trying to reach a satisfactory explanation of evolution among other animals than when dealing with man. The evolution along particular lines of organization, the evolution of teeth and horns among mammals, for instance, raises a difficulty which seems in the present state of our knowledge perhaps to require the assumption that at times there is a tendency for the continual occurrence of mutations in the same direction. Such a difficulty does not occur in the case of human bodily evolution.

It has been suggested that the facts regarding the course which the evolution of living organisms has taken requires the assumption that large mutations have occurred from time to time and have established themselves as varieties. There is no doubt that large mutations do occur and have established themselves in the course of the evolution of the varieties of animal types known to us, and they may have done so in the case of man. There is, however, no reason to imagine that the origin of any particular change in man was due to a large mutation. It has been stated that the number of chromosomes is different in the white man and in the negro, and upon the basis of this statement it has been suggested that one variety had arisen as a mutation from the other. This statement, however, was apparently based upon erroneous observation. Again, it has been suggested that the Pygmy type arose as a mutation. But it has been observed that some Ba Twa pygmies of the Congo who three generations ago left their forests, settled near the Bushongo, and took to agriculture have become markedly taller. Intermarriage is said to be out of the question and therefore we are led to suppose in the new environment a taller type has been favoured.[1619] If this is so, if a taller type can be selected by degrees in one environment, the shorter type may equally well have been selected in another environment.

So far, therefore, as the history of man outlined in the fifth chapter is the history of the development of his bodily structure, so far the explanation of history is to be sought in changes in the germinal constitution, and the changes undergone are strictly comparable with the changes among species in a state of nature, though owing to the more varied environment outward differences in the case of man may be rather more often due to environmental influences than in the case of species closely related to man.

XVIII THE EVOLUTION OF MENTAL CHARACTERS

1. When we originally asked how far changes in the quality of the population accounted for the facts given in the sixth chapter, it was at once obvious that the interest centred in mental changes. Now that we have gained some idea as to what is given in the germinal constitution and as to the influence of the environment in general, we are in a position to come more closely to the main problem. Three questions present themselves. We have to inquire into the facts regarding the stage of mental evolution reached at any one time. This involves making both an estimate as to the extent of the gap between the pre-human ancestor and Palaeolithic man and an examination of the differences in the mental characteristics of the chief living types of man which may be taken roughly to represent stages reached in the three chief periods. We have next to ask if we can account for these facts, and this involves an inquiry into selection, differential fertility, and such other factors as may assist to explain changes in the germinal constitution. Lastly we have to ask how far such changes as have taken place are correlated with the main features of human history.

To make an estimate of the stage of mental evolution reached by one race as compared with that reached by other races is not an easy matter. To begin with there is the difficulty of discounting the direct influence of the environment. Temperament we found to be peculiarly susceptible to environmental influence. Temperament affects the functioning of other mental characters in a very important manner. ‘Effective mental ability’, says Professor Punnett, ‘is largely a matter of temperament, and this in turn is quite possibly dependent upon the various secretions produced by the different tissues of the body. Similar nervous systems associated with different livers might conceivably result in different individuals upon whose mental ability the world would pass a very different judgment.’[1620] Apart, however, from this difficulty and apart from the influence of disease, it is not probable that other factors in the environment have any marked direct effect upon either disposition or intellect.

There is a far more serious difficulty to which allusion has already been made. It arises from the fact that mental faculties as exhibited in daily life are overlaid by tradition and shaped by habit. There is no difficulty in getting down to any physical character. It is always possible to separate the limb from the tool which it uses. It is frequently very difficult to effect the corresponding separation between the faculty and the tool in the case of mental characters. Human mental characteristics, as manifested in daily life, represent the combination of acquirements with a certain basis. By the basis is meant that which develops as the result of environmental stimuli acting upon the predispositions. The basis of all mental faculties is, therefore, that which strictly speaking is comparable with physical characters. Mental characters as manifested in daily life represent this basis combined with tradition. This applies not only to the intellectual but also to the instinctive faculties. The manifestation of instinct is dependent upon the channels into which it has been led by tradition and upon the outlets which tradition provides for it.

In attempting to estimate the stage of evolution of mental characters reached at any one time, we must, as far as we can, allow for all that obscures their manifestation. There are several different ways in which this may be attempted and it will be found possible to reach a fairly definite conclusion with regard to the degree of development of mental characters as exhibited by two races as different as the white and black. But the inquiry into the differences between the more nearly related varieties, such as the different branches of the white race, present far more difficult problems, and by these methods we shall not be able to approach them with much hope of success. Further, these difficulties will be more strongly felt when we go on to inquire into the causes of the changes which have led to the evolution of the different types. Therefore, though in this chapter we shall reach certain conclusions as to the nature, causes, and results of mental changes in the earlier periods, we shall find that, owing to the difficulties mentioned, we are unable to reach any conclusion as to the later periods until we have inquired into the importance of tradition. It will thus be necessary to cut short this inquiry and turn to consider tradition in the following two chapters. Only when this subsidiary inquiry has been made shall we be able to complete our estimate as to the part played by changes in the germinal constitution so far as they affect mental characters.

2. The indications as regards mental development obtainable from a study of fossil remains are, of course, very vague. Such as they are, however, considerable interest attaches to them. In the later part of the first period, in the Upper Palaeolithic, that is to say, we meet with types of men whose cranial capacity and the formation of whose brain, so far as it can be judged from skulls, do not indicate any difference in mental capacity as compared with modern man. It must be emphasized that this is a very rough method of comparing intellectual capacity. Something, however, may be deduced from such observations, and it is probable that, though there may have been noteworthy differences between Cro-Magnon and modern European intellectual capacity, as we judge differences to-day, nevertheless looking at human evolution as a whole, we cannot escape the conclusion that by the end of the first period, before man had learnt to support himself otherwise than by hunting and fishing, by far the greater part of the journey from the condition of our pre-human ancestor to that of European man had been accomplished. This is a very important deduction, because, inasmuch as the greater part of the progress in skill had still to come, it means that progress in intellectual capacity and progress in skill did not go hand in hand.

What we should like to be able to do, but cannot at present do, is to follow the evolution of the cranial capacity and the shape of the brain of the ancestors of Upper Palaeolithic man. But all we have in the Middle Palaeolithic are representatives of the peculiar Neanderthal type, which apparently died out. Judging from the cranial capacity, the intellectual development of Neanderthal man must have been considerable and probably not inferior to that of the Australians. If Eoanthropus is to be assigned to the Lower Palaeolithic, it is the only skull of that period that we have. Judging not so much from the cranial capacity as from the formation of the brain, the intellectual capacity of Eoanthropus was clearly much less than that of Neanderthal man and of any other type of man now living. Pithecanthropus was certainly anterior to the Palaeolithic. He may, it is true, have used and even fashioned implements of a very primitive type. It is noteworthy that, so far as can be judged, in cranial capacity he stands about half-way between modern man and the hypothetical ancestor, and if we are going to make any deductions at all regarding so difficult a point, it is reasonable to assume that in general his intellectual capacity was about half-way between that of modern man and the pre-human ancestor.

On the basis of this evidence the broad outlines of the picture are as follows. At the very least the intellectual development of Early Palaeolithic man had reached a point half-way between that of the pre-human ancestor and that of modern European races. Almost certainly it had gone farther, perhaps considerably further. As regards man in the Middle Palaeolithic, we have details only regarding an aberrant type whose intellectual capacity, though considerable, probably did not reach that of the contemporary ancestors of the Upper Palaeolithic types of whom as yet we know nothing. The cranial capacity and other features of the Upper Palaeolithic types show no essential differences from modern man. though it has to be remembered that, as cranial capacity is but a rough guide, differences in mental capacity may have existed.

3. In order to gain a more exact idea of the stage of mental evolution reached in the first and second periods, we are obliged to turn to the evidence supplied by primitive races, just as we turned to them to fill in the gaps in our knowledge of the social habits of Palaeolithic man.

There are at least three methods whereby an attempt may be made to arrive at some idea of the intellectual development of primitive races as compared with modern European man. There is to begin with a very large number of observations and impressions recorded by men who in many cases have lived a long time among primitive races and have had unusual opportunities for judging them. Then attempts have been made to measure the intelligence of these races by the use of the Binet-Simon methods, and we may notice the results of some of these attempts. Lastly, in certain parts of the world for some generations white and coloured races have been living side by side under almost identical conditions and now compete together almost on an equality, and we may note the current opinion in those regions with regard to their respective intellectual capacities.

All the evidence regarding the Australians agrees in attributing to them a relatively high level of intellect. ‘Most observers’, says Thomas, ‘agree that up to the age of puberty, possibly longer, they have an extraordinary facility in the acquisition of knowledge.’[1621] Speaking of the aborigines of Victoria, Smyth records that ‘black children brought up in the schools learn very quickly, and in perception, memory, and power to discriminate, they are, to say the least, equal to European children. A missionary, the Rev. F. A. Hagenauer, a gentleman of great ability, who has control of the aboriginal station at Lake Wellington, reports that the examination made by the Government School Inspectors shows that the aboriginal pupils taught by him are quite equal to the Whites. In his last report he states that the whole of the fifth class in his school has passed the standard examination (that appointed for children in State schools) and that they had received certificates.’[1622] Spiller has collected a large number of such opinions,[1623] and Semon says that ‘on examining the accounts of missionaries who have had occasion to instruct children of Australian natives, it will be found that nearly all of them come to the conclusion that at the onset of instruction hardly any difference between faculties of black and white children in grasping the elements is to be remarked. There is such a capability of memory and sharpness of the senses that in reading, writing, drawing, topography, and geography they at first even excel the whites.’[1624] Nearly all observers agree that there comes a point when the faculties of aboriginal children cease to develop. Thus Smyth says that ‘With keen senses, quick perceptions, and a precocity that is surprising, he stops just short of the point where an advance would lead to a complete change in the characters of his mind’,[1625] and Mathew who remarks that ‘in schools it has been observed that aboriginal children learn quite as easily and rapidly as children of European parents’, goes on to say that ‘while among Europeans the range of mental development seems almost unbounded, with the blacks its limit is soon attained’.[1626]

Among the Andaman Islanders there is, according to Man, up to the age of 12 or 14 ‘as much intelligence as [among] ordinary middle class children of civilized races’; he goes on to quote another observer who found these people ‘not deficient in brain power; it rather lies dormant and unused in their savage state’, and gives the example ‘of an aboriginal patient of 12 years of age, who had been entered in the Ross Orphanage School, and who, in his tender years, could yet read English and Ordu fluently, as well as speak and write in both these languages, retaining also a knowledge of his native tongue. He had besides a fair knowledge of arithmetic. I may add that this is not an exceptional case, for I would instance others, and one lad in particular who was his superior.’[1627] These opinions could be paralleled many times over. The Jesuit missionary Baegert, for example, had a high opinion of the intellectual abilities of the Californian Indians. ‘Like other people, they are possessed of reason and understanding, and their stupidity is not inborn with them, but the result of habit; and I am of opinion that, if their sons were sent to European seminaries and colleges, and their girls to convents where young females are instructed, they would prove equal in all respects to Europeans in the acquirement of morals and of useful sciences and arts.’[1628]

The opinions of observers of races which fall within the second group are all very similar. Some typical opinions may be given. Speaking of Bantu races south of the Zambezi Theal says that ‘in Mission Schools children of early age are found to keep pace with those of white parents. In some respects, indeed, they are the higher of the two ... but while the European youth is still developing his powers the Bantu youth in many instances is found unable to make further progress. His intellect has become sluggish and frequently he exhibits a decided repugnance, if not an incapacity, to learn anything more. The growth of his mind, which at first promised so much, has ceased just at that stage where the mind of the European begins to display the greatest vigour.’[1629] Later he says that ‘the strong desire of the greater number is to live as closely like their ancestors as the altered circumstances of their country will permit, to make use of a few of the white man’s simplest conveniences and of his protection against their enemies, but to avoid his habits and to shut out his ideas. Compared with Europeans their adults are frequently children in imagination and in simplicity of belief, though not infrequently one may have the mental faculties of a full-grown man.’[1630] Of the Bangala of the Upper Congo Weeks says that ‘up to the age of 14 and 15, the boys and girls, especially the boys, are very receptive and easily taught; but after that age comparatively few make real advance in learning’.[1631] This is attributed partly to the fact that at this age other matters occupy their attention—working on their own account, looking round for a wife, and so on, but more especially to the fact that by this age they have learnt all that their fathers have to teach them and thenceforth settle down into a routine. Of the men of the races of Central Africa Johnston speaks as follows: ‘his mental powers are not much developed by native training, but I am certain that he has in him possibilities in the present generation as great of those of the average Indian; and there is really no saying what he may come to after several generations of education. I think it is truly remarkable the way in which a little savage boy can be put to school and taught to read in a few months and subsequently become a skilful printer or telegraph clerk or even book keeper. The little boys are much sharper and shrewder than the grown-up male. When the youth arrives at puberty there is undoubtedly a tendency towards an arrested development of the mind.’[1632] This latter tendency is attributed to the attention paid to sexual matters. This arrest of development is a feature in all descriptions of the mental characters of these races. Junod is inclined, however, to think that these descriptions are on the whole exaggerated.[1633] In order to enable us to form such judgement on this point a few further quotations may be given. Ellis, describing the Ewe-speaking peoples of Togoland, mentions the precocity of the children when compared with Europeans, and says that, ‘at puberty the physical nature masters the intellect and frequently completely deadens it’.[1634] The Bambala children ‘are very precocious, and up to the age of puberty are often astonishingly intelligent; after puberty, however, they become exceedingly apathetic; sexual excess and continual intoxication with palm wine contribute largely to this result’.[1635] Speaking of the natives of Portuguese East Africa, Maugham refers to the great brightness and promise early displayed; as regards the later stages says that he has ‘over and over again been the witness of the sudden and astounding change which takes place among the young male house servants as youth approaches manhood. Brightness and initiative disappear; they go about their duties in a most casual manner; they are unable to remember the clearest and simplest instructions, and are constantly away without permission.’[1636] Referring to this subject so far as the natives of the Congo are concerned, Weeks states that ‘for generations boys on arriving at the age of 14 or 15 had learnt all their father had to teach respecting fishing, hunting, woodcraft, building, paddling, &c.... Thus their intelligence had attained for generations the fullest development by the above age; now we have to help them over that crucial stage; in some cases it is very difficult; but in other cases we can do so; and in such there is no limit to the intellectual progress they can make. In many cases they have mastered a good working knowledge of French, Portuguese or English, both spoken and written, and as larger opportunities are given, a larger number of youths will make such mental progress as will encourage their friends and teachers.’[1637] Bryant, who has had a wide experience of South African natives, sums up his impressions by confirming the common opinion that the native boy is, at an early age, if anything, superior to the European boy of the same age, and that at puberty his mental development is arrested. He thinks that Boer boys living in the backwoods and receiving practically no training are, if anything, inferior to the African boys. He adds—what is of particular interest—the fact that the African boys, whose education begins early, do not show the same arrest of development as those whose education begins later. Nevertheless the African boy educated from an early age is surpassed by the European boy later on. We find also, he says, that ‘in practically every case where a South African native has had the opportunity of receiving an education in one of the universities of Europe or America, that that native has invariably been able to hold his own against all white rivals and to pass as successfully as they the same examinations in Law, Medicine, or Arts.’ Such men, however, he adds, may have been selected as particularly fitted to profit by further education.[1638] Summing up his opinion upon this subject, Olivier says that it is not possible to ‘justify a generalization that there is any particular human function for which coloured persons are by their African blood disqualified. In various categories of human activity we may maintain that, as a rule, black and coloured folk are not up to the normal standard of the white, and are difficult and disheartening to deal with. But in other categories they are more liberally endowed than the average white man, not only with sympathetic and valuable human qualities, but with talent and executive ability for their expression.’[1639]

The evidence has been taken from the accounts of African races; very similar evidence could be presented for all races in the second group. No purpose would be served by so doing, however, because such evidence amounts merely to a repetition of opinion similar to those given above. Before attempting to analyse this evidence, we may glance at the evidence obtained on other lines.

4. Many investigations have been recently carried out to test the relative intelligence of children of modern Europeans and of primitive races. The method used is known as the Binet-Simon method and consists essentially in subjecting children to a large number of carefully prepared tests upon the total result of which an estimate is made of the intelligence of each child. Some of the most instructive of these observations have been made in America, where white and coloured children receive a very similar education; the result of an investigation carried out by Miss Strong in that country may be described. She tested 225 white children belonging to two schools and 125 coloured children belonging to one school. There is a standard degree of intelligence for each year of age, and thus every child can be graded according as to whether it reaches the standard degree of intelligence, or is above or below it. The results of this particular investigation are summed up in the following table:[1640]

Coloured Children. White Children. More than one year backward 29·4 10·2 Satisfactory 69·8 84·4 More than one year advanced 0·8 5·3

That the inferiority of the coloured children is exhibited at all ages is shown by the following table:[1641]

Below Age. At Age. Above Age. White. Coloured. White. Coloured. White. Coloured. 6 years 19·4 40·0 30·6 33·3 50·0 26·7 7 „ 13·9 39·4 61·1 58·8 25·0 11·8 8 „ 18·5 23·0 55·5 38·5 26·0 38·5 9 „ 32·2 71·4 41·9 21·4 25·9 7·2 10 „ 55·1 75·0 27·6 12·5 17·3 12·5 11 „ 34·6 43·7 42·2 50·0 23·1 6·3 12 „ 67·5 77·0 32·5 23·0

34·5 51·4 41·2 33·9 24·3 14·7

With regard to these results Miss Strong writes as follows: ‘This seems to lead to the conclusion that the coloured children are mentally younger than the white. There is a difference of nearly 15 per cent. in the satisfactory group, nearly three times as many are more than a year backward, and less than 1 per cent. are more than a year advanced. A course of study in the coloured school is practically the same as that in the white schools. To what extent the difference is due to racial inferiority, to what extent differences in the home environment, cannot be said. It is certainly not due to difference in school training.’[1642]

There are certain criticisms of weight to be made regarding the importance to be attached to estimates of intelligence due to this method. These need not detain us beyond noting that, although in general, inasmuch as the children use the same language, the mental equipment is similar, nevertheless there may be considerable differences in acquired habit as between white and coloured children which affect their responses to the test. There is a further criticism of some importance to be made regarding this particular investigation. It was entirely carried out by white examiners, and it may very well be that the coloured children did not respond as readily and acquit themselves as favourably as if they had been examined by members of their own race. There is reason to suspect therefore that the coloured children may not show up in as favourable a light as the white children quite apart from any colour bias that may possibly affect the results in the same way. In any case it seems certain that the results are not unduly favourable to the coloured children.

The results of several similar inquiries have been summarized by Popenoe and Johnson. ‘The most careful study yet made’, they write, ‘of the relative intelligence of negroes and whites,’ is that of G. O. Ferguson, junior, on 486 white and 421 coloured pupils in the schools of Richmond, Fredericksburg, and Newport News, Va. Tests were employed which required the use of the higher ‘functions’ and as far as possible (mainly on the basis of skin colour) the amount of white blood in the coloured pupils was determined. Four classes were made: full-blood negro, ¾ negro, ½ negro (mulatto), and ¼ negro (quadroon). It was found that ‘the pure negroes scored 69·2 per cent. as high as the whites; that the ¾ negroes scored 73 per cent. as high as the whites; that the mulattoes scored 81·2 per cent. as high as the whites; and that the quadroons obtained 91·8 per cent. of the white score.’ This confirms the belief of many observers that the ability of a coloured man is proportionate to the amount of white blood he has.[1643]

Summing up a review of this subject Huntingdon writes as follows: ‘So far as I am aware, every exact test which has been made on a large scale indicates mental superiority on the part of the white race, even when the two races have equal opportunities. For example, in Washington the coloured children remain in school quite as long as the white; they do not accomplish so much in the way of study and do not reach so high a grade. In the cities of the south, Mayo and Leram find that where the races are given essentially the same instruction, the proportion of whites who are promoted is greater than than of negroes. Moreover, the differences seem to increase with years, which suggests that the average coloured child not only stands below the average white child in mental development at all ages, but ceases to develop at an earlier age. In the High Schools of New York, superiority of the white race is shown by Mayo’s examination of the average marks. By the time the children reach the High School, the processes of promotion have weeded out a much larger proportion of coloured children than of white. Hence, the negroes form a specially selected group whose superiority to the average of their race is more marked than the superiority of the white High School children when compared with the rest of the race. Nevertheless, the average marks of the white children are distinctly higher than those of the coloured.’[1644] Here again, as in the case of Miss Strong’s investigation, it is not improbable that the conditions are to some extent weighted against the coloured race.

5. A third method of arriving at some indication of the relative degree of mental capacity is to notice what has happened where for some generations the two races have lived under more or less similar conditions. ‘One of the best places for comparing the two races is in the Bahama Islands’, writes Huntington. For reasons which I shall present later, the process of making ‘poor whites’ has probably gone farther in the Bahamas than in almost any other Anglo-Saxon community. Part of the white population are like their race in other regions, but a large portion have unmistakably degenerated. Witness their intense and bigoted speech, their sunken cheeks and eyes, their sallow complexion, and their inert way of working. In spite of racial prejudice, there is no real colour line in the Bahamas. Persons with more or less negro blood are worthy occupants of the highest positions, and are universally accepted in the most exclusive social circles. The British Government gives the negro every possible opportunity. The state of affairs may be judged from the remarks of a ‘poor white’ sailor, who said to me: ‘You want to know why I like the Southern States better than the North. It is because they hate a nigger and I hates him too. What kind of a place is this where they do everything for the nigger and nothing for the white man? It is bad enough to have to go to jail, but it’s pretty hard for a white man to be taken there by a nigger constable.’ In one Bahaman village I saw negro girls teaching white children in the public school. In that same village a number of the leading white men cannot read or write.

‘When they were children, their parents would not send them to school with negroes. The despised negroes learnt to read and write but have now largely forgotten these accomplishments. The proud whites grow up in abject ignorance. To-day the same thing is going on. I visited two villages where the white children are staying away from school because they will not go to negro teachers. The homes of such whites are scarcely better than those of their coloured neighbours, and their fathers are called “Jim” and “Jack” by the black men with whom they work. Racial prejudice apparently works more harm to the whites than to the blacks. So far as occupations go there is no difference, for all alike till the soil, sail boats, and gather sponges.

‘When the lumber industry was introduced into the islands, whites and blacks were equally ignorant of the various kinds of work involved in cutting trees and converting them into lumber. The managers did not care who did the work so long as it was done. They wanted three things: strength, docility or faithfulness, and brains. They soon found that in the first two the negroes were superior. Time and again persons in authority, chiefly American but also some of the more capable native whites, told me that if they wanted a crew of men to load a boat or some such thing, they would prefer negroes every time. The poor white shirks more than the coloured man. He is not so strong, he is proud and touchy. Other things being equal, the negro receives the preference, but other things are not equal. The very man who praised the negroes generally added: “But you can’t use a negro for everything. They can’t seem to learn some things, and they don’t know how to boss a job.” The pay roll reflects this. Even though the negroes receive the preference the 400 who are employed earn on an average only about 60 per cent. as much as the 57 white men. If we take only the 57 most competent negroes their average daily wages are still only 88 per cent. as great as those of the native whites. The difference is purely a matter of brains. Although the white man may be ignorant and inefficient, with no more training than the negro, and although his father and grandfather were scarcely better, he possesses an inheritance of mental quickness and initiative which comes into evidence at the first opportunity.’[1645]

6. What conclusions are we to draw from this varied evidence? Let us first ask how we should view the differences between the negro and the modern European. There seems to be no marked difference in innate intellectual power; the differences are rather differences in disposition and temperament. The white man has initiative, inventiveness, versatility, and power of leadership; the black man has humility, patience, loyalty, and self-sacrifice. It is remarkable with what unanimity observers of the negro race in its own country speak of the high degree of intellectual development. Certain points are noteworthy. The apparent arrest of development is associated with an absorption at a certain age in practical matters, in tribal habits and customs, in sex and in settling down to a normal married existence as much on the lines of their ancestors as is possible under the altered conditions. Several passages quoted above strongly suggest that what we are here witnessing is a turning away from the training felt to be strange and foreign, owing to the strength of the native tradition which claims all the affection and interest of the young man. In other words this arrest may not be so much an inevitable result of the kind of mental faculties which are inherited as a result of the coming into play of a peculiar tradition. This conclusion is supported by the fact that, when in Africa education begins earlier, when, that is to say, there is more of a break with native tradition, the arrest is less well marked. Further, in America, it is still less marked though it can be detected. The conclusion would thus seem to be that, though there may be some tendency for intellectual development to stop at a rather lower stage than among European races, it is nothing like so well marked as the observations of residents in South Africa would seem at first sight to show.

The evidence quoted has chiefly been drawn from observations upon the negro races. It must suffice here to say that what is known regarding the intellectual development of other races included in the first and second groups leads to the conclusion that, although there are signs of differences as between these races, yet these differences are not remarkable, and further that the degree to which so apparently low a race as the Australians differs from Europeans is not in any case much greater than the degree in which negroes differ from Europeans.

It remains to ask how far this evidence supplements that derived from a study of fossil remains. Judging from the fact that the general level of the development of the mental faculties of any primitive race is not separated markedly farther from that of modern European man than are the negro races in this respect from modern European man, it seems that we must allow to Upper Palaeolithic man on the average a degree of mental development at least equivalent to that of the negro. It is further only reasonable to suppose that the ancestors of Upper Palaeolithic man in the Middle Palaeolithic were little inferior in mental capacity, inasmuch as to Neanderthal man, to whom they were superior and whom they apparently exterminated, we must attribute a degree of intelligence little, if at all, inferior to that of the Australians. Of Lower Palaeolithic man we know much less. We do not know, for example, whether he buried his dead. But if we consider the variety of instruments fashioned and used by him, it is not unreasonable to attribute to him, in view of the nature of the general conclusions to which we are being led, a degree of intelligence again but little inferior to that of Middle Palaeolithic man.

Our conclusions can only be tentative; nevertheless such indications as we have all point the same way. It would seem that the major part of the progress in the evolution of the intellectual faculties had been accomplished far back in Palaeolithic times. Those living races which, with all due reservations and qualifications, may be held to represent in mental and bodily characters Palaeolithic races, differ from modern European man rather in disposition than in intellect. And it is important to note that it is in the growth of the intellect rather than in the growth of the other mental faculties that modern man is distinguished from his pre-human ancestor.

7. We may again follow the same procedure as in the last chapter. We may recall the general conditions to which man was subject in the intermediate and early periods and ask how the evolution of mental characters was influenced by them. We may further ask to what degree and in what direction the conditions of life among primitive races influence the selection of mental characters since in general we may assume the same influences to have been at work among prehistoric races. With regard to the intermediate period we have to remember that it was far longer than, perhaps many times as long as, the period which has elapsed since the rise of Palaeolithic industry. Within this period man descended to the ground, spread, if not into every continent, at least far over the surface of the world and came to dominate all other living organisms as no species had ever done before. Clearly he was enabled to achieve this result by his intellectual powers and by them alone. He did not develop any other means of attack or means of defence: he conquered by his intellect.

In a general way it is possible to understand how this came about. To begin with, the pre-human ancestor was favourably situated for such a development because he was a generalized and not a specialized type. Once specialization of form has set in, as it has among the anthropoid apes, there are two bars to such a development as occurred in man. The specialization of bodily form in order to cope with a peculiar environment renders the body less adaptable to any changes in the environment which may take place. Further, unless the body is of the nature of an instrument capable of being readily employed to perform various functions, the intellect is unable to manifest itself. We have only to think of the specialized fore and hind limbs of most mammalian types to see how poor an instrument the body would in those cases make in the service of the intellect.

Under these favourable circumstances, evolution took this momentous turn. We can understand how, since the pre-human ancestor depended for his survival almost solely upon his intellect, there would be a high premium upon intellectual development. It is reasonable to suppose that he lived in groups of polygamous families and that differential fertility thus intensified selection. There is, of course, never at any time only a single factor governing selection, and though undoubtedly intellect was the chief factor in selection, climatic and other factors were, as we have noticed, also in operation, bringing about those changes in bodily form that we have observed.

The instincts of the pre-human ancestor were doubtless, in common with those of other mammals, of a generalized type compared with what we find among some lower groups of animals. The tendency has been for them to become even more generalized, though not on the whole any less powerful. It seems likely, for instance, that the instinct of flight was definitely associated with the snakes among other objects from the attacks of which presumably the ancestor was at one time in danger. We assume this because we occasionally meet with cases in which this specialization of the instinct of flight still obtains. The instinct of flight has now become wholly generalized, being aroused by general conditions and not by specialized occurrences. If it is correct to think of the ancestor as living in groups of families, for the leadership of which there must have been continual struggles, we may conclude that the instincts of pugnacity and of self-assertion were favoured, and we may make other similar deductions in estimating the value of which, however, it must be remembered that we are very largely in the region of hypothesis and speculation. The one thing to which we may with certainty hold fast is the premium upon intellect.

8. At length the intermediate period gave place to the period marked by the origin of society of the primitive type, defined by the fact that men are bound together by rigid custom. Obedience to custom involves a considerable measure of control of the impulses. Before society of this kind could have arisen, mental evolution must have reached a still higher level.

Let us consider what is implied. To begin with, the dependence of man upon his intellect for his position in the world accounts, as we have seen, for the evolution of his mental faculties up to a relatively high level in the intermediate period. When this level had been reached, the next step was rendered possible. What was now required was that man should be able to enjoy the advantages of social co-operation. To this end law was necessary. McDougall quotes Bagehot as saying that ‘law, rigid, definite, concise law, was a primary want of early mankind; that which they needed above everything else, that which was requisite before they could gain anything else’, and that: ‘in early times the quantity of government is much more important than its quality. What is wanted is a comprehensive rule binding men together, making them do the same things, telling them what to expect of each other, fashioning them alike, and keeping them so. What this rule is, does not matter so much. A good rule is better than a bad one, but a bad one is better than none.’[1646] That man should acquiesce in the restrictions imposed by society involves prudence, which inhibits those impulses which would lead to a contravention of custom. Now; fear is a simple emotion, but prudence implies something more. It involves ‘a capacity for deliberation and the weighing of motives in the light of self-consciousness.’[1647] In order that society might become established, there was thus required a further evolution of the intellect, and, since the advantages to be gained by the establishment of society were so great, there must have been a heavy premium upon evolution in this direction.

The beginning of the first period in history thus marks the successful completion of a step in mental evolution raising man above the stage reached in the intermediate period. It is important to observe that all primitive races known to us are representatives of man after he had completed this step. So far, therefore, as their mental faculties throw light upon the mental evolution of man, it is the level of evolution reached after and not before the evolution of social organization that is illustrated.

We may now glance at the conditions characteristic of primitive races and ask how they bear upon the selection of mental characters. Primitive society we found to be characterized by hard and fast rules which must be implicitly obeyed if social organization is to be maintained. Obedience to these conventions is of the utmost importance; we may remember incidentally that, unless the conventions are observed, an approximation to the optimum population will not be made. There is in consequence a tendency towards the elimination of those exhibiting characteristics incompatible with due subservience to the prevailing tradition. Such characteristics are any marked developments of intellect or of disposition away from the average. The man who will not conform is not tolerated. However advantageous to the individual certain developments might be, such developments are not favoured because the importance of maintaining intact the group to which he belongs is of greater moment. Thus, as in the case of physical characters, the general tendency is on the whole against further evolution and towards the preservation of those types which have reached the position characteristic of any primitive race. And it is to be noted that, whereas bodily form is on the whole adapted to the physical environment, mental characters are adapted on the whole to the traditional environment. Men come to be selected in accordance with the needs of social organization, and as tradition grows in amount also in accordance with their capability of absorbing tradition.

It is difficult to point to any factors which markedly favour further evolution of mental characters. On reading the admirable accounts of the daily life and customs of the Australians as given by Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, or of a much more advanced people—the tribes of Borneo, as described by Messrs. Hose and McDougall—we observe, it is true, the respect paid to men of experience and of rather more than average intelligence. We can understand how men not up to the average level of intelligence would not in all respects fare as well as others, but we do not find that there are factors distinctly favouring unusual intelligence. Some progress there probably was. On the whole those men who attained the leadership were probably rather more intelligent than the average, though among the qualities which assisted such men to gain the leadership many other mental qualities played a more prominent part than intellect; thus, by practising polygamy, or practising it to a greater extent than the rest, they left more than the average number of descendants—and, while perhaps raising the intellectual level of the race, more certainly altering the average mental endowment in respect of these other qualities.

Such an examination also shows that a somewhat different disposition is favoured in different cases. Thus a warlike type is favoured among the American Indians, for, though possibly the most warlike may be killed off the most quickly, this is more than counterbalanced by the ease which with such men get numerous wives. But such differences in no way conflict with the fact that the tendency is towards the preservation of a mean, which though it may vary somewhat, is in general outline the same among all these races.

There still remains to be noticed the result of conflict between groups, other than normal warfare, which at times led to the substitution, whole or partial, of a less intelligent by a more intelligent race, or at least of a less skilled by a more skilled race; for by this time the outward manifestation of intellect was to a considerable extent overlaid by tradition. But such substitution, though it changes the average germinal constitution of the species as a whole, scarcely accounts in any noteworthy degree for the evolution of a higher level of intellectual capacity. The conditions which did favour further evolution within these two periods are the same as those which, when present to a more marked degree and acting over a longer period of time, finally gave rise to the races of the third period, and to these conditions we may now turn.

9. There are certain regions of the world’s surface which contain within them areas abutting one upon the other and differing sharply one from the other. Such a region is found in that part of Western Asia which embraces Asia Minor, Armenia, Syria, Arabia, Mesopotamia, and Western Iran. In such areas races live in close contact with other races of very different habits, customs, and modes of life; hunting and fishing races, pastoral races, agricultural races, races predominately sea-faring, all come into contact and conflict. Under conditions of these kinds there is more tendency for advantage to accrue to intellect not only as between members of different races but as between members of the same race than in conflicts between races of similar culture. Where these conditions have ruled, therefore, there has been a tendency, though perhaps not a very marked tendency, for a premium to have been set upon intellect. It so happens, however, that this region of Western Asia is endowed above all other regions with plants and animals that can be domesticated and with other features offering rewards to skill. In this region there was thus an additional premium upon intellect, and it was apparently in this region that the races who initiated the third period made their appearance. To the favouring of intellect under these conditions we may thus attribute what superiority of intellect the races of this group exhibit over the races of other groups. But it is rather in disposition and temperament that the predominant races of this group differ from those of the preceding groups. In them we meet with a power of leadership, a resourcefulness, a versatility, that marks them off from the primitive races, and it is precisely these qualities which would be chiefly favoured in conflict and competition of the kind described. The outward manifestation of these qualities may indeed be largely a matter of tradition, but that they are also in part innate in the modern European we have seen to be the case, and the explanation of this further evolution is clearly to be found in the conditions to which they have long been subject.

Turning to the conditions within the races of the third period and neglecting the Asiatic races, those races which in fact have been left in a backwater out of the main stream of progress, we find ourselves faced with the difficulty that tradition has so far come to overlay the innate qualities of intellect and disposition, that we are only with great difficulty at present able to estimate the result of any factors which we may see at work favouring or otherwise particular types. We may note, however, that success both between and within races has fallen rather to character than to skill. There is, in other words, little reason for thinking that intellect, so far as it is measured by skill, has been markedly favoured. On the other hand, character as outwardly manifested has been clearly favoured. But how far we should see in this process a favouring of certain innate types of disposition and of temperament must be left for consideration until later. These reservations regarding the passing at present of any judgement apply with the greatest force to the results of the differential fertility between the social classes in many countries at the present day. But we may say that, as in the case of physical characters, there has now ceased to be any strong tendency towards the preservation of a mean type. Conditions allow of the existence of variations away from the mean—but, as regards intellect, unfavourable equally with favourable variations.

10. We have seen that the evidence derived both from a study of fossil remains and from a study of primitive races leads to the conclusion that the evolution of human intellectual capacity early reached a relatively advanced stage. An inquiry into the forces which we must assume to have been at work shows that intellectual capacity was more favoured in the intermediate stage than after primitive society had come into being. It was favoured at first as the character which enabled man to obtain his dominating position in the world and afterwards again as the necessary trait which enabled him to enjoy the benefits of co-operation. When dwelling on the fact that the advance since the setting up of primitive society has been relatively small, it must not be forgotten that the latter period has been far shorter than the former. The period of time which has elapsed since the ancestors of man set out, so to speak, to conquer the world, must at a minimum estimate be five to ten times as long as the period since the establishment of primitive society to the present day.

The general conclusion to which we are led is that of the whole degree of mental evolution which has taken place by far the greater part was achieved at a time when only a beginning had been made with progress in skill. To the question whether the historical process outlined in the fifth chapter is comparable with progress among wild species—is based, in other words, upon changes in the germinal constitution—these conclusions suggest the answer that the happenings in the intermediate period are very largely in any case to be accounted for in this manner. There can be little doubt that the increasing domination of man was largely proportional to the growth of his innate intellectual capacity. But to the question as to how far the happenings within the period since the origin of primitive society are connected with the further evolution of innate capacity we can at present return no answer. We may note the striking fact that within this period progress in skill has been immense and has latterly gone on at a greatly increased speed, whereas changes in the germinal constitution have been relatively small. This clearly suggests that there has been but little connexion between the course of history as usually understood and changes in the germinal constitution. But before we can pass any judgement, we must gain some idea as to the manner in which tradition contributes to the shaping of history. Only then shall we be in a position to estimate the part played by such changes in innate characters as have occurred, and to this task we may now turn.

XIX THE NATURE OF TRADITION

1. So far as bodily characters are concerned, we have seen that we have to look for the explanation of human history primarily in changes in the germinal constitution. With regard to mental characters the position is different. It is evident that, at least in the later stages of history, the outstanding features are not correlated strictly with changes in the germinal constitution underlying mental faculties. To some extent, possibly to a large extent, they are independent of such changes. The influence of the environment in the second sense has to be considered, and until it has been considered we cannot arrive at any conclusion as to the importance to be attributed to the former factor in bringing these events about. What is now required, therefore, is a study of the influence of the environment in the second sense. It will be very briefly undertaken in this and the following chapter. In this chapter we are concerned with the nature of tradition, and the manner in which it is passed on, stored up, and retained. In the next chapter we have to examine the influence of the various factors in building up tradition.

In Chapter II we saw that, as far as mental development is concerned, the distinguishing characteristic of man is the conceptual process of thought. Man is, of course, also possessed of all the simpler mental processes there described. We have here in particular to study the consequences which follow the attainment to this higher level of mental process. It has already been observed that the circumstances were favourable to the evolution of this faculty. They also enabled the fullest use to be made of it.[1648] In the first place the human instincts are very generalized. They provide a basis for all kinds of vaguely directed activities in response to vaguely discriminated impressions from a large class of objects. Since it is only through the instinctive faculties that the intellect gets to work, the generalized nature of the instincts is a great advantage. Secondly the immature period is prolonged. In comparison with the higher animals the immature period occupies a far longer proportion of the normal term of life and thus there is provided a far longer period in which learning can proceed. Lastly there is the power of speech.

The question has been much debated as to whether there can be thought on the conceptual level without language. It would seem that conceptual thought can only exist without language when of a very rudimentary kind. ‘Language is not merely an accompaniment of conceptual activity; it is an instrument essential to its development. It is an appropriate means of fixing attention upon ideally represented objects as distinguished from percepts.’[1649] Language, on the other hand, so far as it is a means of communication concerning objects outside the actual range of perception, can only arise between persons capable of conceptual thought. And this is essentially the function of language. It reflects the conceptions by which empirical data are brought into relation. ‘Resemblances of quality are expressed by general terms, continuity of existence by individual names, the relation of ideas and the order of connexion in thought by the arrangement of words in a sentence.’[1650] Language expresses that breaking up and re-combination of the elements of experience which we have seen to be the essential features of conceptual thought.

Language makes possible the influence of mind upon mind, and is the basis of all human social development. It fixes the mind of a thinker upon his own ideas, and, when in communication with another person, it fixes the mind of the hearer upon the ideally represented objects present in the mind of the speaker. Into its origin it is not necessary to go. But it may be observed that, just as the generalized nature of the instincts and the prolonged immature period enabled the fullest use to be made of the power of conceptual thinking, so the fact that the mouth and the throat, usually otherwise unoccupied, were ready at hand as convenient instruments of communication enabled speech to be developed without occupying other organs, such as the hands, which could be profitably employed at the same time for other purposes.

2. Before we go on to consider how tradition—the product of conceptual thought—is passed on and stored up, it should be noticed that we have not to regard the process of conceptual thought as one which sprang into being in its present form and continued as such ever since. There has been a movement of thought up from dim and rudimentary beginnings to its present stage. This movement may be considered as consisting essentially in the clarification of concepts. It is possible to examine the nature of this movement without reference to the question as to how far the later stages are dependent upon the evolution of innate mental characters. It may be that the higher stages of conceptual thought are possible only when the evolution of the intellect has proceeded beyond the point where lower stages of thought alone are manifested. This question may be neglected for the present and we may consider very briefly the nature of this movement, which is best illustrated if we contrast in a few words the stage which conceptual thought has reached among primitive peoples as a whole with the stage it has reached in the everyday life of the so-called civilized races of the present time, and in so doing we may follow Professor Hobhouse’s recent exposition.[1651]

With the origin of language arises the first sign of the power to grasp the data of experience in accordance with their affinities and so to build up conceptions of individuals, groups, and classes as the subject of rough-and-ready generalizations. ‘With regard to matters standing out very plainly in experience or very close to practical interests there is not room for much divergence in method.... But outside the limited area of readily tested belief lies a mass of more doubtful ideas of great significance in human life. In this region we find in the first stage that the movements of fancy under the sway of feeling take the lead in forming belief, and that the ideas formed are so obscure and inconsistent as to blur the deepest lines of distinction drawn for more developed thought in the logical categories. We may then consider the first stage in human thought to be one of which the process of organizing experience into common categories is incomplete, and the evidence for the truth of an idea is not yet separate from the quality which renders it pleasant.’[1652] This is the stage characteristic of the most primitive peoples. The categories—particularly the category of substance—are not clearly defined. Thus vital functions may be confused with material substance, men and animals may be identified with their shadow, and a pain may be confused with a stone that can be extracted. So, too, it is thought that a man’s qualities can be obtained by eating him. Relations and qualities tend to become substances, substances deliquesce into a series of changes, and the general is confused with the particular. These tendencies of early thought underlie animism and magic, which are characteristic of all primitive races. Mr. Frazer, for instance, has distinguished two forms of sympathetic magic which he calls homoeopathic and contagious magic. Dancing and leaping to make the crops grow high is an example of the former; ‘the sympathy that is supposed to exist between a man and any severed portion of his person, as his hair or nails, so that whoever gets possession of human hair or nails may work his will at any distance upon the person from whom they were cut’,[1653] is an example of the latter. ‘Homoeopathic magic is founded on the association of ideas by similarity: contagious magic is founded on the association of ideas by contiguity. Homoeopathic magic commits the mistake of assuming that things which resemble each other are the same; contagious magic commits the mistake of assuming that things which have once been in contact with each other are always in contact.’[1654]

There follows a second stage which Professor Hobhouse calls the stage of ‘common sense’. It is characterized by the organization of ideas in accordance with the categories and by the differentiation of feeling from belief. At this stage the categories are no longer ordinarily confused and the difficulty of affirming what a man does not like to believe is no longer so strongly felt as in the previous stage. Experience is tested and good evidence is recognized as such. It is no longer believed that an enemy can be harmed by maltreating a likeness of him or that qualities like courage are substances that may be transferred. This is the stage of conceptual thought reached by the ordinary man in everyday life in a modern community when he is not specifically engaged in work of a scientific nature or in problems of religion or philosophy. Just as the simpler mental processes are present among men who have reached the conceptual level, so the earliest stage of conceptual thought can be recognized where later stages have been reached, as, for instance, when grace is conferred by the laying on of hands in a modern community.

The beginnings of the common-sense stage may perhaps be found in the second period. Essentially it is characteristic of the third period, and it was only within this period that this stage came to its full development. When this stage is contrasted with that which preceded it, it is seen that it is the clarification of concepts which is the distinguishing feature of the movement of thought. In other words there has been an improvement in the instrument whereby the intellect works—comparable to any other process through which skill is increased. Just as the bow and arrow and the plough have been improved by a series of inventions, so has the instrument of thought been improved; and just as further improvements in the plough and the bow and arrow after a certain stage has been reached may possibly depend upon further evolution of mental capacity, so possibly progress in the movement of thought may depend upon further evolution of the intellect. Again it should be observed that just as tools such as the plough are handed down as part of the tradition, so, too, the instrument of thought is handed down as part of the tradition and that, therefore, in studying in what follows the manner in which tradition is passed on and stored up, we are studying the methods whereby the instrument of thought as much as any other skilled process is transmitted.

Further stages in the movement of thought maybe distinguished. It is not necessary to go into them here. They arise within the third period, and relatively late within that period. They are characterized by the rise and development of science, philosophy, and religion—religion, that is to say, which has passed beyond the stage of folk-religion.

3. Let us now consider the passing on and storing up of the products of conceptual thinking. We may take the latter point first. Ideas may be stored up in language, customs, folk-lore, institutions, tools, and so on, using tools in the narrower sense of material implements. In one sense language is in itself a great storehouse of ideas quite apart from its function as a means of transmitting ideas regarding specific customs and rights. Slowly and painfully concepts have been elaborated, distinguished, clarified; and as a child learns his native language, in a few years he acquires the products of the thinking of untold generations from whom he is descended. It is difficult to exaggerate the immense importance of this method of storing ideas. Very largely through language alone, though not without the acquirement of ideas otherwise stored, a man passes, by the time he has reached maturity, through a stage of thought corresponding to the primitive stage, to the common-sense stage, and even to the higher stages.

It is obvious enough that at the present day ideas are largely stored in books and the vast importance of writing and printing—inventions of the third period[1655]—is a commonplace. Similarly, ideas are stored in customs, institutions, rites, folk-lore, and so on. Behind all institutions, ceremonies for example, we must seek ideas. The original ideas which gave birth to customs have often been lost, but whether this is so or not, where an institution exists and is passed on there we are witnessing the perpetuation of an idea, if it is merely an idea that it is the correct thing to perform some simple action on certain occasions. Many valuable ideas are stored up in the making and use of tools and in the practice of skilled processes, especially those which are concerned with the provision of food. We can understand how by the exercise of thought improvements in some tool or in some method are now and again made, and, once made, how they are stored up. What is less easy is to understand precisely how the passing on of ideas so stored is brought about.

4. Something has already been said as to the manner in which by means of language ideas present in the mind of the speaker are transmitted to the hearer; and it has been pointed out that apart from this the learning of any language is in itself a process by which the ideas elaborated by former generations are acquired. Bearing in mind the manner in which ideas are transmitted by language, it is clear how, after the invention of writing and more especially after the invention of printing, ideas thus stored up are transmitted. But before these inventions, and indeed to a large extent after them also, ideas committed to memory by each generation are passed on by language. Among primitive people there is a vast store of ideas affecting conduct, belief, and every side of life which is so passed on. But the storing up of ideas is not merely a matter of memory and the passing on is not merely a matter of language. Rites, ceremonies, implements, and so on, are themselves storehouses of ideas, and the transmission of the ideas therein contained, as well indeed as the ideas solely retained in the memory of past generations, is accomplished in large part by a process of absorption.

This process of absorption is due to the presence of certain innate tendencies. These tendencies have sometimes been grouped under one head and called imitation—as, for instance, by Tarde and others who have studied the process and emphasized its great importance in social life. Following McDougall we may distinguish three innate tendencies. By sympathy is meant that the exhibition of emotional excitement on the part of the agent may induce a similar emotional excitement on the part of the patient. By imitation is meant that there may be a tendency for the patient to assimilate his bodily movements to those of the agent. Important as are these innate tendencies in facilitating the transmission of customs and so on—themselves ultimately the product of conceptual thought—suggestion assumes a far more prominent place.

McDougall’s definition of suggestion has already been quoted. According to his view it is essentially the acceptance with conviction of a proposition in the absence of logically adequate grounds for its acceptance. He points out that a proposition is not necessarily communicated in formal language, and further distinguishes certain conditions which are favourable for the communication of propositions by suggestion. Chief among these are deficiency of knowledge relating to the topic in regard to which the suggestion is made, imperfect organization of knowledge, and the impressive character of the source from which the suggested proposition is communicated. These conditions are very prominent among children and in all primitive society. There is no doubt that it is largely by virtue of suggestion that children absorb the tradition of their race and time. Children have little knowledge and what they have is imperfectly organized; further propositions come to them from a source which is impressive and has prestige whether it is from parents or grown-up people or from the conventions ruling in society. Just as children in modern society absorb tradition by suggestion, so do men among primitive races where the conditions are even more favourable for transmission by this means. Thus, in order that the products of conceptual thinking of former generations should be transmitted, it is not necessary that there should be convictions based on logical grounds or that formal language should be employed. Tradition can be, and is to a large extent, ‘absorbed’.

5. Tradition, having thus passed on, is retained, and in the process of retention habit plays an important part. Habit applies to all forms of mental process and to all forms of action. Once something has been performed in one way, it is easier to do it again in that way than in any other. ‘This is the great principle’, says McDougall, ‘by which all acquisitions of the individual mind are preserved’,[1656] whatever the mode of acquisition may be.

6. The products of the thinking of past generations are thus stored up, transmitted, and retained. Additions are made to the store, and improvements are made in the method of storing. Tradition, by which is meant this store, is thus cumulative. The acquirements of past generations are passed on to the present generation and, modified in some degree, are transmitted to future generations. New generations, therefore, so far as acquired knowledge is concerned, begin at the point where the former generation left off. It does not, of course, follow that additions are always being made to tradition; it may be for all practical purposes stagnant or much that has been acquired may be lost.[1657] It does, however, permit of accumulation, and this fact introduces an element of vast importance into the life of man as compared with his pre-human ancestors.

It is not, however, correct to say that this is a wholly new element. Tradition may be and is present before the level of conceptual thinking has been reached. Many animals, for example, live in herds and instinctively take shelter when one member of a herd utters a warning cry. If at some past time a new enemy has appeared, they will have learnt by experience to take shelter. Subsequent generations will raise the warning cry on the appearance of the enemy, because what we may think of as a tradition has grown up concerning the hostile nature of the species with which past generations were brought into contact. Thus we may think of a tradition among horses that motorcars are not dangerous. When cars were first introduced horses tended instinctively to avoid them. Many horses learnt from experience that cars were harmless, and young horses, seeing motorcars for the first time in the presence of older horses, which have learnt the lesson, absorb the tradition that they are not dangerous. Tradition among animals can go even farther than this. To some degree it seems that the manner of nest building among birds is traditional and not instinctive.[1658] But compared with the vast importance of tradition among men, tradition among animals is an almost negligible feature in their lives, and for all practical purposes we can think of tradition as a peculiar characteristic of man due to the higher mental process to which he has attained.

7. In any race at any given time there is thus a vast body of tradition. These traditions govern both the degree and the direction in which the various mental processes function. What is meant will be clearer if we think of the influence of the mass of traditions upon physical characters. At any given time there are a number of tools and skilled processes known and employed and, in the first place, the degree in which the body is exercised will depend upon their nature. It may be that hunting with bow and arrow, or fishing in canoes, is the chief occupation of the men. The degree of physical exercise will be conditioned by these traditions and so too will, in the second place, the nature and direction of physical exercise. Similarly with regard to the intellectual faculties, the degree to which they are used will be conditioned by the form of language, by the necessity of learning what custom lays down as the acquirement of an average member of society, and by the opportunities and inducements generally to the employment of reasoning. The direction in which the intellectual faculties work will also be closely conditioned by tradition. Having absorbed the traditions of the race and time, the direction which reasoning follows will always be very largely governed by what has been acquired. Few men strike out new paths, and, when they do, the direction of the path is seen to be greatly influenced by the previous trend of thought. Tradition, as it advances, thus tends to proceed in grooves.

The manner in which tradition conditions the degree and nature of the manifestation of the instinctive tendencies is equally well marked. Among some races, such as the Eskimos, fighting is almost unknown. Though among such races the instinct of pugnacity is probably less strongly given in the germinal constitution than among other races, to a large extent the relative absence of fighting is certainly due to tradition. Among the Eskimos we find a great body of custom and ideas all of which tend to impress upon them that fighting is wrong. An emotion again may be greatly developed by some racial tradition. Self-assertion is much more developed among the members of the larger and more prosperous European races than among the smaller and weaker races. The attitude of the Englishman is very different from that of the Dane, who will tell you that Denmark is only a little country that wants to be let alone. Latterly the attention of the world has been drawn to the peculiar manner in which the teaching of various historians, moralists, philosophers and others has moulded the outlook of the Germans and come to direct the expression of their emotions. Thus in a most striking manner it has been made obvious how a peculiar body of tradition, ultimately the product of conceptual thinking, has directed the emotions and sentiments of a whole people into certain channels with such disastrous results. The direction of an instinct is often changed; the tender emotion may be diverted among the childless to charitable works, and the instincts of celibates obviously become much changed. Any instinct indeed is capable of manifesting itself in very different forms according to the outlet which it finds, and the nature of the outlet is determined chiefly by tradition. ‘On a, aujourd’hui’, says Joubert, ‘non seulement la cupidité mais l’ambition du gain.’[1659] The simpler emotion has, that is to say, become more complex under the influence of the traditional environment.

8. Lastly we may note that the tradition acquired and present at any one time may form the basis for the selection of men and of groups of men. There are often, especially among the higher races, differences in tradition as between the groups and classes in the same race. The differences are usually much greater between different races. The tradition present in a race, whether because it includes a higher degree of skill, enables a greater degree of coherence to be realized, is the foundation of more vigorous endeavour, or because it is a combination of these and other elements, may enable one race, when in conflict with other races, to overcome those other races, should the latter be possessed of a tradition, which, taken as a whole, is, relatively to the conditions of the contest, less valuable. There is thus a process of natural selection based upon differences in tradition, just as there is a natural selection based upon differences due to modifications and also upon differences due to mutations. Selection of modifications, as we have seen, produces no permanent results. But selection of tradition, like selection of mutations, has results which may be permanent. In primitive society, where tradition within a race tends to be uniform, this selection of tradition chiefly comes into play in the conflict between races. In more advanced societies where there are considerable differences in tradition between the classes, it also comes into play within races.

The conflict between races is always in large measure a conflict between traditions whether or not the differences in tradition are a measure of more fundamental differences. In these conflicts a mass of tradition may be wiped out and lost for good or any degree of amalgamation of tradition may take place.

At length within modern races there arises a competition of ideas of a rather different nature. Within civilized races there is no longer a mass of tradition which has to be accepted as a whole; there are different ideas which may be said to compete. One idea may get the better of another within the minds of the majority without involving any elimination of men who hold any other idea, because men can now change their outlook—not, of course, in the case of the great majority by any logical process. Thus a struggle comes into being between ideas, customs, and institutions in modern communities which leads to change without involving human selection.

These considerations pave the way to an examination of the influence of the actual conditions under which tradition has been elaborated. We have seen that conceptual thinking develops with, and is furthered by, the use of speech. It does not develop merely to a particular level and there stop. There is a movement of thought which at least in its earlier stages takes the form of a clarification of concepts. The products of conceptual thinking are stored up and handed on in the form of tradition. This tradition is cumulative. Not only are additions made to it but the methods of storing are improved. Elements may also be lost. Finally, forming, as it does, a very important element in the manifestation of human mental character, men, and more particularly races of men, may be selected in accordance with the degree and quality of tradition acquired by them.

XX THE ORIGIN OF TRADITION

1. The study of the formation of tradition is a matter of great complexity. Many important aspects of the problem await elucidation. It is proposed here to reduce the discussion to the barest outline, and to confine it to the origin of skilled processes and in particular to the origin of skill in the provision of the essential requirements of daily life. We further take into account only the most important aspects of the environment—namely, the influence of fertility and the influence of contact of man with man and of race with race. All questions connected with innate differences in mental and physical characters will be for the present disregarded. We want to know—other things being equal—how skill will originate and grow, given such differences in the environment as regards fertility and contact as exist.

2. The first problem which confronts us is concerned with the differences in the environment arising from differences in fertility. To this term a special meaning is attached. Fertility as here employed corresponds to what is usually spoken of as the wealth of any country or district. The nature and abundance of the fauna and flora, the surface features of the land, the composition of the upper layers of the ground, the minerals and to some degree the climate, as well as other factors, all go to make up the fertility or wealth of any area. The differences in the factors which go to make up fertility as between different portions of the world’s surface are well known; they are very great—areas closely approximated being at times sharply differentiated one from another whereas in other places conditions remain very similar over large areas.

The most important fact to be observed in this connexion is that there is no absolute standard of fertility. ‘The term fertility’, says Marshall, ‘has no meaning except with reference to the special circumstances of a particular time and place.’[1660] Fertility is in fact purely a relative term, and, now that we have for the moment put aside differences in mental and physical characters, fertility is relative for our purpose only to the amount of skill and such other elements of tradition as may be in existence. An area, which is very fertile for a race with some agricultural skill, may be far from fertile for a race with a knowledge only of hunting and fishing, and the presence of minerals obviously adds nothing to the fertility of an area to a race lacking knowledge of their use. The country inhabited by the Eskimos, who maintain a standard of living that, relative to the standard achieved by many races, is far from low, would be wholly infertile to a race not possessed of the peculiar skill distinctive of Eskimo culture.

It should be noticed that, so far as fertility is dependent upon animal and plant life, the fertility of different regions of the world’s surface has varied in the period covered by the emergence of man, not merely relatively but absolutely. There have been climatic changes of which the glacial periods were the most remarkable. There have been changes in the boundaries of seas, such as the Mediterranean, which have profoundly affected the fertility of the neighbouring regions. The Sahara at one time was certainly not as barren as it is now. In any survey, such as that we are going to make, which was at all detailed, such changes would have to be taken into account. But in what follows they may be disregarded.

It may be observed here that in certain areas there is a destructive element in the total make-up of the surroundings. The variable climatic conditions of Australia and India which have been noticed in another connexion are of importance also in this respect. The hurricanes of New Caledonia are another example. So too are all those features in the Central African environment which destroy the products of man’s handiwork.[1661] This destructive element is only an exaggeration of certain features which characterize all areas; nevertheless where these features are exaggerated important results follow. There may be, for instance, two areas, otherwise equally fertile; but if the destructive element is important in one area, it is probable that so high an economic stage will not be reached or maintained there as in the other, and further, for the same reason, there will be less tendency for any advance in tradition to be made. The reason for this will be clear when we have examined the influence which fertility has upon skill. For this destructive element is a kind of negative fertility, and just as fertility is on the whole favourable to progress in skill, so what is equivalent to its absence is a hindrance to progress in skill.

3. Fertility is thus relative to the tradition prevalent at any one time. Let us suppose that man has spread over the surface of the world and that the tradition present is everywhere very similar, being of a simple form so far as skill is concerned, and consisting in a rudimentary knowledge of hunting and fishing. It is clear that certain areas—the great deserts, the frozen wastes of the north—will be absolutely infertile; with this degree of skill only, life cannot be maintained there. The remaining areas will vary from those which are just sufficiently fertile to permit of life being maintained to those which are the most fertile relative to this particular degree of skill. Supposing for the moment that the degree of skill remains everywhere similar, it follows, from what has been said earlier, that population will be most dense and the return per head highest where the fertility is greatest. Other things being equal, differences in fertility are thus responsible for important differences in social life.

From these differences in fertility therefore consequences of the greatest importance follow. In the first place, where population is most dense, there, other things being equal, will be the greatest amount of contact between men. With the results that flow from contact we shall deal later, but it may be mentioned here that contact is in itself a stimulus leading to the origin of, additions to, and modifications of, tradition, and that the greater the amount of contact the more quickly and the more thoroughly is tradition transmitted. Therefore, in the first place, where the fertility is greatest, there will be the greatest opportunity for existing tradition to be quickly absorbed. In the second place, quite apart from the question of contact, where fertility is greatest there is also for other reasons the greatest stimulus to increase in skill. To illustrate this point let us remember in what fertility consists. The existence of areas of greater fertility implies that there are in such areas either a greater abundance of animals, plants, minerals, and so on which can be of use, or a greater variety, or both together. Let us further remember how inventions come about. For thousands of years in a variety of ways the fact that the seed if sown would produce its like in twenty-, fifty-, or a hundred-fold measure must have been pressing itself upon the attention of man when supporting himself by hunting and fishing only. How often the metal softened in the camp fire before the method of fashioning a far more effective tool than stone was adopted, we cannot guess. Eventually the facts were observed, the practical applications to the needs of life undertaken, and valuable additions made to skill and embodied in tradition. Man in fact throughout the greater part of his history has not gone about consciously trying to better his lot. Rude and poor as life was, his necessity was not the mother of his inventions. Once, however, an invention was made it became a necessity, and it is more in accordance with the facts to invert the proverb and to regard invention as the mother of necessity. But where should we expect the facts to be noticed and the improvements to be made in skill? Obviously where they most often happened, where, in other words, fertility was greatest. For it is in those regions where there is the greatest abundance in quality and quantity of useful objects that there will be the greatest chance of their usefulness being observed, and that there will be derived the highest return per head from any improvements in skill.

The greater the fertility, therefore, the greater the incentive to progress in skill. This conclusion may seem to be in contradiction with the commonly accepted idea that, when a living is easily obtained, there is a tendency to stagnation.[1662] This notion is derived from observations and descriptions of countries where, so it is said, such is the bounty of nature that the hand has, so to speak, only to be stretched out in order to gather in the fruits of the earth. This idea is largely founded upon an under-estimate of the labour undergone, especially on the part of the women, and upon an exaggeration of the returns per head, and, as far as it is so derived, it is incorrect. But it is true that often in such regions there is a tendency to stagnation; such tendency, however, is in no way derived from the fertility; it arises because to the tradition there is added for quite other reasons a spirit of apathy and of listlessness. How this comes about may be discussed later but it may be mentioned here that a destructive element in the natural endowment of any area, such as not infrequently exists in tropical regions, is one cause of the existence of this spirit.

4. Fertility then is relative, but, other things being equal, where fertility is greatest there we find the greatest incentive to increase in skill. From this follow certain important consequences. So long as progress in skill keeps along any one line, so long as it takes the form, for instance, of improvement in methods of hunting, so long, as a general rule, will the same areas remain the more fertile areas. But this does not always follow. It may be that some remarkable invention, that of the bow and arrow perhaps, renders areas, previously not the most fertile, the most remunerative. Hitherto it may have been that in such areas the hunting of game was for various reasons difficult until a higher degree of skill was reached, but this higher degree having been reached, these areas became more remunerative than those previously the most fertile. With the progress of skill there is thus a shifting of the centres of the highest fertility.

This shifting of centres becomes more marked where progress takes a different turn, where, for instance, agriculture arises. For this there are two main reasons. First, it generally happens that an area which is very fertile to a high degree of development of one kind of skill, as the north-west coast of America is fertile to hunting and fishing, is relatively infertile to another type of skill, as, for instance, agriculture, in any case in its lower forms. It is rare that any area is so highly endowed that at one and the same time it offers a large return to the development of a particular form of skill and is also relatively fertile to the first beginnings of another and ultimately far more remunerative type of skill. Secondly, it is not as a rule where skill is specialized that we find the beginnings of a new form of skill. Tradition tends to move in grooves and where attention is with success concentrated upon one type of skilled process, it is not there that we should expect to find the origin of quite another type of skilled process. This is only an application of a principle noted in another connexion, namely that evolution proceeds from the generalized and not from the specialized type.

In this manner the differences in natural endowment which distinguish one part of the world from another bring about a shifting of the centres of progress. There are other factors still to be considered which work in the same direction; but apart from them this shifting comes about. Though this shifting has been a feature of every stage of human history, it must have been most noticeable where the great steps in skill were made—when agriculture superseded hunting, when animals were first domesticated, and when metals came into use.

5. To differences in fertility we have to add differences in contact as affecting progress in skill. Contact may be considered as varying in quality and quantity and may be thought of as influenced chiefly by two groups of factors which we may call geographical and economic. We may first ask how it is that differences in contact bring about differences in skill.

From contact two results follow. The spread of tradition is in varying degrees encouraged and progress in tradition is more or less stimulated. For the most part differences in the spreading of tradition are to be traced to differences in the quantity of contact, though differences in quality also play a considerable part, while differences in the manner in which progress is stimulated arise chiefly from differences in the quality of contact.

It is obvious that tradition can only be transmitted by means of contact. Later developments such as writing and printing allow of contact at a distance; but for the most part it is personal contact with which we are concerned. It is on the whole true that, other things being equal, the more contact, the more swiftly and easily is the existing mass of tradition disseminated throughout any society, and that therefore the more fertile an area, the greater the chance of the spreading of tradition. But other things are by no means equal throughout history. At a certain stage, owing to the working of what we may sum up as economic factors, there comes about a profound change in the organization of society, the nature of which is described below. This change markedly favours the transmission of tradition and therefore we have to remember that the amount of contact ascertained by the density of population is by no means a fair measure of the degree in which the passing on of tradition is facilitated. Further consideration of this point may be left until we come to deal with the changes referred to. Geographical factors also have a bearing upon the transmission of tradition, but since their influence is chiefly pronounced in the stimulus to skill arising from the conflict of traditions of different quality we may leave them to be dealt with later as a whole.

Of more importance than the bearing of contact upon the transmission of tradition is the part it plays as a stimulus to tradition. The remarkable change which at a certain period supervenes in the organization of society and to which reference has been made above, has as far-reaching effects in affecting stimulus to skill as it has in facilitating the transmission of tradition. Again we may leave the consideration of this point until we have described the nature of this change. It is clear, however, that the presence of other men is on the whole a stimulus, though not in itself an important stimulus, so long as tradition is fairly uniform. Nevertheless the more contact there is, on the whole the more stimulus there is. ‘There be thoughts’, wrote Maitland, ‘which only come to men when they be tightly packed.’[1663] But it is when traditions of different quality come into contact that the stimulus becomes important. Where this happens, we have to distinguish two things. There is the passing over of the elements peculiar to each tradition to the other tradition and there is the stimulus which the mere contact affords.

The passing over of elements of one tradition to another and the stimulus afforded go more or less together. Under certain circumstances there is no passing over and there is no stimulus, or at least they are reduced to a minimum. This sometimes happens when two cultures varying very markedly one from the other come into contact—one being distinguished by the possession of a far higher degree of skill than the other. The less skilled race is driven from its territory, and if it survives it is because certain areas of its territory are relatively infertile to the higher skill of the conquering race. A remnant of the less skilled race survives in some corner of its former territory and reaches a modus vivendi with the dominant race. This modus vivendi may take the form of an almost complete disregard of one race for the other; no influence is exerted by one on the other; little, if anything, is absorbed from the other tradition. Some such condition was reached as between the Veddahs, the Todas, the Central African pygmies, and the races respectively surrounding them.

In order that the contact should be effective it is necessary that the differences between the cultures should not be too great. It is most effective in such a region as Western Asia where in close proximity there are several areas varying markedly one from another. In such a region there will grow up, owing to the variations in fertility, somewhat different traditions. These traditions coming into contact will rarely wholly overwhelm one another; there will be a perpetual taking over by one tradition of some elements from the other so that each tradition will be enriched as it could not have been enriched had it depended entirely upon the environment which gave birth to it. Further, the fact that implements, skilled processes, customs, and institutions of a strange nature are now and again coming under the notice of each race acts as a stimulus to thought and invention quite apart from the advantage that may be gained by the absorption of what is valuable into its tradition. It is probable that in this stimulus to thought we have to recognize one of the most important factors making towards progress.

There is no space to pursue this subject here. It may perhaps be noticed that, when two cultures come into contact, all the elements do not spread with equal rapidity. It has been observed, for instance, that, when a tradition comprising greater skill comes into contact with a less full tradition, ‘it is the recognition of the superiority of the natural objects and arts which prevails and makes possible the acceptance of other elements of an introduced culture.’[1664] Certain general principles can be made out but there is much that requires elucidation. There is a considerable body of evidence in favour of the view that megalithic buildings have been derived from one centre. If this is so, it is a remarkable example of the fact that an art of an obviously impressive though not useful nature can pass from one race to another without any noticeable assimilation of other elements of the culture where the art was first practised. Again, if this is so, it is not improbable that useful arts which in their way are equally impressive may have similarly proceeded from one centre. It is remarkable also that mythology can apparently spread from one culture to another. To whatever source we may attribute their origin there seems little doubt that in North America, for instance, tales and legends have spread from one side of the continent to the other after very different economic systems had been evolved and without any marked spreading of other elements in the traditions at the same time.[1665]

6. Having thus indicated the manner in which contact influences the origin, growth, and transmission of tradition we may turn to consider what bearing geographical and economic factors have upon contact. The former problem may be passed over with a few words; the latter will require a rather longer discussion. The former has been the subject of much attention and the main facts, which are all that concern us, are familiar; the latter has not received so much attention though it is of great importance.

Not only the spread of elements of culture but also the movement of peoples are governed by geographical factors. An isolated area is isolated from the slow permeation of elements of tradition, as well as from migratory races. To the degree, therefore, to which any area is isolated, it is removed both from those influences which favour the passing on of elements of tradition as well as those which form an incentive to skill. Isolation is never complete. The more isolated an area is, the less often have migratory races reached it, with the result that when they have done so, there has usually been a conflict between a culture so dissimilar in skill that the migratory race has often wiped out the original race. Apart from the visits of migratory races the beneficial results of contact are reduced to a minimum within an isolated area. The differences in traditions are small, and both the elements of culture which can be acquired and the stimulus which can be derived from contact are of little importance. What these geographical features are is fairly well known.

The first factor is isolation by sea. America was apparently peopled some time in the first period. Subsequently to the date of its original peopling it may be regarded as having been for all practical purposes isolated from the other continents and thus its inhabitants had been long cut off from contact with the rest of the human race when it was ‘discovered’ by Columbus. America was probably visited, perhaps more than once, by parties reaching the Pacific Coast and was certainly visited by the Norsemen, but this small amount of contact has exerted no influence upon the evolution of skill. America is the most remarkable instance of isolation by sea. Isolation by sea has exerted a profound influence upon Australia, New Zealand, and Oceania; and important also has been the semi-isolation of Africa, which continent, until great progress had been made in navigation, was only in contact with Asia by a narrow neck. Among primitive races deserts and mountains hinder contact in almost equal degree, and, though in one sense not geographical features, forests and vegetation, especially in tropical countries, exert a profound influence upon contact.

Other features in the environment may be regarded rather as facilitating contact. Rivers form great arteries of communication, and it is remarkable how small a hindrance they are to contact. Thus ‘Christopher Gist, exploring the Ohio in 1751, found a Shawnee village situated on both sides of the river below the mouth of the Scioto, with about a hundred houses on the north bank and forty on the south. The small and unique nation of the Mandan Indians were found by Lewis and Clarke near the northern bend of the Missouri in 1864 in two groups of villages on opposite sides of the river. They had previously in 1772 occupied nine villages lower down the stream, two on the east bank and seven on the west.’[1666] Fresh-water lakes, though not salt lakes, have again been centres in which contact has been favoured, as was the case in Switzerland at one period and also in Mexico and Peru where the highest level of progress was reached in America.

In considering any area there are certain general features of importance quite apart from those which actually hinder or facilitate contact. In the case of any area there is what we may call its location, that is to say, its position relative to its surroundings. The position of any area in Africa with regard to its distance from the north-eastern corner, through which contact with inhabitants of other continents came about, is obviously of great importance, and similarly is the distance of any one area from the sea when navigation has been developed. To location we may add diversity of features which brings about the contact between different economic systems. This feature of diversity is chiefly relevant when considering large areas; and in this respect Europe and Asia are far more favoured than America.

Lastly, differences in language are a potent influence in hindering contact though they are rather evidences than causes of isolation. When once established differences in language intensify the isolation due to other causes. It may be observed in passing that, contrary to what might be expected, the degree to which among primitive races ‘foreign’ languages are understood is considerable.

Though in the first two periods the importance of the various factors in hindering and facilitating contact has varied greatly, it is sufficient, when taking a broad view, to bear the general nature of these influences in mind. The tendency in the third period has been obviously to reduce vastly the importance of all hindrances to contact arising from features of the environment. Railways cross deserts and tunnels pierce mountains, and that amount of contact, small though it may be, which owing to the inventions of writing and printing now occurs between all parts of the world, can transmit more tradition than wide avenues of contact between neighbouring peoples previously made possible.

Here we can leave this matter. It has been worked out in much detail. All that is necessary for our purpose is to bear in mind the fact, which indeed is obvious, that contact is in various ways hindered and facilitated by geographical causes.

7. We have now to consider what is less familiar—the bearing of what we may call economic factors upon contact. These factors are themselves but an expression of the working of the economic system, and the economic system is correlated with fertility though modified by the degree and kind of contact allowed by the geographical environment. Therefore in considering the working of these economic factors, we are in fact considering another aspect of the manner in which the environment bears thus indirectly upon contact.

Progress in skill, as we have said, is correlated with increasing density of population, and, other things being equal, the greater the density of population, the more contact there is. But other things are not equal; the chief disturbing factors are those connected with the organization of society in their influence both upon the quality and quantity of contact. The vast importance of the step which led to the origin of primitive society has already been remarked upon. When we observe primitive society in more detail, it is seen that, compared with the type of organization which arose in the third period, this form of society essentially consists of a repetition of similar elements.[1667] A perfect type of this form of society would be one which consisted merely of a collection of families, not differing essentially one from another, each being a microcosm of the whole society. Actually we find that primitive society is usually composed of the repetition of larger elements than the family, which Durkheim calls ‘clans’. This term is employed in order to mark the family and political features which characterize these elements. The variations of the constitution of primitive society are very numerous, but it has essentially this form which Durkheim calls ‘segmentary’. The solidarity of such a society rests solely upon the similarity between these clans; the binding forces, that is to say, which keep the society together, do not take their origin in the fact that these elements are complementary to each other and in combination form one organic whole; such coherence as there is arises solely from the fact that these elements, in so far as they are similar, coalesce together. Typically, then, we find in this stage of organization families living side by side very largely independent one of another but combining to form clans. These clans have as a rule no definite constitution; but at times, owing to internal dissensions or warfare, a leader or leaders may arise who put themselves at the head of these groups.

As has been said, variations in and developments of this type of organization may arise and, though among primitive races some approach to the higher type can be detected, the evolution of the higher type of organization is essentially a development which took place in the third period. This type of organization we call organic, as distinguished from segmentary, because in the first place the elements which go to form the whole do not simply cohere owing to their similarity; they are in the nature of more or less specialized organs all of which are necessary in order that the whole may exist. Each again has a particular rôle and each organ is formed of differentiated parts. These organs are not simply connected one with another like links in a chain; they are co-ordinated one with another and subordinated one to another into an organic system. The parts are dependent on the whole and the whole on the parts.

In an organic society, in fact, men are grouped according to their profession and not according to their descent. One of the marks of the segmentary type of society is that men are grouped according to their descent, real or fictitious, and it is this relationship which determines their position in society. In the organic type of society, that which determines a man’s position is the function which he fulfils. In this form of society there are remnants of the older form of organization, as is seen in the recognition of areas, smaller elements such as parishes being united into larger areas such as boroughs, which are united in turn into provinces of which the country is composed. This, however, is not the form of organization which keeps the higher type of society together. That which forms its essential difference from the lower type is the organic nature of the relation of the parts—the complementary co-ordination of the various professions one with the other. It is this interlocking of complementary parts and not the coherence of similar segments which cement the form of society typical of the third stage.

8. The evolution from the segmentary to the organic form of social organization was relatively speaking a rapid process. The approach that can be made to the organic type within the segmentary type is only slight. Doubtless the new type developed within the old forms. Thus we see among the Hebrews the assumption of priestly functions by a single tribe—that of the Levites. But the development of the organic type cannot go far without breaking up the segmentary form of organization; the number and importance of functions does not correspond with the existing forms of organization and cannot long develop within them.

We have now to ask what brings about the evolution of the organic type of society and then what bearing these forms of organization have upon the growth and transmission of tradition. It is rather that the crumbling away of this segmentary organization of society brings to birth the organic type than that the growth of the latter is the cause of the disappearance of the former. This must be so because, as we have seen, the existence of the segmentary type is a barrier to the development of the organic type. This crumbling away is brought about by what Durkheim calls the growth of moral density. Growth in moral density comes about through the pressure of the increasing contact between men performing the same functions, and this causes the decay of the segmentary type of organization and brings about an organization resting upon function. The effect acts upon the cause and accelerates the process. The growth in moral density is connected with the growth in volume of society which is measured solely by the increase in population. But growth in moral density, though only made possible by growth in volume, does not of necessity go hand in hand with it. Growth of moral coalescence is not correlated absolutely with the increase in volume. The density of population can become very considerable, while the moral density remains relatively undeveloped. This result is sometimes attributable to the survival of certain elements of segmentary organization to which religious feelings have become attached and which have, therefore, resisted the forces which make for their dissolution. This is the case, for example, with regard to the maintenance of the family system in China, which is the great barrier to a development of moral coalescence. The most powerful motive in Chinese life is the devotion to the family system, and this motive prevents the progress of division of labour. Among the Hindus the caste system has the same effect. But it is not merely a survival from a former segmentary organization to which religious motives have become attached; it has actually undergone a development for the most part in opposition to the organic organization of society. ‘The divisions’, says Sherring, ‘among the Hindus involving complete separation in respect of marriage and social intercourse, number not hundreds but thousands. In other words the Hindu brotherhood is split up into innumerable clans, holding not the smallest connexion with one another, acknowledging no common bond save that of idolatry.... Caste dissolves the social compact found in other countries, infuses the poison of deadly strife into the small village communities scattered in tens of thousands over the land, induces enmity between neighbours on the most trivial grounds, carries out its own childish rites and laws with Draconian severity, exercises the strongest power of disintegration the human race has ever been subject to, and only displays a spirit of binding and uniting in relation to those selfish creatures who belong to one and the same caste, and who are thereby kept apart from all the rest of mankind by an unnatural divorce.’[1668]

Thus primarily it is the breaking down of the segmentary type of organization and the condensation of society which permits the division of labour. In the end the advance to the higher type of organization is attributable to the growth of population. It is first necessary that a relatively high degree of skill should be attained involving a certain density of population. Then there arises a tendency for the segmentary organization to break down and give way to the organic type. The breaking down may be more or less imperfect and there may be factors which work against the full development of the organic type.

9. The degree to which the higher type of organization favours the increase of skill cannot be overestimated. So long as all men are more or less self-supporting and perform all the functions necessary to maintain existence, the securing of food, the building of shelters, the fashioning of weapons, the making of clothes, their skill in any one direction must remain small. But as soon as certain men begin to concentrate upon certain functions the whole position changes. It then becomes possible for skill to reach a far higher level, and with the further division of functions there is practically no limit to the degree of skill which may be obtained. A concentration upon one function and the association of men so employed are themselves powerful stimuli to further progress. The facts are familiar and there is no need to elaborate the position. At length classification by function tends to override classification by any other standard, and all those engaged in any country in any one function become associated in such a manner that the stimulus is further emphasized and the possibility of any favourable new departure being lost is reduced to a minimum.

The importance of the organic type of organization in favouring the transmission and storing of tradition is equally well marked when compared with the segmentary type. The more society is divided into self-contained and self-sufficient segments, the less likelihood is there that any development in one segment will spread to the other segments. All events tend to be localized, and any promising departure in a new direction is unlikely to penetrate far and become embodied in tradition. New departures are more likely to be lost altogether than to be preserved. The more society is organized on the organic type, on the other hand, the more facilities there are for the transmission and storing of tradition. As the segmentary system breaks down, the transmission and storing of tradition themselves become special functions. Various means of communication are elaborated, the spreading of news becomes a function in itself, teaching becomes a profession, and libraries are established.

10. Such very briefly are the nature, causes, and results of the change in the organization of society so far as concerns our present purpose. There are certain points in this connexion to which some allusion may be made. We have already commented on the fact that the transformation to the higher type does not go hand in hand with growth in numbers. The two examples from India and China showed how little correspondence there may be between density of population and division of labour. Again, in modern communities there is an apparent anomaly. There are considerable differences as regards the amount and kind of tradition present in the different strata of society, and this may appear all the more anomalous because in such societies the division of labour has been developed to the greatest extent. Tradition, it would seem, should be very uniform. Uniformity of tradition, on the other hand, is a mark of primitive society. But this anomaly is only apparent. Among primitive races there is infinitely less tradition than among civilized races. Among the latter not only is the amount of tradition vast, but it is in the course of rapid evolution, and there is therefore in the first place a far greater possibility for differences in tradition to arise. Further, the very fact of the division of labour means that different forms of skill are cultivated deliberately by different elements of the community. Thence arise the differences in social customs and conventions which are apparent in the different strata of modern society. Where there is division of labour, there must be, as we have seen, differences in the acquirement of the tradition of skill, and we may think of the differences in the social and conventional tradition as originating in the differences in functions. Where there is ownership of property on a large scale, ownership may be regarded as a function in society, and clearly enough certain customs and conventions become connected with this function and distinguish the so-called upper classes. Differences in social tradition so arising do lead to some approach to a segmentary division of society. Once classes are set up, there is a tendency for a man to take his position rather according to his class than according to his function. Actually what happens is that the upper classes adopt certain functions, the sacerdotal or the military for example, and thus the differences in custom and convention become somewhat artificially perpetuated, perpetuated that is to say over and above the distinctions which would be the inevitable accompaniment of different functions. In this fashion class becomes of considerable importance in modern communities as a barrier to the transmission of tradition, and there is thus less coalescence between those performing different functions than the mere division of labour brings about.

Interesting as are these modifications of the working of what we have called economic factors, they do not seriously affect the conclusions to be drawn in a broad survey. The transformation to the organic type of society is a mark of the third period, and therefore within this period the conditions became such as to stimulate the growth of skill and to facilitate the transmission and storing of skill in a manner never before approached.

11. Given, therefore, differences in fertility and in the geographical configuration as between one part of the world’s surface and another, and given migration, we can understand how skill arises, how it is transmitted, and how it is stored. The factors considered are not the only factors, but they are the chief factors, and a consideration of them alone enables us to understand how in the main progress may be achieved—how, that is to say, to some degree command over nature may be attained. Further, in thus tracing the causes of progress in this narrow sense we are tracing in some manner the origin and growth of other elements in tradition, not directly concerned with command over nature. This can be illustrated by a reference to the results obtained by Messrs. Hobhouse, Wheeler, and Ginsberg. As we have seen, progress in skill falls easily into a series of stages—hunting and fishing, agricultural and metal-using. These authors further subdivided hunting people into two stages, agricultural peoples into three, and pastoral into two. They then investigated the correlation between these stages and the conditions relative to justice, the family, warfare, and so on. It was found that in the points indicative of the degree of social organization there is a certain correspondence with economic advance. ‘This correspondence’, they say they have found, ‘in the development of government and of justice alike, in the fact that as we mount the scale there is more of government and more of the public administration of justice within society, and in the fact that the unit for government and for justice extends. Both intensively and extensively there is a growth of order corresponding roughly to the industrial advance. On the other hand economic development has no necessary connexion with improvement in the relation between members of a society. It does not imply greater considerateness or a keener sense of justice, and in some ways may be held even adverse to them. Thus in relation to marriage and the position of women, we find little change throughout the grades, and of those which we do find the most marked are specifically connected with the economic factor, viz. the extension of purchase and of general polygamy.... Economic causes are again associated with the development of organized warfare and the substitution of the enslavement of prisoners for their slaughter, liberation, or adoption.’[1669]

In other words social institutions are correlated to a considerable extent with economic systems, and in tracing economic systems to differences in the ‘wealth’ of the environment and to differences in contact, we are at the same time accounting to the extent of this correlation for the existence of most social institutions. Those aspects of tradition which are not correlated with the economic system are obviously often explicable as due to the direct influence of the environment; for differences in the environment which have little or no bearing on the economic system may give rise to differences in these aspects of tradition. It has often been pointed out, for example, that the trend of legends is explicable as due to certain aspects of the environment; thus in Assyria legends were largely connected with floods. In large part, therefore, differences in fertility and differences in degree and kind of contact account not merely for progress in skill but also in large measure for many social institutions, and those aspects of social institutions which are not so to be explained are in part due to the influence of aspects of the environment which do not contribute directly to fertility, and in part to a complicated interaction of tradition. It was remarked that, so far as can be seen, the more conscious methods of adjusting the level of population to the optimum number are not correlated with the economic system. There is no evidence of infanticide and abortion, for example, being so correlated. The occurrence of these institutions among certain races irrespective of the economic conditions may be accounted for by differences in the environment which do not affect wealth. We have seen that certain methods must of necessity be employed, and the adoption of one method in one place and of another in some other place may be due, for example, to the presence in one area of plants by the use of which abortion can be brought about, or the presence in another area of an instrument designed for some other purpose which can be employed for this object. In other areas the practice of killing deformed children from superstitious motives may have been developed into a regular custom of infanticide, or the taboo upon intercourse for short periods may have become developed into a practice of abstaining for prolonged periods.

XXI THE RELATIVE IMPORTANCE OF TRADITION AND HEREDITY

1. We are now in a position to attempt an estimate of the relative importance of germinal change on the one hand and of the accumulation of tradition on the other.[1670] The direct influence of the environment cannot be left altogether out of account; it is, however, already apparent from what has been said on the subject that, although the direct influence of the environment may modify the course of history, it is not an important factor in comparison with the other two. That which renders the problem so difficult is the fact that the manifestations of human characteristics are shaped both by traditional changes and by germinal changes, and that each kind of change reacts on the other. Thus if we observe increasing subservience in the characteristics of a race, we must remember that previous elimination of the more self-assertive may manifest itself in this manner by moulding tradition through a long course of years, that the nature of the environment may set the current of tradition flowing in this direction, or that both factors may be at work; and that, so far as the second factor is at work, it may for reasons to be explained below cause the elimination of the more self-assertive and so accelerate the process. It is in fact very difficult to arrive at any precise conclusions regarding particular problems, but we shall, after considering certain problems, reach a fairly definite conclusion regarding the relative importance of these factors in general.

2. With these problems in view we may first consider the general characteristics of the intermediate period and then those of the three subsequent periods.

It is clear that at the beginning of the intermediate period the ancestors of man were living under those conditions which we have seen to be common to all species in a state of nature and that, therefore, if we are to speak of history at all, history was at this time an expression of germinal change alone. We know nothing directly as to what happened within this period, but from such hints as we can get we must apparently make certain deductions. We know that within this long period—many times as long as the whole period which has succeeded it—there was accomplished by far the greater part of the evolution of the human intellect. This is the conclusion we draw from the fact that the intellect of primitive races, which must be taken as representing man in the first period, differs in a small degree from that of modern man relative to the difference which we must suppose to have existed between the intellect of man in the first period and that of the pre-human ancestor. Again the picture we must draw of our ancestors in the intermediate period is that of a species acquiring domination almost solely by its intellect. Further we have seen that the advance to the stage of primitive society was only made possible by an important step in mental evolution—so important a step that none of our ancestors who did not take it have survived. The deduction to be drawn is clearly that in the intermediate period history was founded in the main on germinal change. If we find reason to conclude that germinal change has ceased to play so important a part in the following periods, it should be remembered that the sum of all these latter periods represents but a fraction of the length of the intermediate period. If we regard human history as a whole and date the beginning at the time when our ancestors began to move away from those conditions which govern the existence of all species in a state of nature, then we must conclude that germinal change has been the explanation of what has happened during far the greater part of history as defined above.

3. The course of history from the beginning of the first period to the present day presents certain remarkable features. It has to be remembered that the course of events in the first and second periods has been reconstructed from evidence gathered almost solely in Europe, and even then in large part from one country, namely, France. Europe was not the centre of progress, and it may be that the abrupt replacement of one stage of culture by another, of which we find evidence, would not be what we should find nearer the centre of progress. There the evolution of culture may have been more continuous. From time to time waves of migration swept westwards and a higher stage of culture overwhelmed the lower. It may be that the culture systems on reaching Europe followed lines of development of their own which, owing to circumstances being relatively less favourable, did not carry them so far as nearer their point of origin. Therefore the next wave as a rule brought a higher degree of skill which replaced the then existing European system.

However this may be, what we do undoubtedly find is a relatively slow rate of progress in the early part of the first period. Progress became more rapid in the Upper Palaeolithic and in the Neolithic. Finally at the opening of the third period progress was vastly accelerated and has gone on with ever-increasing rapidity subject to certain checks at various times and places. This speeding up of the evolution of skill is the chief outstanding characteristic of history since the opening of the first period, and with it we may associate the facts that progress has not been uniform as between different countries, and has been subject to set-backs within countries especially within the third period. Recalling what was said in the last chapter as to the influence of fertility and contact upon the growth of tradition, we may now note that the main outline at least of these outstanding events is apparently explicable as the result of the working of these factors. We may begin with a consideration of the facts regarding America.

America was apparently peopled from Asia at an early date.[1671] Putting aside the Eskimos, it is probable that the invaders possessed a simple and fairly uniform type of culture and that the cultural differences found at the time of the discovery as between races in different parts of the continent were indigenous. In other words America is a country in which a section of the human race was early cut off from contact with the remainder—such contact as occurred with the Norsemen and may have occurred with the Pacific Islanders having been without importance. For many thousands of years cultural evolution had proceeded independently in this isolated area. At the time of the discovery it had in Mexico and Peru reached a fairly high level. A form of writing had even been evolved, and in general the level of culture was such as we may compare with that attained shortly before the opening of the third period in Eur-Asia. It is possible that at this time the evolution of culture was on the verge of making a great step forward similar to that made in Eur-Asia in the third period. But in any case progress in America had fallen behind progress in Eur-Asia by some thousands of years, and it is thus interesting to compare the endowment of America with that of Eur-Asia.

It may first be noticed that the area is a large one and that it is diversified in that it contains within it many types of geographical and climatic environment. Nevertheless the shape of the area as a whole, and more especially perhaps the absence of relatively fertile areas in proximity differing sharply from one another such as we find in Eur-Asia, renders it less favourably disposed to facilitate contact than are parts of Eur-Asia. In this connexion it may be observed that the Isthmus of Panama is a barrier rather than a means of communication. Apparently the civilizations of Mexico and Peru had no knowledge one of the other.

The differences in respect of fertility are more remarkable. Generally speaking America is not notably less fertile than Eur-Asia, relative to skill in hunting and fishing. The north-west coast of North America is possibly more fertile relative to this type of skill than is any other area in the world. But when we come to examine the endowment of America as a whole relative to skill in the lower forms of agriculture and in the domestication of animals, we find that America is poorly endowed compared with Eur-Asia. Maize and rice are the only important indigenous cereals. All the other valuable cereals were absent from America. This is a very important fact because cereal culture is in many ways a far more profitable art than either root-culture or arboriculture. But America is poor not only in cereals; many plants which play so important a part elsewhere in primitive agriculture are absent—the plantain, yam, banana, breadfruit, and date-palm, for instance. Among the important plants we may note the potato, coco-nut palm, manioc, arrowroot, and the cocoa plant. Brazilian arrowroot is, it may be observed, very easily propagated. ‘Even if the plant is left in the ground when the root has been taken, new tubers grow from its joints after the first shower of rain.’[1672] Some such plant as this in America or as the yam elsewhere must have presumably been that first cultivated.

The poverty of America in animals fit for domestication is even more remarkable. If we except the reindeer, milch animals were entirely absent—a fact of great significance. The Indians had made the fullest possible use of such animals as there were. ‘Setting aside the reindeer, an unprofitable animal on any soil which produces any better crop than moss, the Indians had domesticated every animal in the continent which was capable of domestication.’[1673] Among them was the llama, an animal of restricted usefulness, as it cannot be used for draught and cannot be milked. The fact that there are several varieties of llama would seem to point to the fact that it had been brought under domestication many centuries before the discovery of America. Turkeys, dogs, pheasants, ducks, and geese were also domesticated as well as a few other animals of little importance.

When compared with Western Asia, America is seen to be poorly endowed in animals fit for domestication and plants suitable for agriculture. But it must be remembered that Western Asia is far richer than any other area. America is not poor compared with Africa or Australia. We may now glance at the endowment of these other regions beginning with Asia.

4. It is often a matter of the greatest difficulty to trace the original habitat of the species of animals and plants which after many centuries of domestication have given rise to the varieties now in use; in some cases it is impossible; the camel, for instance, has never been found wild.[1674] In some cases the evidence is vague and merely points to the original home as having been within some large and not very clearly defined region. Nevertheless an inquiry into the original habitat of the more important domesticated animals and plants leads to a very remarkable conclusion. We find that with few exceptions Western Asia was the home of the great majority of such species. The chief exceptions among animals are the elephant, buffalo, reindeer, and llama. The llama originated in South America, the reindeer is found in the circum-Polar regions, the elephant and buffalo are Indian. It is probable that the original home of the camel was somewhere in this Asiatic region, and, if this is so, then all milch animals, with the exception of the reindeer, whether belonging to the ovine, equine, bovine, or camel group, had their original home in the Asiatic region—a very important fact when the large part played by milch animals is borne in mind. It should be perhaps mentioned that certain species had a wide range and extended beyond this Asiatic region vaguely defined though it is. The wild ancestors of the ox and the pig were indigenous in Europe as well as in Asia.[1675] The richness of the Asiatic endowment as regards plants is no less remarkable. Practically all cereals of importance with the exception of maize and one or two others originated there. Wheat, barley, oats, rye, millet, and others of much importance at a certain stage of progress in skill are indigenous in that region.

5. Turning to Africa we find that the large majority of domesticated animals and of cultivated plants are not indigenous; when not introduced by Arabs or Europeans, they were derived from Egypt and into Egypt they had probably been brought from Asia. Of those animals now domesticated cattle, goats, sheep, and fowls were derived from Egypt, the dog from Arabia, the cat was brought by the Arabs, while pigs, muscovy ducks, turkeys, and pigeons were introduced by the Portuguese. Sorghum grain, millet, eleusine, colocasia (arum), yam, and the banana were introduced from Egypt; the sugar-cane, rice, wheat, oranges, limes, cucumbers, melons, gourds, onions, and hemp were introduced by the Arabs, while the coco-nut palm came from Asia and the date-palm from the Mediterranean basin. ‘The only doubtful exceptions are ground-nuts ... which may be indigenous, and certain semi-cultivated beans.’[1676] It may be observed that, although Africa is poor as regards animals and plants fit for domestication, the negro never domesticated with one or two exceptions such species as were capable of domestication. Thus the guinea-fowl and the coffee plant, both indigenous, were not domesticated by the negroes.

6. Of the natural endowment of other regions it is not necessary to speak. The absence of all mammals, with the exception of marsupials, from Australia is well known, and the handicap resulting therefrom is obvious. There are, however, certain broad facts with regard to fertility and geographical configuration to which attention may be drawn here. With respect to the fertility of tropical regions in general there are two facts of importance. For the most part cereals are absent, and it is chiefly trees and roots among indigenous plants which lend themselves to domestication. Arboriculture and root-culture, however, do not in many respects give as good a return as does the culture of cereals. Further, fruits and roots cannot be stored as a rule; their food value is not high, and in many ways the problems presented by the cultivation of roots and trees do not afford anything like the same stimulus to skill or require anything like the same advance in social organization and in settled and regulated conditions of life as does the cultivation of cereals. Again, in the general make-up of tropical conditions there is frequently an element of destructiveness. The rapidity with which in tropical Africa products of human handiwork are destroyed is well known, and to a greater or less degree something of the kind is a feature of all tropical regions.

7. Turning to geographical conditions in general as favouring or hindering contact we find America isolated and, as a land mass taken by itself, practically divided into two parts in which the conditions do not markedly favour contact—especially contact between different economic systems in close proximity. The remaining land masses may be thought of as radiating out from one centre. The central area is not only in general favourably located, but is in itself so formed as to favour contact. The diversity of its surface, the inland seas, the steppes, plateaux, mountain uplands, plains, and river valleys render it in this respect richly endowed. Forests were less of a barrier to contact in this region than elsewhere, and in this respect Western Asia was better situated than Europe. Tropical forests and jungles form far more serious barriers than do forests in temperate regions, and the discovery of the use of metals is of less effect in reducing the hindrances due to this barrier in tropical than in temperate countries. Looking at the tracts of land which radiate out from this centre we see how isolated is the greater part of Africa. Egypt is indeed almost a part of the Western Asiatic region, but it is nearly cut off from the rest of Africa by desert, being connected with the remainder of the continent only by the valley of the Nile which in its middle regions is almost barren while its upper reaches pass through huge tracts of marsh and swamp. As we approach the south of Africa we come to what in primitive times was a blind alley. So, too, in whatever direction we pass outwards from the heart of Eur-Asia, whether we cross the sea to Australia or travel to the eastern or western boundaries of the Eur-Asiatic land mass, we reach regions where, on account of what we may call their location and of other factors such as the presence of forest or jungle or on account of the configuration of their surfaces, contact is not favoured. We must in addition bear in mind that it is the central region which is the most richly endowed as far as fertility is concerned.

We may remember that there was another factor to which as a stimulus to the formation of skill and to the transmission and storing of tradition we found reason to attach great importance—namely, the replacement of the segmentary by the organic type of social organization. This great change took place in the Eur-Asiatic region and must be traced indirectly to the characteristics of that region as a whole. For we found that, before such a change could come about, a growth in the volume of population was necessary, and growth in volume is directly dependent upon fertility and all other elements in the surroundings which favour the increase of skill.

8. There is, therefore, at the least a very remarkable correspondence between the outstanding events of history since the opening of the first period and the distribution in space and time of the chief factors which influence tradition. We may set events in America up to the time of the discovery against events in the rest of the world. We do not know with what degree of skill the original emigrants were armed; but since, generally speaking, the fertility of America relative to skill in hunting and fishing is not, if at all, inferior to fertility elsewhere, we have no reason to imagine that progress in the first period would be less rapid than elsewhere. Again the presence, though not in great variety, of easily cultivatable plants would facilitate much as elsewhere the transition to the most primitive form of agriculture. But the poverty in cereals and animals fit for domestication and the absence of milch animals indicate an environment which, relative to conditions in Western Asia, offers far less stimulus to progress. Further the general configuration of the land does not favour contact as in the latter region. Nevertheless considerable progress in cereal culture and in the domestication of animals had been made, and in Mexico and Peru, where the presence of lakes, the absence of formidable barriers, and the diversity of surroundings offered by the proximity of high and low land rendered contact most effective, there had grown up societies with a relatively high level of skill. But America had lagged behind Eur-Asia, and the degree to which this was so is only what would be expected if we suppose that the innate capacity of the inhabitants of both regions was once approximately equal and that, while some had wandered into less favourable surroundings, others had remained in or migrated to more favourable surroundings. It is at least clear that if we do set the general trend of events in America against events in Eur-Asia there is nothing incompatible with the theory that the constitution of the environment can account in the main for the differences in the growth and accumulation of skill.

Putting America aside, the same may be said of events elsewhere. The rich endowment of Western Asia has been emphasized, and this region appears to have been the centre of progress in the first period and was most certainly so in the second and during the earlier part of the third period. Everything leads us to suppose that at any given time up to a comparatively recent date the level of skill was higher in this region than elsewhere. From time to time waves of migration spread outwards—most often apparently into Europe and less often into Africa and Oceania—carrying with them a degree of skill so much higher than that existing in the outlying areas that an abrupt transition to another culture took place accompanied by varying degrees of extermination of, and mixture with, the races situated there. If we bear in mind the endowment of, and general conditions in, Africa and Oceania, the trend of events in these regions is again comprehensible on the same principles as those indicated above. It may also be observed that the principle of the shifting of the centre of progress owing to the change in relative fertility may be seen at work in Western Asia. At a certain period, for instance, after a particular degree of civilization had been reached, the great river valleys of the Nile and of the Tigris and the Euphrates, which formerly had been relatively less fertile, became the most fertile regions. Later the progress connected with the industrial revolution led to another remarkable shifting of the centre of advance—into regions, that is to say, where coal is abundant and easily worked. This shifting of the focus of progress is often overlooked by those who seek an explanation of the fact that the site of the earlier civilizations has not remained the site of the later civilizations. ‘The contrasts’, says Professor Elliot Smith, ‘in the achievements of the various peoples cannot be explained away by lack of opportunities, in face of the patent fact that among the most backward races of the present day are some that first came into contact with, or were even the founders of, civilization, and were most favourably placed for acquiring culture and material supremacy.’[1677] The shifting of the centre of progress is at least in part an explanation.

Within the third period there took place that remarkable change in social organization already described which so markedly stimulated the growth of skill and facilitated its transmission. This change had the most profound effects on events in Europe and Asia. With it we must associate a remarkable speeding up of the progress in skill which has been the chief feature of the last period of human history. The explanation of the acceleration of progress is thus ultimately based on the endowment of different regions in respect to fertility, location, and the facilities offered to contact. It may also be noted that the further trend of events in Europe and Asia is made comprehensible by this principle of the shifting of the centre of greatest fertility on the one hand and by the imperfect realization of the organic type of society on the other. In India and in China there have been forces working contrary to the full development of the organic type of organization in the shape of devotion, largely on religious grounds, to various forms of a segmentary division of society, and this may prove to be one of the chief reasons why in Eastern Asia we seem to be faced with a backwater out of the main stream of progress.

Further, as tradition became more complex, small differences in the environment often gave a favourable or unfavourable turn to the development of skill. Thus after the invention of writing countries were greatly favoured that possessed suitable writing materials. In China writing, owing to the cumbersome form which it has taken, has never been of more than a very restricted usefulness. It has been suggested that the differences between the clarity of Greek thought and the vagueness of Indian speculation are in part due to the greater use made of writing in the former country.[1678]

9. Thus in general if we survey the outstanding facts we find that explanations based on the influence of the environment in stimulating progress in skill suggest themselves. Racial differences do exist and play a part. We may gain some idea what this part is if we now turn to consider the nature of these differences, and we may first pay attention to the larger differences such as those which distinguish the negro from the European. These differences, it must be emphasized, are only large relative to the differences which exist between European races. Relative to the difference between the ancestor in the intermediate stage and modern man they are almost negligible.

Some analysis has been made of the differences between negroes and white men and with regard to these differences we may observe two things. In the first place they can only in part account for the differences in performance. Before coming into contact with Europeans, negroes had not passed beyond the stage of primitive thought; but it is evident that they are not innately incapable of so doing. The results of educating the negro have been to narrow the conception of the gap which separates him from the white man. Just as D’Alembert and Diderot would not believe that the Russians could be civilized up to the European standard, so a later generation believed that the negroes could not be so civilized; but ‘negroes are now indisputably the equals of white men in categories in which one hundred years ago their masters would have confidently argued that they were naturally incapable of attaining equality’.[1679] Nevertheless there are differences; the negro is intellectually on the average somewhat inferior, and certainly possesses somewhat different emotional and temperamental characteristics.

In the second place from the end of the first period to the present day the evolution of mental characters shows little correspondence to the evolution of skill. Whereas progress in skill has been vastly accelerated, progress in the evolution of mental characters has slowed down and may within the third period have almost ceased. Selection within this last period has, it may be remembered, come largely to be on account of disease.

The nature, therefore, of racial differences and the trend of evolution of mental characters tend to confirm the conclusion derived from a study of the influence of fertility and of contact—namely, that the outstanding events are to be traced to environmental rather than to germinal changes. But germinal changes are not negligible. We have seen how these circumstances which favoured progress in skill in the earlier part of the third period also favoured mental evolution in just those directions in which the white race is superior. Germinal changes may thus be regarded as contributing to the progress which occurred at this time; evolution in the direction of self-assertion and other qualities, which characterize the white races, must have accelerated the cultural changes already in progress. When Mr. McDougall says that ‘in so far as differences of cultural level are associated with differences of level of innate intellectual and moral qualities, cultural superiority must be regarded as the effect, rather than the cause, of innate mental superiority’,[1680] the above considerations suggest another view. It would appear more probable that cultural changes and germinal changes went hand in hand, and that they were both products of the same environment; no doubt one kind of change reacted on the other, but there seems as little reason for holding that the former were the effect of the latter as for holding that the opposite was the case. Mr. McDougall’s view meets with considerable difficulties when we extend our inquiry to the events within the third period. He attributes the cultural level of the early civilizations to previous mental evolution, but as he thinks that there has been no appreciable evolution since that time, the events of the last five thousand years including the continued progress in skill must be otherwise accounted for. It is surely more probable that this series of events beginning with the rise to the early civilizations and continuing to the present day is in the main based upon one determining cause. This we have found reason to identify with the influence of fertility and contact upon the development of tradition; to germinal change we attribute in the earlier epochs no little influence but an influence which is contributory—supplementing for a time the process which continued when germinal change had largely ceased. So far as we find this conclusion to be supported by further inquiry, so far it is correct to say that races with the innate mentality of the negroes would not by themselves have reached the position attained by the white races, though it is not true that the white races progressed directly because of their superior innate mental endowment.

10. We may now inquire into the importance of the lesser racial differences. There are usually recognized in Europe three chief racial types—Nordic, Mediterranean, and Alpine. If innate mental differences exist, we should expect to find associated with each type certain peculiar traditional features; for, as we have seen, innate racial peculiarities tend to set the current of tradition flowing in certain directions, and the association of different institutions and beliefs with particular racial types would suggest that innate mental differences are making themselves felt, though, before this conclusion can be accepted, it must be shown that the play of environmental factors upon tradition has been fairly uniform for all these types. A considerable amount of evidence can be accumulated to show that such association exists. Thus the Nordic peoples are mostly Protestant and the Alpine and Mediterranean peoples mostly Catholic or Greek Church. The fact that during the Reformation a choice was set before most European nations as to what religion should be adopted—the issue hanging in the balance for some time in many places—seems to indicate that the conditions were more or less equalized and that the adoption of the Protestant religion by the Nordic type was influenced by certain innate characters attaching to this type—self-assertiveness and love of independence, for instance.[1681] The South Germans, who are of the Alpine race, remained Catholic, while in the Netherlands the Nordic Dutchmen became Protestant. Similarly there is a certain correspondence in Europe between the distribution of types of political institutions and that of racial types, and much other relevant evidence could be brought forward. We have seen how sharply negroes are distinguished from Europeans in emotional disposition; similar differences, though on a much smaller scale, are visible as between European races. It can hardly be doubted that the Irish and the Scotch differ from the English in disposition and—though this is more doubtful—there may be intellectual differences. There may be some slight difference between the English and the French intellect; it is hardly likely that the French passion for logic and the English aversion to it are altogether traditional characteristics. It would, therefore, appear that there are innate mental differences between European races which tend not so much to thrust races along certain paths as in the course of generations to colour tradition and even at crises in national life, when a choice is presented, to determine which path shall be taken. These differences may be explained—though it is a somewhat speculative enterprise—by supposing that the ancestors of the various racial types were exposed to different surroundings—the ancestors of the Alpine race to patriarchal institutions, of the Nordic race to more individualistic institutions—and that thus subservient and assertive types were respectively favoured.[1682]

The influence, however, of innate racial differences between races so closely related as those of modern Europe must not be overrated. It is possible to point to many examples of the fact that the distribution of institutions, customs, and so on does not always correspond to that of racial types. In Belgium, to take only one instance, the Walloons are of Alpine stock, that is to say, they are racially similar to the great majority of Germans. But the Walloons are distinctly French in character and sympathy, whereas the Flemings—the other element in the Belgian population—are Nordic and are in certain respects more allied to the Germans with whom racially they have little in common. Either in such a case innate racial differences do not exist of the kind suggested, or, as is more probable, they exist but have been obscured by tradition. That tradition is the predominant factor in shaping those characteristics, of which we think when we have any nation in mind, can be seen when we look at two examples of race formation in modern times. Those characteristics which we find to be distinctive of the Boer race, for instance, can be traced to the peculiar turn given by the environment to the peculiar tradition—remarkable both in its religious and social aspects—brought by the first settlers. The racial elements represented among the Boers of to-day are well known—Dutch for the most part with some admixture of French and English blood. But it is not to this peculiar germinal constitution but to the motherhood of the South African veldt acting upon a peculiar tradition that what is distinctively Boer is to be attributed. So, too, there are no mental characteristics as manifested so definite as those which are associated with Americans. But it is impossible to think that they are the product of the influence of the various racial stocks which have gone to make the modern American population. Clearly enough these characteristics are almost wholly traditional, and it can without much difficulty be shown how the peculiar geographical, social, and political environment has given rise to them.

Can we further understand how these distinctive accumulations of tradition are maintained? Let us remember that a man requires not only a home in the usual sense of a roof over his head, but what we may call a home in the world of tradition, and that just as most men find a dwelling-place in the country in which they are born, so most men at the same time find a home in the world of tradition in the same country. Now in any area, where men have for a longer or shorter time acted together, there has been evolved a certain tradition under the influence of those elements in the surroundings enumerated above. If another group of men has been associated together in a very similar area, the tradition there elaborated will show a likeness to that in the former area. But there may be considerable differences. Small differences in the aggregate of influences sometimes have far-reaching effects, and again what we regard in our ignorance as ‘chance’ happenings may have, as we shall point out later, profound consequences. Small differences and apparently unimportant happenings give turns and twists to the direction in which tradition is built up, and the individual differences between one tradition and another become exaggerated by the tendency of tradition to move in grooves. The peculiarities of a tradition become embodied in the sum of all the institutions—using that term in the widest sense—characteristic of a race and, as each man passes under the influence of those traditions, so these peculiarities are maintained. As often pointed out language is of less importance than might be supposed. A common language does not imply a common tradition, and on the other hand a diversity in language does not imply a diversity in tradition. Institutions of another kind are of more importance. It is institutions like the public schools of England which embody the distinctive elements in social tradition. The case of the Jews is especially noteworthy. There is no common language, no Jewish state, but one thing a Jew has in common with other Jews—his religion. Round the Jewish religion centres all that is distinctively Jewish, and the clinging of the Jew to his religion has resulted in the maintenance of a Jewish race amidst all the strange vicissitudes to which the Jews have been subject. ‘Qu’est-ce qui a conservé le Juif à travers les siècles et l’empêché de disparaître au milieu des nations? C’est sa religion.... Or ces rites protecteurs, cette cuirasse ou cette carapace d’observances qui l’a défendu durant deux mille ans, et que rien ne pouvait transpercer, notre esprit occidental l’a entamée.... Si le judaïsme, débilité, venait à se décomposer et à se dissoudre, qu’adviendrait-il du Juif? Fermé et sauvegardé par sa religion, le Juif ne risquait-il point de s’évanouir avec le judaïsme?’[1683]

Again, it has been pointed out that men have often achieved fame as contributors to the civilization or literature of countries other than that to which they by race belonged. It has been said that no one could have been more French than the English Hamilton, the Swiss Rousseau, the Italian de Maistre, the German Heine, or the mulatto Dumas. Great contributions to the building up of what is typically British have been made by men who were not of British blood though of course distinguished British patriots. A string of names from Simon de Montfort to Disraeli can be quoted. On the other hand, ‘natives of the British Isles have helped to create the armies and fleets, and to build up the politics of most European States. In the eighteenth century you might have found an Irishman directing as Prime Minister the fortunes of Spain, and another those of Naples, a third commanding the forces of Austria, and a fourth seeking to rebuild the French dominions in India. Scots as a rule restricted their attention to Protestant countries, but John Law in the early years of that century did wonderful things with French finance. The right-hand man of Frederick the Great was a Scot, and Scots took more than their share in the making of Russia—an article of almost exclusively foreign manufacture. Peter the Great himself had a mother of Scottish birth, and the fact made all the difference between him and his imbecile half-brothers. Napoleon himself was not a Frenchman by birth; one of his marshals, an Italian, became king of Sweden, and founded the present Swedish line of monarchs.’[1684]

This reference to the nature of minor racial differences thus tends to confirm what was said above. Germinal differences are not to be disregarded, but we must reject such theories as those of Gobineau and Houston Chamberlain, who see in race the primary explanation of all national achievement. Mommsen poured scorn upon the Celts and Vacher de Lapouge attributed most of the misfortunes of France to the brachycephalic element in the population.[1685] But we are now sceptical of any such facile explanations of the course of history.

11. We can now come rather closer to the problem if we go on to examine certain instances of germinal change that we know to have taken place, and ask what effect is to be attributed to them and to such traditional changes as have accompanied them.

Again and again in the course of history certain stocks have been exterminated. This was apparently the fate of the Neanderthal race, and in modern times was the fate of the Tasmanians. But though in this manner the average germinal constitution of the whole species has been altered, and as a rule raised, there has been little or nothing in such events working towards the further evolution of the remaining stocks.

Intermingling of different racial stocks has been of frequent occurrence.[1686] As we have seen, if the differences are large, vigour may be exhibited in the first cross but will soon disappear; unfavourable combinations of characters on the other hand are likely to arise, and the mulatto thus tends to be a genetically undesirable type. Nevertheless, the undesirable character of the mulatto is in large part traditional. The mulatto is neither of one race nor the other and he knows it. He is an outcast. There is no tradition which he naturally absorbs. He neither grows up with the pride of the white man nor with the feeling of community with his coloured relatives, whose position with regard to other races is generally accepted as something inevitable. In the world of tradition there is no home for him. There are no channels which enable his capacities, such as they are, to develop in a favourable manner, and we have thus to give greater weight to tradition than to an unfavourable germinal constitution in producing the results which we see.

When the differences are less, there is again the advantage of hybrid vigour, though this again is transitory. More important is the chance of a favourable re-combination of characters. Many interesting speculations have been made, though they are all very fanciful, with regard to the fortunate blendings which have produced some races, the bringing together of practical capacities and imagination and the like. In general we may regard such crossing as genetically favourable and of considerable importance in history. Its frequent occurrence in Europe and Asia has probably favoured those regions as compared with India, where racial differences have perhaps been too great, and China, where they have perhaps been too small.

Nevertheless, it is probable that too great an effect has been attributed to the genetic results of crossing. When we come to consider traditional changes, we shall see how potent a factor is the contact of traditions which accompanies the intermingling of stocks and to which the greater part of the results observed have to be in all probability attributed.

It has been noticed that to an increasing extent from the first period onwards the selection of mental characters comes largely to be determined by tradition. The trend of tradition sets in a peculiar direction; tradition develops in a groove and the peculiarities tend to become exaggerated. Men are favoured in so far as they are innately adapted to the chief features of the tradition. In an oligarchic society like that of ancient Peru the naturally servile man fares better than the self-assertive man; among the warlike tribes of North America the servile man goes under. It may be argued that so distinctive a religion as the Mohammedan would only gain ascendancy where the average innate mental faculties were of a peculiar kind; however that may be, it is clear that once having gained ascendancy this peculiar tradition would favour a certain mental type and discourage others. Thus again we see the tendency of germinal change to reinforce the trend of traditional change rather than to determine traditional change.

We also saw that under a segmentary organization of society the tendency was towards the preservation of a certain type of mental constitution adapted to the peculiar tradition. Departures from the favoured type in any direction are cut off. When organic organization supersedes segmentary organization the whole position changes. It is no longer necessary that a peculiar tradition should be strictly maintained demanding a certain type of mental organization. There is favoured a tradition allowing of the fullest division of labour which not only permits but even encourages various types of innate mental capacity. Various forms of intellectual and emotional capacity thus find a place which would otherwise have gone under. But there are two sides to the picture; though artists and philosophers may survive, even if they do not exactly flourish, the feeble-minded survive also.

12. The selection of mental characters within the third period demands further attention. We have commented upon the incompatibility between group selection and the selection of individuals in the earlier periods. Favourable individual developments may not survive because they are not in harmony with the type necessary to maintain the group. Group selection was active in the earlier part of the third period, and resulted in the evolution of higher types. Later group selection took rather a different form, but though it allowed the survival of variations from the favoured type, it did not altogether cease. There was, however, apparently little tendency towards further evolution of groups as a whole; but germinal changes took place according as to whether circumstances allowed the survival of more departures in an upward or in a downward direction. We may glance at the results of lethal and of reproductive selection. The average germinal constitution of a race may be profoundly changed by the operation of factors that we may place under the heading of lethal factors, though they do not always operate by elimination. In a civilized country with its complicated machinery of social organization, the government may adopt a policy which greatly favours certain types and discourages others; apparently chance happenings may so turn the course of events as to produce the same results. Thus the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes drove out of France men who undoubtedly differed in their innate mental constitution from the average; so too did the setting up of the Inquisition in Spain. The bad management of the liberal movement in Germany in 1848 resulted in the setting up of a régime as a result of which a certain type of German, to whom the régime was uncongenial, tended to emigrate. The Bolshevist régime obviously favours a peculiar mentality. From such instances it is clear that the average germinal constitution may be changed in very different directions in neighbouring countries with great suddenness. But in seeking the explanation of what follows in these cases, it is clear that germinal change is following traditional change; it may accelerate traditional change, but it is only a contributory cause of the historical movement that we observe. The lack of enterprise that has marked the Spanish people during the last three hundred years was not caused by germinal change but by traditional change which moulded the outlook and disposition of the people; germinal change doubtless followed in the same direction and contributed to the present position. The true importance of germinal change is not, as some authors would have it, that it sets movements in progress among civilized nations, but that it exaggerates the tendencies of traditional change, and renders it difficult for nations to get out of the grooves into which they have moved.

Just as germinal change may set in different directions owing to lethal selection, so it may do owing to reproductive selection. In the religious celibates of the Middle Ages we have probably to recognize a distinct mental type, though how far a more valuable type than the average it is impossible to say. Some of their peculiar qualities were doubtless valuable, but they presumably lacked other valuable qualities, since they were disinclined to face the difficulties of the normal social life of their time. Even if it is held that their peculiar qualities were on the whole distinctly valuable, we have, before a final judgement is passed as to the effects of celibacy, to remember that it may have had a beneficial influence on tradition. An authority upon the Middle Ages has said that ‘It is more than probable that any real familiarity with the early Middle Ages will lead an unprejudiced student to the belief that the celibacy of the clergy was at that time essential to the setting apart of the clerical order, to the purification of the Church, and to its influence upon the world, that clerical celibacy was in fact a necessary stage in the spiritualization of European society’.[1687]

Reproductive selection chiefly arises because certain classes make greater contributions to the following generation than other classes.[1688] Generally speaking, throughout the Middle Ages, so far as is known, the so-called upper classes contributed more to succeeding generations than the so-called lower classes. The position is now reversed, and it would appear that in the later days of Greece and Rome also the upper classes contributed less to the population than the lower classes. It is possible that the same may have been the case in other ancient empires. The utmost importance has been attributed to the influence of this form of differential fertility upon the course of history. Mr. McDougall, for instance, writes as follows: ‘Looking at the course of history widely, we may see in the differentiation of the social classes by the social ladder and in the tendency of the upper strata to fail to reproduce themselves, an explanation of the cyclic course of civilization.’[1689] Clearly a careful inquiry into this subject is needed. There are certain points to which attention may be at once drawn, but we shall not be able to reach any definite conclusion until we have examined farther into the nature of the modifications produced by differences in tradition between the different classes.

Here we may observe that it is altogether misleading to speak, as Mr. McDougall does, of the lower classes as being ‘drained’ by the operation of the social ladder, even in England at the present day where the chance of rising is as great, if not greater, than it has ever been before. A very limited number can and do rise. The ladder is not only steep and difficult to climb; it is also narrow and does not permit of many upon it at the same time. Further, so great is the prestige of class that very few of the descendants of those who have climbed ever sink back, and yet among them the regression to the mean is always in operation. In other words, supposing that the ancestors of those composing the upper social classes to have been distinguished by desirable mental qualities, their descendants, to whose disappearance so much is attributed, are not distinguished by a similar superiority to the average.

Granting for the moment all that has ever been claimed regarding the superiority of those who climb, the above considerations modify the importance to be attributed to differential fertility. It may further be noticed that, although Mr. McDougall and others speak of differential fertility as the origin of the cyclical course of civilization, what they in fact attribute to this cause are the periods of decline. Other causes are sought for to account for the equally remarkable periods of advance. Mr. McDougall, for instance, attributes the rise of Greek civilization to a ‘happy blending’ of two races.[1690] It may be said, on the other hand, that the facts point strongly to the conclusion that both the ‘ups’ and the ‘downs’ are part of the same phenomenon. The ‘ups’ are as remarkable as the ‘downs’; one process seems just the reverse of the other. No one proposes to explain the ‘ups’ as due to the favourable results of differential fertility, and before we can accept unfavourable differential fertility as the chief cause of the ‘downs’ we may ask if the fundamental cause of both processes is not of another kind. If we should find this to be the case, it of course by no means implies that germinal change does not play a contributory part.

13. The greater part of the discussion in this chapter has been devoted to an attempt to estimate the importance of germinal differences and of germinal changes; it is clear that in order to arrive at more definite conclusions we have to consider in rather more detail traditional differences and traditional changes. The influence of the direct effect of the environment must not be forgotten, as it frequently enters as a contributory factor into the moulding of the course of history. It may conveniently be considered here.

Temperament is a characteristic of great importance. Just as among men around us temperament is seen to influence each man’s achievement, and largely to determine failure or success, so racial temperament is important in determining racial achievement. This characteristic is peculiarly sensitive to the direct effect of the environment, and it may very well be that changes in diet and so on may have influenced the course of history through their bearing upon temperament. At the present day the urban conditions under which so large a percentage of the members of western nations live—smoke, noise, vibration, and so on—may have a bearing upon temperament and so upon achievement.

Such considerations are somewhat speculative. More clear are the results of disease upon temperament. It is a remarkable fact that disease, which is chiefly noticeable within the third period, upon the whole then takes a lethal form from which the patient either dies or recovers more or less completely. In tropical regions, however, there are a number of diseases of the non-lethal chronic type, such as the hook-worm disease for instance, which affect a large percentage of the population and sap the energy—mental and physical—of those attacked. The prevalence of any such disease must act in an important fashion as a drag upon progress, and the spreading of such a disease into a country previously unaffected may quite conceivably put a stop to progress, and even bring about a condition of decadence. The decline of Greece has been attributed, for instance, to the introduction of malaria. In answering the question, therefore, why certain areas have lagged behind others, we must not forget the influence of chronic disease when it affects a large proportion of the population, and it is a curious fact that in general the working of this factor has been in the same direction as that of other factors which influenced tradition. Where, that is to say, there has been a low degree of fertility in the environment and little stimulus through contact, there also upon the whole the deleterious effect of disease has been most pronounced.

It may further be noticed that the direct effect of the environment has a bearing upon the moulding of tradition. The apathy and listlessness, for example, resulting from the prevalence of a disease like malaria form an element in the environment and give an unfavourable turn to the development of tradition.

14. Something has been said in the last two chapters as to the nature and formation of tradition, and in this chapter as to its influence in determining the main outlines of the course of history in the chief geographical divisions of the world. The part played by tradition may be best further illustrated by a reference to two problems to which allusion has already been made—namely, the cyclical course of civilization and modern differential fertility. When we speak of the cyclical course of civilization we have in mind the alternations of periods exhibiting vigour and energy with periods exhibiting apathy. As within the same culture we see progress along one line and within one atmosphere. At times, more especially when the degree of skill is relatively low, there may be scarcely any progress and the condition is one of stagnation. But under such circumstances any turning back is rare. On the other hand, when the degree of skill is relatively high, we sometimes see periods of sudden advance often initiated almost at a definite date, and brought to a climax within a few—perhaps even in one—generations. There often follows a period of stagnation or even of decline. Professor Flinders Petrie has set out in a small book some striking facts regarding this tendency based largely on the history of Egypt. He shows how, taking what is left from various periods of artistic production, this tendency may be illustrated, and it would not be difficult to find many further illustrations in the history of any art in the last few hundred years in Europe, and in a less degree in the history of the various sciences.[1691] Sir Francis Galton, whose life work has done so much to illuminate the nature and importance of germinal characters, wrote as follows: ‘I have studied the causes of civic prosperity in various directions and from many points of view, and the conclusion at which I have arrived is emphatic, namely, that chief among these causes are a large capacity of labour—mental, bodily, or both—combined with eagerness for work.’[1692] Now the periods of advance are marked by the exhibition of these characteristics, and we may ask how far they are traditional in nature. Let us take as an example of a period of advance the Renaissance in England. ‘Englishmen of the sixteenth century’, says Sir Sidney Lee, ‘breathed a new atmosphere intellectually and spiritually. They came under a new stimulus, compounded of many elements, each of them new and inspiring. To that stimulus must be attributed the sudden upward growth of distinctive achievement among them, the increase of the opportunities of famous exploits, and the consequent preservation from oblivion of more names of Englishmen than in any other century before. The stimulus under which Englishmen came in the sixteenth century may be summed up in the familiar word Renaissance. The main factor of the European Renaissance, of the New Birth of the intellect, was a passion for extending the limits of human knowledge, and for employing men’s capabilities to new and better advantage than of old. New curiosity was generated in regard to the dimensions of the material world. There was a boundless enthusiasm for the newly discovered art and literature of ancient Greece. Men were fired by a new resolve to make the best and not the worst of life upon earth. They were ambitious to cultivate as the highest good the idea of beauty.’[1693]

Let us look at the other side of the picture when energy is lacking. There was a widely held opinion that the world would end in the year A. D. 1000. All classes shared this opinion and prepared for the end, and it can easily be understood how under these circumstances, whatever the innate capacities may have been, little capacity for labour or eagerness for work would be manifested. Again, in the later days of the Roman Empire there was abroad a spirit of lethargy and apathy. The great Empire was like a clock that had run down; the machinery was all intact, but there was no force to set it in movement. It is said that there was abroad in the minds of men prescience of some coming catastrophe, a feeling that the inevitable end was approaching. If such a mental horizon is contrasted with that set before an Englishman of the sixteenth century or a Greek in the age of Pericles, we can understand how eagerness for work as outwardly manifested is profoundly influenced by tradition.

When our knowledge of the circumstances is sufficiently precise, we can always detect the influence of a powerful stimulus in periods of progress. It often takes the form of a national purpose. ‘A national purpose’, it has been said, ‘is the most unconquerable and victorious of all things upon earth. It can raise up Babylon from the sands of the desert, and make imperial civilizations spring from a score of huts, and after it has wrought its will can leave monuments that seem as everlasting a portion of nature as the rocks.’[1694] At times the stimulus may arise from an invention of great import, such as the discovery of the use of metals. More often, however, the stimulus takes the form not directly of invention but of friction between different ideas—the coming into the mental horizon not merely of new skilled methods but of strange and foreign ideas of all kinds. Thus contact of cultures is followed by more than the transfer of the elements of one culture to another; it is in itself a stimulus so powerful as to be of the greatest import in history.

In the past when there was little or no contact at a distance, stimuli were most often due to the physical contact of races whose tradition was not too dissimilar. ‘Just as in the mental development of the individual a conflict of impressions invites selective attention, so in the spiritual development of society a clash of cultures awakes latent energies of a constructive kind.’[1695] This fact has led to the error of attributing to war a more direct importance in stimulating energy than there is evidence for.[1696] Contact usually implied war, but contact is equally effective without war, as can be seen in the example of the Italian Renaissance. The stimulus in this case was largely derived from the rediscovery of the ideals and learning of ancient society, and can only be attributed to war in the far-fetched sense that Greek scholars were disseminated over Europe by the capture of Constantinople. And in more modern times stimulus is often derived from indirect contact in which war plays no part at all—as can be seen often enough in the history of art, in the influence, for example, of Chinese and Japanese art upon European painting.

The effect of a sudden stimulus may be to break down habit, and the importance of habit has been dwelt upon as the characteristic which enables tradition once acquired to be maintained. Such breakings down can be observed in the lives of men and women around us under the influence of sudden stress, and something similar may happen to a nation as a whole. Professor Graham Wallas has, for instance, dwelt upon the importance of the breaking down of habit as accounting for the excesses of the French Revolution.[1697]

Though a stimulus may always be detected at work during periods of advance, it is by no means always possible to find evidence of favourable germinal change. There is frequently no evidence at all of germinal change at such periods. In the past no doubt contact often implied racial intermingling, and, though in the present state of biological knowledge we are justified in supposing that crosses between two races not too distinct would usually have favourable results, there is no sufficient foundation for attributing favourable results to all such intermingling as has been done by some authors—von Luschan, for instance. The conclusion would seem to be that germinal change is never more than a contributory cause of advance, and that traditional change is the whole explanation of some of such periods.

Periods of decline are, as we have seen, sometimes associated with unfavourable traditional changes. Tradition may be of such a nature as to sap rather than to encourage vigour. But directly unfavourable turnings of tradition, such as the belief that the world would come to an end at a certain date, are only occasional causes of decline. There is in the course which the development of tradition takes an almost inevitable tendency for periods of advance to be succeeded by periods of repletion and apathy. What appears to happen so often in the history of art after a time of advance may lead to an understanding of the tendency of events in general. If we watch the flowering of any school of art we reach a period, exemplified in the work of the followers of Raphael for instance, and perhaps, as some would say, in the work of Raphael himself, when the artists appear to be lost in the practice of the technical side of artistic production. The ideal, in order to express which the technique has been called into existence, has been lost. The original stimulus has in fact lost its power, and the means to the expression of the ideal have been mistaken for ends in themselves. The technique becomes a plaything, and, there being nothing to express, art takes the form of variations in technique, and becomes, in a word, conventional. This is what would appear to happen as regards progress in general—due allowance being made in the case of skilled processes for the fact that, since they are designed to achieve practical ends, there is less chance of decadence. But in general we see the fading of the power of the stimulus, the coming of a time of repletion, when men are lost in the mass of what has under the influence of the stimulus been accumulated, and in the case of the arts tend to use the skill achieved as an end in itself. We may trace such a course of events in the history of Greek thought. The course of events may be profoundly modified in a multitude of ways by the appearance of a new stimulus and so on. But we may say that such is the inevitable working of the factors upon the formation of tradition, that periods of stagnation, of repletion, and sometimes of decadence tend to occur after periods of sudden advance.

It appears that we should attribute differential fertility, with its possibly serious effect upon the direction of germinal change which marks these periods, rather to the prevalence of apathy than, as Mr. McDougall and others would do, attribute to differential fertility the evidence of decline. For it is the upper classes upon whom the sense of apathy weighs, and it is they who contribute least to future generations. Further, we may remark that decline is not so mysterious a matter as is sometimes suggested. Such complex organizations are vigorous civilizations that, as has been said, ‘the wonderful thing is that they exist at all; what needs explanation is not so much the decay of some, but rather the long persistence of others.’[1698]

In concluding our reference to this matter, we may notice that in recent times, when the working of tradition is known to us in detail, changes can be traced as due to tradition to which the cyclical changes are similar though of greater magnitude. Attention has been drawn to the moulding of tradition in Germany in a particular direction which so powerfully affected the achievement of that race. These events cannot be explained as due in the main to germinal change, though possibly, as observed, the German régime initiated about 1850 may have resulted in the emigration of a certain type of German, and thus in this way germinal change may have played a minor part. So too England during the Boer War was very different to England at the election of 1906, and the difference which was obviously traditional was enough to affect the achievement of the race. In such examples, which could be multiplied indefinitely, we see how the current of tradition may set in one way or another quite apart from germinal changes, and such changes of current may lead, when they hold good over generations, to periods of advance or of decay.

15. There remains to be discussed the importance of tradition in modern differential fertility. It is first necessary to examine rather more closely than has yet been done the manner in which mental characters as manifested are due to tradition, and then to ask how far the particular traditions, to which the upper and lower classes are respectively subject, account for the mental characteristics manifested by them.

As pointed out, it is obvious that the direction in which the intellect works and the degree to which it works are very largely determined by tradition. Thought will be in the primitive or common-sense stage according to the nature of tradition. It is not so obvious that the manifestation of the disposition is equally governed by tradition. The negroes are innately placid, good tempered, and un-self-assertive as compared with white men. Yet Americans constantly complain of the ‘sauciness’ and truculence of the negro. These characters are evidently attributable to the surroundings to which the negroes in America are subject; the manner in which they are looked down upon and the irritating minor restrictions to which they are subject evoke in the negroes a reaction which results in their being called ‘saucy’ and truculent. In other words their disposition is so modified by tradition that, as manifested, it belies their innate characteristics. In an earlier chapter reference was made to the subservience of the Egyptian fellah. In the production of this characteristic a centuries-old tradition of oppression plays a large part, though the elimination of the more self-assertive individuals may have produced a low average level of self-assertiveness. If we compare an English public-school boy with an Egyptian fellah in respect to self-assertiveness and self-reliance, those characters as manifested form no guide to the underlying innate differences. Among the former self-reliance is strongly encouraged, among the latter it is inhibited. But if we compare English public-school boys one with another, and Egyptian fellaheen one with another, then the differences disclosed are to some considerable degree a measure of innate differences, because tradition is more or less equalized. Again, let any one observe the attitude of the British private soldier towards our coloured subjects, or for that matter what he can make of the attitude of the latter towards the English soldier, and he will not be in doubt as to the importance of tradition in producing the attitude of command and its opposite—the tendency to submission.

There is no doubt therefore as to the possibility of tradition affecting profoundly the manifestation of all mental characters. When we compare white with black races in their original home, we have to discount the whole tradition. European races, however, have a considerable amount in common, and when we compare them we have less to discount. When classes within the same race are compared, there is still less to be discounted; they have both European and racial tradition in common; the differences come in at a higher level. Finally, when we compare individuals in the same class, we have only to discount family and individual differences in tradition. It is therefore clear that we have to gain some idea as to the nature of the differences in tradition to which the classes in England at the present day are subject.

16. We have already remarked upon the curious fact that, although the organization of society on organic lines greatly favoured the transmission of tradition, there have come to be large differences in tradition as between the different component elements of society. This we attribute to the fact that in the first place the different component elements specialize in different kinds of skill; the vastness of the mass of tradition makes it impossible for every man to absorb all of it; so far as skill is concerned, each man absorbs that development of it, the specialization in which characterizes his function in society. This may account for differences as between classes with regard to skill, but why, it may be said, should it account for differences in manners, customs, and mode of life? Whatever functions may be performed by the different elements of society, do not the members of all alike now, in any case, enjoy the same privileges, have they not all homes, have they not access to the same interests apart from their professions? Manners and customs differ, and differ so much that a public-school boy finds himself out of his element as a private in a line regiment, and a university man finds it difficult to establish ordinary human relations with the men he meets in a working men’s club such as he establishes without effort when in company of men of his class.

These differences are attributable to the fact that ownership of property has become a function in society. Further, there has come about the reservation to the property-owning class of certain professions—notably the military and the clerical—which, though they do not afford a high rate of remuneration, do afford, as property-owning affords, ample opportunities for leisure. Property owners as a class have had thus both the time and the means to cultivate the art of living. Some of the results are, as all will admit, of value. Some of the results are harmful; but for the most part cultivation of the art of living results in the multiplication of conventions which are neither useful nor harmful, being mere matters of form. The wage-earning class, on the other hand, has neither the time nor the means to elaborate any code of manners. Working long hours for what amounts to little more than a bare subsistence, they could not have evolved such a code of manners nor have they absorbed any considerable part of it. There was no room for it as their lives were lived. Other consequences follow from property-owning. Property-owning is power; in the property-owning class there arises a tradition of self-assertion, a habit of command, whereas in the wage-earning class there arises a tradition of self-abasement and a habit of subservience, traditions and habits so strong as largely to obscure natively given characters. We may note with interest, therefore, that it is on these lines, and not on a theory of germinal differences, that an eminent historian answers the question why military history shows that men of greater age and wider experience will on the field of battle follow to the death a boy of the upper class when they will not follow one of their own class. It may be objected that what has been said scarcely applies to the conditions of the present day and that subservience of the wage-earning class is not very marked at the moment. This is true, but it is a recent change. The reason why the change has come about is surely that the wage-earning class has obtained power and knows it. The change is an illustration of the power of tradition to dominate the outward expression of such important characteristics as assertion or subservience. No one can attribute the difference to germinal change. The wage-earning class has not absorbed the manners and customs of the property-owning class at the same time for a variety of reasons; for one thing they have still little place for such conventions in their lives, and for another thing they tend to regard everything connected with the property-owning class as hostile, while we may also remember that many elements in the upper-class tradition depend for their existence upon the presence of servants.

An insight into the nature of these traditional differences may be gained in rather a different way. Many members of the upper class have attempted to interest themselves in the conditions of life among the less fortunate classes. It is doubtful how far the experience gained in the majority of cases is of value in throwing light upon the problems under consideration. But let any unprejudiced person go and live in the working-class quarter of any large town without any object in view other than to experience the conditions. Under such circumstances the conclusions which grow up in his mind will probably be something of the following nature. To all seeming the innate qualities of the boys and girls, in temperament, disposition, and intellect, are very much what they were in the boys and girls he was at school with or formerly associated with himself. The more intimate his acquaintance becomes with the conditions among which these boys and girls grow up, the more striking seem the peculiarities and limitations of the mental horizon outside of which they have little chance of penetrating compared with that which confronts children of his own class. The dullness and drabness, if there is nothing worse, of a home life in two or three rooms, relieved by what excitement can be found in the smaller streets of a large town, or later by picture palaces or an occasional football match, followed by marriage and the struggle to keep up a home under discouraging circumstances—all these features, which are not appreciated in their full weight until they are, as it were, felt by individual experience, seem adequately to explain the differences between the adults of one class and those of another. Any one who has had such an experience will, on the whole, be rather surprised that more sordidness does not exist, than be inclined to summon the hypothesis of innate inferiority to explain the sordidness that does exist.

17. Profound differences in tradition as between the social classes do therefore exist and, as far as we have gone, they might appear to account for all mental differences manifested; they must in any case account for a considerable part of them. But though we could prolong the discussion on the same lines and produce much evidence tending to the same conclusion, we could reach no precise result. We may go on therefore and ask whether there is any evidence of the existence of innate differences between the classes.

Mere observation of the boys and girls of the different classes does not indicate any differences. But mere observation is not enough. The problem may be approached in two ways. We may notice the results of inquiries made regarding the intelligence of children by modern methods, and we may also ask by what characters those who rise to a higher social status are distinguished, and further what innate differences may be supposed to underlie these apparent differences. The results of inquiries made to test the relative intelligence of children of parents of different social status are fairly uniform. Bridges and Coles, for example, found as the result of such an investigation that ‘there was very considerable dependence of intelligence upon “sociological conditions”’; they go on to say that ‘when children are classified according to the occupations of their fathers, a striking correlation is shown between intelligence quotient and occupation group. Hence if mental age rather than chronological age were used to determine the time for beginning school, the children of the professional group, for example, would begin school two years earlier than the children of the unskilled labour group; for the former mature intellectually much earlier than the latter.’[1699] The interpretation of such observations bristles with difficulties. It is not clear what relation earlier maturity bears to adult intelligence. Though the direct effect of the environment is probably negligible, the possibility that tradition may influence the results is certainly not shut out. Indeed, the fact that the correlation is higher for boys than for girls suggests that tradition does come in. Nevertheless, a consideration of these results suggests that the whole explanation cannot be found in tradition and that we have here a sign of some superiority of intelligence in the children of parents of a higher social status. More than that cannot be said.

18. Let us approach the question in another way. Can we discover any characteristics distinctive of those who succeed in modern society, who rise, as it is called, from the ranks of the wage-earning classes, and, if we can, what these characters are and how far we must assume the existence of innate differences to account for them? We may think of the upper social classes in England to-day as falling roughly into three divisions—the professional and the business classes and those whose fathers, grandfathers, or more remote ancestors came into possession of property by one means or another. In the case of a small proportion of the latter class, the position was won under conditions which differ more or less profoundly from these ruling to-day. This section is a small section, and we need not further consider it here. A large proportion of the so-called upper classes have attained their position under the conditions which now exist, or their forefathers have attained it under conditions which did not greatly differ from them. What characteristics are they, which, when manifested under these conditions, lead to success?

It has often been assumed that intellect is the chief factor in success. This assumption is not only made in ordinary conversation when a reference to the career of a successful man in any line is almost certain to be followed by the comment that ‘he must be a very clever fellow’ but in serious contributions to the problem. This assumption is certainly wrong. There are many elements in character which contribute more largely to success than the intellectual, such as capacity for work, energy, ambition, desire to dominate, tact, and so on. Furthermore, success in a profession is, to an almost as great an extent as success in business, attributable to such characteristics. Few more remarkable things—remarkable in being in conflict with ideas as commonly preconceived—are learnt from observation and experience than the length to which such characteristics in favourable association can carry a man even in the strictly learned professions where it might be supposed that intellect alone would carry off the prizes. There can be no doubt that those elements in character which are most important as regards success are such as we must attribute to differences in disposition and temperament rather than in intellect so far as we can attribute them at all to innate differences.

This is essentially what we want to know—what innate differences do exist. We have, when trying in the first place to fix upon the outwardly existing characteristics, to remember that tradition may give powerful twists and turns—sometimes of a desirable and sometimes of an undesirable nature—to the simpler characteristics mentioned above, such as ambition. In the business world, for example, the successful man is from many points of view the man who gets his head above the heads of other people, who gets more out of other people than they get out of him. But are we to imagine that there is something in him which impels him so to act with regard to his fellow men, or are we to imagine that the simpler characteristics of ambition and love of power lead to such conduct under the guidance of a particular tradition without any definite desire on his part or even perhaps without any clear realization as to what it is precisely that he is doing? The second explanation is that which best fits the facts. It seems clear that, as tradition changes in the course of years, the activities of the energetic ambitious men are led this way and that. At present no doubt to a certain degree they are led in the direction of ‘pushfulness’—by what M. Faguet has called ‘le goût d’arrivisme’. It is always dangerous to read into the activities of men the working of particular innate characteristics. Few things in history perhaps have been as harsh as the conduct of the generation which devised the game laws, and yet these very men did not merely quote the classics with unbounded enthusiasm but were also moved by genuine sympathy and altruism to abolish slavery, the horrors of which were known to them only by report. We should refrain, therefore, from deducing from the activities of the successful men and of the upper classes more than the presence of those simpler characteristics mentioned above as leading to positions of pre-eminence over other men.

These simpler characteristics are in themselves very complex manifestations of many elements, of which tradition is one. But in the case of this particular problem, as we are considering rise from a lower to a higher social status, tradition cannot be held to be the cause of the differences. There are, in fact, unquestionably innate differences in temperament and disposition which underlie the characteristics leading to success, and the temperamental differences which have been curiously neglected are probably the most important and form perhaps half the secret of success. Among the temperamental characteristics leading to success we may note low degree of fatiguability, high power of recuperation, rapidity of response, hopeful nature, vigour, energy, and healthy nervous tone. Among the characteristics of disposition we may note similarly the instincts of self-assertion, of emulation, and of acquisition. The power of forming habits is probably also a considerable aid to success under modern conditions.

What part does intellect play? Judging from the fact that it is certainly an aid to success, though not so powerful a factor as is usually thought, we may conclude that there is some, probably a slight, difference in intellectual capacity between the classes. Intellect, when it accompanies success, is rather more in the nature of an incidentally favourable factor than of a primary cause of success. The powerful instinct of self-assertion will make itself felt; its possessor will probably arrive somewhere; a powerful intellect may, in the absence of, or rather with the inadequate development of, other innate qualities, not advance its possessor’s position in the world.

But though considerations based upon a testing of intelligence on the one hand and upon an analysis of qualities leading to success on the other do without question lead to the conclusion that there are differences in innate qualities as between the successful and the unsuccessful, there are grounds for thinking, for the reasons mentioned above, that the differences between the classes are not large. For we must remember that, so far from the lower classes being drained of men of certain qualities, a very small proportion of the men of these classes is ever enabled to set out on the path leading to success in business or in a profession. Also we must not forget, when considering success, the part played by fortunate accidents under complex modern conditions—mere chance happenings which, altering the whole course of a man’s life, may determine whether he is successful or unsuccessful. Again, there is little or no relapse worth speaking of into the lower classes when once a status is gained. Such is the influence of place and status that for the most part, whatever may be the innate qualities, the descendants of men who won their way upwards maintain their position. Therefore the regression to the mean which is always at work must tend to lessen such innate differences as exist between the classes.

19. Lastly, there is a very difficult problem the existence of which must not be forgotten inasmuch as it affects in the most fundamental manner the judgement to be passed on the meaning of these differences. We have to ask what is the value of the differences which exist. Success alone cannot be taken as an indication of the value of the characters exhibited by the successful. There can indeed be no doubt that, other things being equal, a decrease in the average intellect would be an unfortunate thing. Similarly we may regard those temperamental qualities which were indicated as leading to success as on the whole of value. But it cannot be affirmed without more consideration that all temperamental qualities which distinguish the successful are desirable, and more particularly that a further development of the instincts of self-assertion, acquisition, and emulation would be desirable under present circumstances; it may even be that we might view a diminution in the average strength of some of the qualities which mark the successful at least with equanimity. The instincts of acquisition and self-assertion were of great value in the past, highly indeed as mankind has paid for the careers of men markedly endowed with these qualities. But, with the present stage of social evolution in Europe in mind, should it not be said that the instinct of acquisition when developed above the average is on the whole harmful, and may it not be that self-assertion is likely to be a source of difficulty in any form of co-operative commonwealth, and to some form of co-operation as replacing or modifying competition we seem to be tending.

We may see this whole problem of value in another light if we ask what it is that we value in the men of our race. Latterly we have had reason to dwell upon the qualities which we feel to characterize the men of our race at their best. Are they not self-respect together with modesty, tenacity together with tenderness? Any one who has served in the ranks of the army is not likely to allow that these qualities are on the whole less developed in the classes from which the ranks of the army are usually filled than in the rest of the nation. In this connexion we should perhaps remember that a sense of comradeship in facing the elemental facts of existence without material wealth may provide an impetus to the expression of these qualities, whereas an absorption in the less immediate necessities of life may militate against their expression. To the degree to which this is so, we should, when trying to estimate the innate capacities in the different classes, make the necessary allowances—in the case of the so-called upper classes for the circumstances adverse to the expression of these qualities and in the case of the so-called lower classes for circumstances which on the whole perhaps favour their expression. However this may be, we feel that these qualities are the most valuable which our race has produced and that upon their preservation and upon greater opportunities for their expression depends our best hope for the future. He would be a bold man, however, who suggested that the possession of these qualities in more than average amount was a characteristic of the successful. The same may be said of good taste, good manners, and of other qualities which, to say the least of them, contribute to the amenities of life.

It is at least apparent how difficult a problem is the judgement to be passed on the effects of modern differential fertility. There are grounds for thinking that those who see in differential fertility the cause of the cyclical course of civilization both over-estimate the results and neglect certain aspects of the changes involved. Differential fertility is not a factor to be disregarded; the results which it is now producing demand the most careful investigation. Nevertheless, so far as our knowledge extends, we should view it rather as the result than as the cause of the cyclical course of history—the course which historical changes take being due primarily to changes in tradition. This conclusion is in harmony with all that has been said in this chapter as to the relative importance of change in tradition and of change in the germinal constitution. From the first period in history changes in tradition have come to override changes in the germinal constitution; the latter form of change is far from being negligible, but it is a contributory rather than a fundamental cause of the events of history.

XXII CONCLUSION

1. An attempt has been made to trace the origin of problems of population from their source and to indicate their nature and interdependence. They have been traced back to man’s place in nature. The ancestors of man must at one time have been subject to the same conditions as those to which all species in a state of nature are subject. These conditions were investigated, and it was shown that fecundity is in the main determined by the sum of all the dangers to which the young of any species are exposed—allowance being made for the fact that a certain proportion of ova will not be fertilized. It was also shown that change or history—if history can be spoken of in this connexion—is due to germinal change alone, and it was further indicated how it may be supposed that germinal change comes about. The early stages in the moving away of the pre-human ancestor from these conditions elude our inquiry, though certain deductions may be made as to the main outline of what happened. For evidence as to the latter stages, until we reach historical times, we are chiefly dependent upon the method of using our knowledge of existing primitive races as throwing light upon prehistoric races.

2. Problems of population fall under two main headings, problems of quantity and problems of quality. But all problems of population are interwoven one with another and the method of solving any quantitative problem bears upon the quality of population. Thus the methods of regulating quantity affect quality by influencing germinal change, and in the later periods of history growth in quantity affects quality by its influence upon tradition. No one problem should be considered without reference to its bearing both upon quantity and quality. At the present day, for instance, differential fertility is almost always considered solely from the point of view of quality; it is forgotten that the reduction in the birth-rate may be that which economic conditions demand and that it may of necessity have to begin among the upper classes. Though, therefore, differential fertility by producing unfavourable germinal changes is to be to that degree deplored, yet we have to remember that, so far as quantity is concerned, failure to meet economic requirements might be a much greater misfortune.

3. As regards quantitative problems we saw that from the first period of history onwards—from the time, that is to say, that it began to be possible for man to reap the benefits of co-operation—it was of the utmost importance for every group to approximate to the optimum number. This is the number which—taking into consideration the nature of the environment, the degree of skill employed, the habits and customs of the people concerned, and all other relevant facts—gives the highest average return per head. This number is not fixed once and for all. On the contrary it is constantly varying as the conditions referred to vary, and, as skill has tended to increase throughout history, so has the number economically desirable tended to increase. The errors underlying the wholly different exposition given by Malthus have been indicated; for him there was no such thing as over-population. In his view population had at any one time increased up to the possible limit and was in process of being checked. In the modern view numbers may approximate to the desirable level, may not reach it, or they may exceed it, and if either of two latter positions arise, the return per head will not be as high as it might be.

The quantitative problem presents itself to all races at all times. There is no escaping it. The common notion that it only presents itself at certain times and in certain places is based upon a failure to grasp the strength of fecundity. Almost without exception those factors, which incidentally restrict increase and produce elimination, are insufficient so to reduce fertility as to keep numbers down to the optimum level. There thus arises the need for factors which directly restrict fertility and cause elimination; among primitive races these factors take the form of abortion, infanticide, and prolonged abstention from intercourse. There is no correlation between these factors and the economic stage reached, and therefore we have no grounds for assuming any one factor to have been prevalent at any one stage in pre-history, though we must assume that one or more of these factors was always at work. This assumption is confirmed by the fact that, whenever we can catch sight of the emergence of prehistoric races into the light of history, we find one or other of these factors to have been present. Further there is every reason to suppose that normally such of these factors as are in use are effective and that therefore in the first and second periods of history some approximation to the optimum number was normally attained.

The third period is in many respects different from those that preceded it. In the first place the number desirable has been constantly increasing, so much so that increasing numbers are taken as being a normal feature of human society whereas, in fact, numbers throughout human history as a whole have been stationary. It may be that we are nearing a time when numbers will be again normally stationary, for though increase may remain economically desirable, it may cease to be so from a wider point of view of human welfare, when, that is to say, facts other than income per head are taken into account. In the second place there have been frequent failures to attain to the optimum number owing to the many disturbing influences at work. Chief among them are the fluctuations in the number desirable, the erratic action of certain causes of elimination, such as war and disease, and migrations.

Regarding the quantitative problem as a whole, it is evident that the necessity of solving it has had the most profound effect upon all societies at all times. It bears directly upon the relation between the sexes—around which so largely centres human welfare—and upon the most intimate and most valued aspects of the life of every adult—those connected with the family. In the past the solution has been unconsciously or semi-consciously achieved; it has now come within the power of mankind after a due consideration of the position deliberately to decide what the best solution may be.

4. Turning now to the problems of quality, we found that change among species in a state of nature, and therefore among our pre-human ancestors, was due to germinal change alone. Just as man has moved away from the position in which all species in a state of nature are situated as regards quantity, so he has moved away from the position in which they are placed as regards quality. Human history, in other words, is not explicable as due to germinal change alone. Tradition becomes a factor of ever-increasing importance; the direct influence of the environment also assumes a greater importance than among species in a state of nature, though it remains relatively insignificant compared with changes in tradition and changes in the germinal constitution. Germinal change, however, retains almost its full importance so far as permanent changes in physical characters are concerned.

We have seen that physical characters as presented to us are the expression of the interaction between certain germinal predispositions and a certain environment, and that, disease apart, such variations as usually occur in the environment do not in any notable manner affect these characters. Tradition does not enter directly into the expression of physical character; it alters the environment, it is true, but that is another matter. Nevertheless when we come to investigate the smaller differences, such as those which are found as between members of different classes in a modern community, the greatest caution is necessary before the differences in the environment are ruled out as contributory factors in producing these differences. Broadly speaking, we may say that differences in stature, eye colour, eyesight, muscular power, and so on, are all, though in varying degrees, because different organs vary in their susceptibility to environmental differences, expressions of germinal differences. It follows that, so far at least as physical characters are concerned, the germinal constitution is of primary importance. Disease due to parasites is a question apart. The parasites might be eliminated, or conceivably preventive medicine might render susceptibility to disease of little account. Disease due to structural defects must be classed with other physical characters and, whether it be that we are considering health (immunity from parasitic disease excepted), stature, eye colour, or any other physical character, it is to the germinal constitution that we must look as the factor of chief importance.

It is not, however, of changes in physical characters but of changes in mental characters of which we think when we ask what it is that has caused those events the recording of which is the province of historians. There are three factors to be considered, germinal change, traditional change, and the direct effect of the environment, which latter factor we may pass over, merely recalling that it can at times—as in the case of chronic disease affecting at one time a large proportion of the inhabitants of a country—appreciably retard progress. It is never in the true sense a cause of progress. In thus relegating the direct effect of the environment to a very subsidiary place among the factors, we are not dismissing the environment as of little account in human history or in the lives of individual men and women. Though the direct effect of the environment on the germinal constitution is seldom clearly distinguished from its effect in moulding tradition, yet it is wholly distinct; and in fact, while attributing to the former little importance, we have found the latter to be of increasing importance until it comes altogether to dominate germinal change.

Nevertheless when this distinction is realized and an unbiased effort made to estimate the relative importance of these factors, it seems that the position is often curiously misunderstood. It is frequently suggested that the achievement of our race in the future and of mankind in general will somehow depend principally upon the course of germinal change, and that it is in the lives of men at the present day or at any given time that environment in its bearing upon tradition is of importance. But this is a misconception of the position. Bearing in mind the discussions in former chapters as to what is inherited and as to the direct influence of the environment, let us ask wherein the importance of germinal differences is to be sought, first as between men at the present day and afterwards in history as a whole. With regard to physical characteristics it is clear that, disease apart, men are what they are owing principally to their native endowment. Whether a man is tall or short, dark or fair, has blue or brown eyes, or what is, apart from the possibility of a correlation between these and more valuable characters, of more importance, whether he is healthy, vigorous, strong, endowed with good eyesight and hearing, in short with a sound constitution—this is a matter principally of native endowment, supposing the differences in the environment not to exceed those which now on the average occur. And the same applies to mental characters with an allowance made for the marked degree of susceptibility which temperament exhibits to changes in the environment. Whether a man has more than the average degree of intellect, is markedly assertive, pugnacious, or inquisitive, is capable of withstanding or recovering from fatigue, depends upon his native endowment. But it is at the same time true that achievement is in very large degree governed by tradition. This is true if the criterion of achievement is an historical criterion, as, for instance, when a man of one race is compared with another man of the same race belonging to a different epoch or when a man of one race is compared with a man of another race. It is not true when the comparison is made between two men of the same class within the same race because within classes in a race tradition is more or less equalized. And where tradition is equalized, there achievement is a measure of innate endowment, and it is within a class usually so equalized that at any given time the outward manifestation of mental characters is nearly as much a measure of native endowment as are those of physical characters. Therefore not what a man achieves as judged by historical standards, not whether his thought will follow primitive or common-sense lines, is dependent upon his endowment, but what he will make of the tradition of his time—his performance, in other words, compared with that of men around him.

Achievement, therefore, as judged historically, is in very large measure to be explained as due to the influence of the environment upon the origin and transmission of tradition. Up to a certain stage, however, and, when the whole of human history is taken into account, up to a late stage, achievement was in the main dependent upon germinal change. But this late stage is anterior by many thousands of years to the beginning of history in the usual meaning of that term. Beginning not later than the last period of the Palaeolithic, the explanation of the course of events is in the main to be sought not in germinal change but in the influence of environment upon tradition. The importance of germinal change in the later stages is by no means negligible. Germinal change, however, was not so much the cause of the course which events followed as a consequence of these events. The effect reacted upon the cause and accelerated the process. Finally when considering the latest phase of history—the latest phase, that is to say, when taking a broad view—we reach the following conclusion. We find that the great acceleration of the rate of progress which characterizes the history of the period is to be explained, not by a change in quality, but by the growth in quantity of the population which, though it does not of necessity lead to, is the indispensable condition precedent to, the breakdown of the segmentary organization of society and to the rise of the organic type of social organization. This is the paradox of the population problem. Change among species in a state of nature is based upon germinal change alone; change among our pre-human ancestors was equally a matter of change in the quality of population; but the explanation of the most outstanding fact in recent history broadly viewed is to be sought in a change in quantity rather than in quality of population.

The explanation of the course of events since late Palaeolithic times as due to tradition on the lines indicated in the last chapter is in general satisfactory, provided that on the one hand allowance is made for the fact that differences in race do imply differences in mental and moral qualities, which arising on the whole together with changes in tradition, reinforce the tendency to change along certain lines, and that on the other hand apparently chance happenings do give turns and twists to the course of events. The reconciliation of this latter phenomenon with the general trend of the argument is not difficult. Under certain conditions the death or even the indisposition of some prominent man or the whim of a powerful minister may appear to divert the course of events. Nevertheless in reality such events have only a passing effect and do not obscure the broad workings of the factors we have indicated.

The relation of the innate qualities to tradition may be illustrated by the use of a metaphor. Tradition may be likened to some vast structure which mankind is building. Each generation adds a few bricks to the structure. The part of the building to which any one man contributes, whether it is to the ground floor or to one of the upper stories, wholly depends upon the race and epoch to which he belongs; so too does for the most part the kind of brick he will lay and the methods he will employ in laying it. His contribution to the structure is governed by the plan of the building as elaborated by previous generations and by the bricks they have prepared and the methods of laying them they have introduced. But in any generation whether a man will lay a brick at all or whether he will do it energetically and intelligently as compared with his fellow-workers will depend upon the innate qualities with which he is endowed.

Our conclusion therefore must be something after this kind. Those who base upon germinal change their hopes for the physical condition of the human race in the future are building upon sound foundations. However much our power to control and regulate vital processes may increase—and it is clearly upon the verge of a very great increase—in the end a satisfactory physical condition can only be the product of a certain germinal constitution. On the other hand, those who think that germinal change in mental characters will effect the evolution of society and mould the course of history are upon the whole mistaken. The course of history is in the main dependent upon changes in tradition which are for the most part independent of germinal change. Just as the outstanding happenings in the last century—the turning of thought and conduct in Germany, for example, along certain lines, which ended in so great a catastrophe—were due to changes in tradition and not to changes in the germinal constitution, so whether the problems now pressing upon European society are to be solved or whether some greater catastrophe, reaching a climax in a long course of years or bursting suddenly upon us, is to be the outcome, will depend upon changes in tradition and not upon germinal change. The reason for this lies in the fact that the vast accumulation of tradition overlays the outward expression of mental character, determines the direction of intellectual activity and moulds the expression of the instinctive faculties. But as far as tradition is equalized, so far do innate mental differences manifest themselves as between man and man, and since tradition is more or less equalized, if not within races, at least within classes in the same race, to that degree is mental endowment of pre-eminent importance to the individual.

APPENDIX I

There is presented below a summary of the evidence that in all parts of the world there existed among primitive races, before they had been subjected to European or other outside influence, customs the primary function of which was the restriction of increase. An ideal review of the matter would require a preliminary selection of certain areas where the conditions referred to could be thoroughly studied. After a mapping out of the races and tribes, in order that some idea might be obtained of the relative numerical importance of each, an exhaustive examination of the literature might be undertaken and the date of the observations noted. The credibility of the authors would have to be considered and some method of allowing for negative evidence elaborated. Nothing of the kind has been attempted here. It may be suggested that the problem should have been pursued at least somewhat further. Various attempts were made to analyse the evidence in other ways, but the difficulties met with were such that it seemed best to present the evidence as follows. Evidence of a reasonably credible nature as to the existence of these customs has been noted. In many of these cases other authors are silent as to these practices; in one or two cases the practices have been denied; but when the denial is either not apparently founded on careful observation or is of a distinctly later date, these instances have not been omitted. Where the weight of the evidence is against the existence of the practice, as in the case of the existence of infanticide among the Veddahs, any positive evidence is omitted. One author does record infanticide among the Veddahs, and it may be that it formerly existed.

It is submitted that the evidence as given below does show customs restrictive of increase to have been so widespread, in the form either of abortion, infanticide, or prolonged abstention from intercourse, as to have been practically universal. It is in fact submitted that, although for the many reasons set out in the text the evidence must be very incomplete, there is ample support for the theory which has been advanced.

In the following summary the letter ‘R’ stands for prolonged restriction of intercourse, ‘A’ for abortion, and ‘I’ for infanticide. Where the evidence records the practice to be rare, but there are reasons for thinking that the rarity may be recent, the reference has been included with the word ‘rare’ given in brackets.

AUSTRALIA

Group I.

[Sidenote: I.]

General References. Parker, Aborigines, p. 23; Lumholtz, Among Cannibals, p. 134.

Victoria. Curr, Recollections, p. 252.

Victoria and Riverina. Beveridge, Aborigines, p. 26.

New South Wales and Victoria. Mathews, Ethnological Notes, p. 17.

Port Lincoln. Wilhelmi, Transactions of the Royal Society of Victoria, vol. v, p. 180; Schürmann, Aboriginal Tribes, p. 223.

River Darling. Bonney, J. A. I., vol. xiii, p. 125.

Southern Australia. Palmer, J. A. I., vol. xiii, p. 280; Fison and Howitt, Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p. 190; Eylmann, Kolonie Südaustralien, p. 261; Smyth, Aborigines, vol. i, p. 52.

Mining Tribe. Howitt, Native Tribes, p. 748.

Tongeranka. Ibid., p. 749.

Mukjarawaint. Ibid.

Wotjos. Ibid.

Tatuthi. Ibid.

Wadthaurung. Ibid.

Narrinyeri. Taplin, Native Tribes, p. 13.

Queensland. Mathew, Two Tribes, p. 165.

Port Darwin. Foelsche, J. A. I., vol. xxiv, p. 192.

Central Australia. Eyre, Journals, vol. ii, p. 376; Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes, p. 269.

Northern Tribes. Spencer and Gillen, Northern Tribes, p. 608.

Western Australia. Grey, Journals, vol. ii, p. 251.

[Sidenote: A.]

North-west and Central Queensland. Roth, Ethnological Studies, p. 183.

Mythuggadi. Palmer, J. A. I., vol. xiii, p. 280.

Port Jackson. Collins, Edinburgh Review, vol. ii, p. 34.

TASMANIA

Group I.

[Sidenote: A.]

Bonwick, Tasmanians, p. 76.

[Sidenote: I.]

Ibid., pp. 79 and 85; Ling Roth, Tasmania, p. 167.

BUSHMEN

Group I.

[Sidenote: I.]

Moffat, Missionary Labours, p. 58; Stow, Native Races, p. 51.

AMERICA

Group I.

[Sidenote: R.]

General References. Weld, Travels, p. 373; Heriot, Travels, p. 339.

Yguazas. Cabeça da Vaca, Narrative, p. 62.

Abipones. Dobrizhoffer, Abipones, vol. ii, p. 97.

[Sidenote: A.]

General References. Weld. loc. cit., p. 373; Robertson, History, vol. i, p. 297.

Eskimos. Wells and Kelly, U.S.A. Bur. of Education, 1890, p. 19; Bessels, Arch. für Anth., vol. viii, p. 112.

Hudson Bay. Ellis, Voyage, p. 198.

Knisteneaux. Mackenzie, Voyages, vol. i, p. 148.

Haidahs. Bancroft, loc. cit., vol. i, p. 169.

Puget Sound. Lord, Naturalist, vol. ii, p. 231.

Vancouver Island (Nootkas). Sproat, Savage Life, p. 94; Bancroft, vol. i, p. 197.

Thompson Indians. (Rare.) Teit, Jesup North Pacific Expedition, vol. i, p. 305, and vol. ii, p. 584.

Shushwap. (Rare.) Ibid.

Western Washington and North-western Oregon. Gibbs, U.S. Geog. and Geol. Survey, vol. i, p. 199.

Chinooks. Bancroft, loc. cit., vol. i, p. 242.

Inland Tribes Pacific Coast. Ibid.

Omahas. (Rare.) Dorsey, 3rd A. R. B. E., p. 263.

Californians. Powers, loc. cit., p. 207.

New Mexico. Bancroft, loc. cit., vol. i, p. 590.

Guaycurus. Castelnau, Expedition, vol. ii, p. 450; Azara, Voyages, p. 146.

Payaguas. Rengger, Reise, p. 329.

Fuegians. Cooper, S. I. B. E., No. 63, p. 171.

[Sidenote: I.]

Eskimos. Behring Straits. Nelson, 18th A. R. B. E., p. 289.

Central. (Rare.) Boas, 6th A. R. B. E., p. 580.

Smith Sound. Murdoch, 9th A. R. B. E., p. 417; Bessels, Arch. für Anth., vol. viii, p. 112.

King William Land. Murdoch, loc. cit., p. 417.

Greenland. Nansen, Greenland, p. 330.

Aleuts. (Rare.) Dall, Alaska, p. 399.

Malemutes. Bancroft, loc. cit., vol. ii, p. 81.

Kutchins. Kirkby, Church Missionary Intelligencer, vol. xiv, p. 115; Hardisty, 21st A. R. B. E., p. 312; Mackenzie, Voyages, vol. i, p. 148.

Copper River District. Woldt, Reise, p. 393.

Chinooks. Bancroft, loc. cit., vol. i, p. 242; Lord, loc. cit., vol. ii, p. 231.

Koniagas. Bancroft, vol. i, p. 81.

Nootkas. Bancroft, vol. i, p. 197.

Haidahs. Gibbs, loc. cit., p. 198; Bancroft, vol. i, p. 169.

Kwakiutl. Bancroft, loc. cit., vol. i, p. 169.

Chepewayans. Keating, Narrative, p. 160.

Californians. Powers, loc. cit., p. 416; Bancroft, loc. cit., vol. i, pp. 390 and 413.

Yguazas. Cabeça da Vaca, Narrative, p. 62.

Abipones. Dobrizhoffer, Abipones, vol. ii, p. 97; Charlevoix, loc. cit., vol. i, p. 405.

Guaycurus. Church, South America, p. 248.

Puelches. Guinnard, Patagonians, p. 143.

Fuegians. (Rare.) Westermarck, Human Marriage, p. 313.

Group II.

[Sidenote: R.]

Iroquois. Le Beau, Aventures, vol. ii, p. 200.

Illinois. Charlevoix, loc. cit., vol. vi, p. 5.

Crows. Holder, Am. Journ. Obstet., vol. xxv, p. 44.

Mexico. Bancroft, loc. cit., vol. ii, p. 281.

Moxos and Chiquitos. D’Orbigny, L’Homme Américain, vol. i, p. 47.

[Sidenote: A.]

Sioux. Keating, loc. cit., vol. i, p. 394; Schoolcraft, loc. cit., vol. i, p. 204.

Crows. Holder, loc. cit., p. 44.

Apaches, Navahos, Pueblos, Pimas, Nahua, Otommi, and Aztec. Hrdlicka, S. I. B. E., Bull. 34, p. 163.

Menomini. Stevenson, 23rd A. R. B. E., p. 296.

Zuni. (Rare.) Ibid.

Mexico. Bancroft, loc. cit., vol. ii, pp. 183 and 269.

Brazil and the Chaco. Ehrenreich, Königliches Museum zu Berlin, vol. i, Heft 2, p. 27; Azara, vol. ii, p. 116.

Bakairi. Von den Steinen, Brazilien, p. 123.

[Sidenote: I.]

Pimas. Yarrow, A. R. B. E., vol. i, p. 99.

Sioux. Schoolcraft, loc. cit., vol. iii, p. 243.

Creeks. Schoolcraft, loc. cit., vol. ii, p. 272.

Guanas. Azara, loc. cit., vol. ii, p. 93.

Mbayas. Ibid., p. 116.

Lenguas. Hawtrey, J. A. I., vol. xxi, p. 295.

Guaranis. Rengger, Reise, p. 329.

AFRICA

[Sidenote: R.]

Yoruba-speaking. Ellis, Yoruba-Speaking Peoples, p. 185.

Ewe-speaking. Ellis, Ewe-Speaking Peoples, p. 206.

Kagero. Tremearne, J. A. I., vol. xlii, p. 174.

Hausa. Ibid., vol. xxxvi, p. 93.

Benin. Ling Roth, Benin, p. 39.

Niger District. Mungo Park, Travels, p. 402.

Warri District. Granville, J. A. I., vol. xxvii, p. 106.

Moioa. Tremearne, Nigeria, p. 239.

Gallinas. Harris, Darkest Africa, p. 36.

Hobbés. Desplagnes, Plateau Nigérien, p. 227.

Cameroon. Nassau, West Africa, p. 11.

Ashanti. Reade, South Africa, p. 45.

Congo District. Cureau, Sociétés primitives, p. 378; Johnston, George Grenfell, p. 671; Ward, J. A. I., vol. xxiv, p. 289.

Bangala. Weeks, J. A. I., vol. xxxix, p. 418; Overbergh and Jonghe, Coll. Mon. Eth., No. 1, p. 199.

Mayombe. Overbergh and Jonghe, Coll. Mon. Eth., No. 2, p. 219.

Ababua. Halkin, Coll. Mon. Eth., No. 7, p. 260.

Bayaka. Torday and Joyce, J. A. I., vol. xxxvi, p. 51.

Mandja. Gaud, Coll. Mon. Eth., No. 8, p. 154.

Warega. Delhaise, ibid., No. 5, p. 154.

Uganda. Wilson and Felkin, Uganda, vol. i, p. 187.

Baganda. Roscoe, Baganda, p. 55.

Rovuma River. Thomson, Geog. Journ., vol. iv, p. 73.

Swaheli. Velten, Suaheli, p. 73.

Baringo District. Dundas, J. A. I., vol. xl, p. 60.

Wanjamuesi. Reichard, Z. G. E., vol. xxiv, p. 257.

British Central Africa. Stannus, J. A. I., vol. xl, p. 311.

Miri District. Felkin, Trans. Edin. Obstet. Soc., vol. ix, p. 31.

Atonga. Johnston, British Central Africa, p. 415.

South Africa. Junod, Baronga, p. 490; Kidd, Essential Kaffir, p. 19.

Baronga. Junod, Baronga, p. 490.

Loango. Pechuel-Loesche, Loango-Expedition, p. 31.

[Sidenote: A.]

Tenda. Delacour, Rev. d’Eth., 1912, p. 45.

Nigeria. Tremearne, J. A. I., vol. xlii, p. 171.

Congo District. Johnston, George Grenfell, p. 671.

Bangala. Weeks, J. A. I., vol. xxxix, p. 449; Overbergh and Jonghe, Coll. Mon. Eth., No. 1, p. 201.

Bahuana. Torday and Joyce, J. A. I., vol. xxxvi, p. 228.

Warega. Delhaise, loc. cit., p. 147.

Ababua. Halkin, loc. cit., p. 259.

Onolove. de Rochebrune, Rev. d’Anth., vol. iv, p. 283.

Mangbetu. (Rare.) Van Overbergh, Coll. Mon. Eth., No. 4, p. 298.

Bushongo. (Rare.) Torday and Joyce, J. A. I., vol. xxxvi, p. 111.

Akamba. Hobley, Akamba, p. 58.

Swaheli. Velten, loc. cit., p. 29.

Nyassa District. Fülleborn, Nyassa-Gebiet, p. 352.

British Central Africa. Johnston, British Central Africa, p. 417; Angus, Azimba and Chipitaland, p. 324.

Zambezi Valley. Maugham, Zambezia, p. 339.

South Africa. Maclean, Kaffir Laws, p. 62.

Wadschagga. Gutmann, Wadschagga, p. 3.

Madagascar. Ellis, Madagascar, vol. i, p. 55.

[Sidenote: I.]

Hottentots. Kolben, Cape of Good Hope, vol. i, p. 144.

Madagascar. Ellis, Madagascar, vol. i, p. 155; Little, Madagascar, p. 60.

OCEANIA

[Sidenote: R.]

New Zealand. Tregear, J. A. I., vol. xix, p. 103.

Torres Straits. Cambridge Expedition, vol. v, p. 199.

Savage Island (Niue). Thomson, Savage Island, p. 141.

Pelew Islands. Kubary, Journal des Museum Godeffroy, vol. i, p. 54.

Samoa. Krämer, Samoa-Inseln, vol. i, p. 38.

New Guinea. Seligman, J. A. I., vol. xxxii, p. 302 (Sinaugola); Schellong, Zeit. für Eth., vol. xxviii, p. 19 (Finschafen).

Solomon Islands. Ribbe, Zwei Jahre, p. 144; Glaumond, Rev. d’Eth., vol. vii, p. 80.

Bismarck Archipelago (New Britain Group). Brown, Melanesians, p. 37.

New Caledonia. Glaumond, loc. cit., p. 80; Lambert, Néo-Calédoniens, p. 104.

Fiji. Thomson, Fijians, p. 176; Seeman, Viti, p. 191.

Tonga. Thomson, loc. cit., p. 178.

Gilbert Islands (Kingsmill or Line Islands). Thomson, loc. cit., p. 178.

[Sidenote: A.]

New Zealand. Dieffenbach, New Zealand, vol. ii, p. 12; Goldie, Trans. and Proc. N. Z. Inst., vol. xxxvii, p. 110; Tuke, _Edin. Med. Journ._, vol. ix, p. 735.

Torres Straits. Hunt, J. A. I., vol. xxviii, p. 9; Haddon, J. A. I., vol. xix, p. 359; Cambridge Expedition, vol. vi, p. 197.

Hawaii. Dumas, Îles Hawaï, p. 18.

Gilbert Islands. Jenkins, Voyage, p. 404; Krämer, loc. cit., vol. ii, p. 53; Thomson, Fijians, p. 211.

Samoa. Krämer, loc. cit., vol. ii, p. 53; Turner, Samoa, p. 79.

Rotuma. Gardiner, J. A. I., vol. xxvii, p. 480.

Savage Island. Thomson, loc. cit., p. 141.

Fiji. Pritchard, Polynesian Reminiscences, p. 423; Waterhouse, Fiji, p. 327.

New Hebrides. Hagen and Pineau, Rev. d’Eth., vol. vii, p. 332; Jamieson, Aust. Med. Journ., vol. vii, p. 53.

New Caledonia. Codrington, Melanesians, p. 33; Ribbe, loc. cit., p. 144; Parkinson, Int. Arch. Eth., vol. xiii, p. 8; Elton, J. A. I., vol. xvii, p. 93.

Solomon Islands. Ribbe, loc. cit., p. 144.

Bismarck Archipelego. Brown, Melanesians, p. 33; Danks, J. A. I., vol. xviii, p. 291; Pfeil, Studien, p. 313; Stephan and Graebner, Neu-Mecklenburg, p. 18.

New Britain. Danks, J. A. I., vol. xviii, p. 291.

Aru Islands. Ribbe, loc. cit., p. 194.

Flores. Riedel, Rev. Col. Inter., vol. ii, p. 71.

New Guinea. Krieger, Neu-Guinea, pp. 165, 292, 390, and 392; Murray, Papua, p. 194; Rosenberg, Malayische Archipel, p. 454; Williamson, Mafulu People, p. 176; Seligman, Melanesians, pp. 135 and 568; Neuhaus, Deutsch Neu-Guinea, vol. ii, p. 150.

Nias. Modigliani, Viaggio, p. 554.

Celebes. Kreutz, Zeit. Soc. Wiss., Heft 11, p. 21.

Luzon. Jenks, Ethnological Survey Publications, vol. i, p. 60.

Mitchell Group. Turner, Samoa, p. 280.

[Sidenote: I.]

New Zealand. Angas, Savage Life, vol. i, p. 312; Taylor, Te Ika a Maui, p. 338; Tuke, loc. cit., p. 312.

Torres Straits. Haddon, J. A. I., vol. xix, p. 359; Cambridge Expedition, vol. vi, p. 107.

Gilbert Islands. Tuituila, Journ. Pol. Soc., vol. i, p. 267.

Savage Island. Thomson, Fijians, p. 141.

Rarotonga. Gill, Coral Islands, vol. ii, p. 13.

Tahiti. Lutteroth, Insel Tahiti, p. 12; Ellis, Polynesian Researches, vol. i, p. 249.

Pelew Islands. Kotzebue, Histoire, vol. xvii, p. 211.

Sandwich Islands. Ellis, Narrative, p. 324; Angas, Polynesia, p. 144; Dumas, loc. cit., p. 19.

Fiji. Waterhouse, Fiji, p. 328.

New Caledonia. Glaumond, loc. cit., p. 79; Bernard, Nouvelle-Calédonie, p. 288; Moncelin, Bull. Soc. Anth., vol. ix, p. 357.

New Hebrides. Somerville, J. A. I., vol. xxiii, p. 4; Paton, New Hebrides, p. 452.

Banks Island. Codrington, Melanesians, p. 229.

Solomon Islands (Ugi). Elton, J. A. I., vol. xvii, p. 93; Guppy, Solomon Islands, p. 42.

Bismarck Archipelago. Brown, Melanesians, p. 36; Pfeil, loc. cit., p. 18.

New Guinea. Seligman, Melanesians, pp. 568 and 705; Williamson, Mafulu People, p. 176; Newton, New Guinea, p. 189.

Funafuti. Edgeworth David, Funafuti, p. 195.

Tikopia (Barwell Island). Rivers, Melanesian Society, vol. i, p. 313.

Nissau. Thurmwald, Zeit. für Eth., vol. xl, 1908, p. 111.

Radeck. Kotzebue, Voyages, p. 173.

Vaitapu (Ellice Archipelago). Turner, Samoa, p. 284.

Marquesas. Hale, U.S. Exploring Expedition, vol. vi, p. 15.

Maupiti. Montgomery, Journal, vol. ii, p. 12.

Murray Islands. Hunt, J. A. I., vol. xxviii, p. 9.

APPENDIX II

Since the chapter on Human Fecundity was set up in type my attention has been called to a paper by Siegel (Münchener Medizinische Wochenschrift, 1916, p. 748). Though much has been said as to the supposed influence of the time of copulation with reference to the sexual cycle upon fertility, no definite information has been forthcoming. This paper, however, contains important data which bear upon this point. Owing to the fact that married soldiers only had occasional leave from the army during the war and then only for two or three days at a time, it has been possible to obtain information as to the period in the sexual cycle in which between two and three hundred children were conceived. Siegel finds that the likelihood of fertilization increases from the beginning of menstruation, reaches the highest point six days later, remains almost at the same height until the twelfth or thirteenth day, and then declines to the twenty-second day, after which there is absolute sterility.

If these data are confirmed, then those customs which encouraged copulation immediately after menstruation (as among the ancient Jews) or discourage it (as among the Hindus) must have an important bearing upon fertility.

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INDEX

Ababua, restriction of intercourse, 175; abortion, 179; infanticide, 180; property, 210.

Abipones, lactation, 138; age at marriage, 140; abstention from intercourse, 140; infanticide, 149, 219; feuds, 152; health, 159; treatment of children, 160; age at marriage, 226.

Abortion, among hunting and fishing races, 145; among agricultural races, 168, 178, 189, 196; extent of, 215; origin of, 216; as regulating numbers, 222; among historical races, 256, 268, 314.

Acheulean period, 121.

Acquired characters, not inherited, 74; contrasted with inherited characters, 68.

Adio, restriction of intercourse, 176.

Africa, evolution of tradition in, 442.

Aged, treatment of, among hunting and fishing races, 154.

Ahts, lactation, 138; war, 151; treatment of aged, 155; food, 233; property, 296.

Ainu, lactation, 185; fertility, 189; war, 194.

Akamba, abortion, 179; property, 209; marriage customs, 228.

Akikuyu, fertility, 178; war, 181; property, 210; age at marriage, 228; health, 235.

Aleuts, fertility, 143; infanticide, 148.

Amazon tribes, war, 171.

America, evolution of tradition in, 439; racial characteristics, 451.

American Indians, fertility, 99. See also under various tribes.

Andamanese, lactation, 138; fertility, 144; infant mortality, 160; intellect, 390.

Animal behaviour, evolution of, 45 ff.

Annam, abortion, 256.

Anthropoid apes, evolution of, 109; mode of life, 110.

Apaches, contraceptive methods, 167; abortion, 168.

Arabs, celibacy, 252; lactation, 254; restriction of intercourse, 254; contraceptive methods, 255; abortion, 256; infanticide, 259; over-population, 275; migration, 302.

Aru Islands, fertility, 186; abortion, 189.

Ashanti, restriction of intercourse, 175; sacrifices, 180.

Asia, evolution of tradition in, 441.

Assiniens, fertility, 177.

Atonga, restriction of intercourse, 176.

Attakapas, age at marriage, 229.

Aurignacian period, 122.

Australians, fertility, 99; early intercourse, 135; lactation, 137; initiation ceremonies, 138; age at marriage, 139; abortion, 145; infanticide, 147, 216; war, 149; feuds, 152; treatment of sick, 154; disease, 157; health, 158, 231; property, 203; division of food, 211; marriage customs, 224; storing of food, 232; intellect, 389.

Awa-Wanga, restriction of intercourse, 176.

Aymaras, lactation, 165; fertility, 168.

Azilian-Tardenoisian, 123.

Aztecs, contraceptive methods, 167; abortion, 168.

Baganda, lactation, 174; restriction of intercourse, 176; war, 181; witchcraft, 182; health, 183; property, 210; marriage customs, 228; food, 233.

Bahamas, 396.

Bahima, war, 181.

Baholoholo, fertility, 178.

Bahuana, war, 171; early intercourse, 173; abortion, 179.

Bakairi, abortion, 169.

Bakalai, war, 181.

Bakene, fertility, 178.

Bambala, war, 171; early intercourse, 173; fertility, 178; intellect, 391.

Bangala, early intercourse, 173; age at marriage, 174; restriction of intercourse, 175; fertility, 178; abortion, 179; property, 209; marriage customs, 228; intellect, 391.

Banks Island, early intercourse, 185; infanticide, 191.

Bantu Races, polygamy, 102; age at marriage, 174; restriction of intercourse, 176; health, 183; intellect, 390.

Banyala, war, 181.

Baringo District, early intercourse, 173; restriction of intercourse, 176; war, 181.

Baronga, lactation, 174; restriction of intercourse, 176; age at marriage, 227.

Basonge, infanticide, 180.

Basuto, health, 183; infant mortality, 184.

Bayaka, restriction of intercourse, 175; fertility, 178; war, 181; witchcraft, 182.

Bechuanaland, property, 210.

Behaviour, evolution of, 45.

Benin, restriction of intercourse, 175; war, 180.

Binet-Simon methods, 393.

Biometric methods, 358.

Bismarck Archipelago, lactation, 185; restriction of intercourse, 186; fertility, 188; abortion, 189; infanticide, 191.

Black Death, 248.

Blackfeet, war, 152, 170.

Boers, 450.

Bontoc Igorot, lactation, 185; abortion, 190; head hunting, 194; infant mortality, 195; marriage customs, 226.

Borneo, fertility, 191; war, 194; head hunting, 194, 227.

Bornu, age at marriage, 174.

Botocudos, fertility, 144; infanticide, 149; health, 159.

Brazilians, early intercourse, 164; fertility, 168; abortion, 169, 221; health, 172, 236; infant mortality, 172; property, 208; marriage customs, 230.

Bronze Age, 125.

Buddhism, celibacy, 252.

Burma, marriage, 253.

Bushmen, early intercourse, 136; fertility, 143; infanticide, 148; war, 150; treatment of aged, 154; health, 158, 232; property, 205; division of food, 212.

Bushongo, early intercourse, 173; lactation, 174; abortion, 179; infanticide, 180; property, 209.

Californians, early intercourse, 126; lactation, 138; age at marriage, 140; fertility, 140; infanticide, 149; war, 152; treatment of aged, 155; health, 159; infant mortality, 160.

Cameroon district, restriction of intercourse, 175.

Caroline Islands, infanticide, 190; marriage customs, 224.

Carrier tribes, property, 206.

Casual Labour, over-population and, 290.

Catholic Church, contraceptive practices and, 294.

Celebes, early intercourse, 185; fertility, 189; abortion, 190.

Celibacy, primitive races, 226; historical races, 251, 263, 278.

Cells, nature of, 39.

Chaco Indians, abortion, 169; infanticide, 169; war, 171.

Chaldea, celibacy, 251.

Charruas, war, 152; health, 236.

Chellean period, 121.

Chepewayans, lactation, 138; fertility, 144; infanticide, 149; war, 152; treatment of aged, 155.

Cheyennes, abortion, 169, 220.

Chichmics, lactation, 165.

Children, death-rate among hunting and fishing races, 159; among agricultural races, 172, 183, 196; among historical races, 249.

—— number of, see Fertility.

Chinese, fecundity, 100; celibacy, 252; marriage, 253; restriction of intercourse, 254; contraceptive methods, 255; fertility, 256; abortion, 256; infanticide, 259, 276; over-population, 276; organization of society, 432.

Chinooks, fertility, 99; lactation, 138; abortion, 146; infanticide, 149; war, 151.

Chiquitos, fertility, 168.

Christianity, war and, 249; marriage and, 263; infanticide and abortion and, 268.

Chromosomes, as physical basis of heredity, 65.

Civilization, cyclical course of, 459.

Climate, famine and, 249, 274; migration and, 301; head form and, 341; tropical effects of, 342; selection and, 371.

Comanches, early intercourse, 137; fertility, 144; war, 152.

Confucianism, marriage and, 253.

Congo tribes, early intercourse, 173; lactation, 174; restriction of intercourse, 175; contraceptive methods, 177; fertility, 178; abortion, 179; infanticide, 180; war, 180; witchcraft, 182; infant mortality, 184; marriage customs, 229; food, 234.

Contact, influence upon tradition, 424; geography and, 427.

Contraceptive methods, agricultural races, 177, 186; historical races, 255, 266, 287, 315; Catholic Church and, 294.

Co-operation, in search for food, 211.

Copper Age, 125.

Copper River tribes, infanticide, 148.

Copulation, external, 42; internal, 43.

Corea, celibacy, 252.

Creeks, infanticide, 169, 220.

Crees, war, 211.

Cro-Magnon man, 117.

Cross River tribes, early intercourse, 172.

Crow tribe, fertility, 99; restriction of intercourse, 166; abortion, 168; war, 170.

Cytoplasm, nature of, 39; relation to nucleus, 66.

Dacotahs, war, 170.

Dahomey, war, 170.

Damaras, health, 175.

Death, origin of, 38; causes of, among animals, 57; among plants, 58; ignorance of cause among hunting and fishing races, 153.

Decreasing returns, 199.

Development of organisms, 41, 66, 325.

Disease, evolution of, 155; among hunting and fishing races, 158; among agricultural races, 171, 183, 195; among historical races, 244; tropical, 348; twins and, 352; inheritance of, 359; selection and, 377.

Ductless glands, 347, 372.

Dyaks, use of metal, 163; food, 233.

Egbas, fertility, 177.

Egypt, disease, 245, 247; treatment of children, 250; celibacy, 251; lactation, 254; restriction of intercourse, 254; infanticide, 272; over-population, 277.

Ekoi, fertility, 177; property, 209; marriage customs, 229.

Elimination, causes of among animals, 58; among plants, 59; under natural conditions, 75.

Enclosures, population and, 284.

Environment, influence of upon animals and plants, 325; upon men, 336; influence upon progress, 458.

Eoanthropus, 115.

Eoliths, 118, 130.

Eskimos, fertility, 99, 143; early intercourse, 136; lactation, 137; age at marriage, 140; abortion, 145; infanticide, 148; war, 150; feuds, 153; treatment of aged, 154; health, 158; infant mortality, 159; property, 205; division of food, 212; marriage customs, 225; celibacy, 226; storing of food, 232.

Eugenics, attitude of Romans, 18; term due to Galton, 35; modern problems, 308.

Evolution, theory of, 17, 18, 34; of animal behaviour, 45; among species in a state of nature, 77; of Primates, 109; of man, 110, 128; of culture, 129; of disease, 155; of tradition, 438.

Ewe-speaking people, lactation, 174; restriction of intercourse, 175; war, 180; property, 209; marriage, 229.

Exercise, influence of, 329, 339.

Factory Acts, 290, 340.

Famine, climate and, 249.

Fecundity, early references to human, 25; definition of, 51; distinguished from fertility, 52; among species in nature, 63; how determined, 60; not influenced by the male, 88; relation to length of mature period, 90; to interval between births, 92; effect of captivity upon, 95; relation to number at a birth, 95; increase of human, 97; of primitive races, 99; in India and China, 100; opinion of Darwin regarding, 101; relation to polygamy, 102; to lactation, 102; to age at marriage, 103; to early intercourse, 103; to development of fat, 104; among men, 105; of pre-human ancestor, 241.

Fertility, distinguished from fecundity, 52; among hunting and fishing races, 141; among agricultural races, 167, 177, 183, 196; among historical races, 255; Indian and European compared, 256; calculations regarding, 291; differential, 316; differential between classes, 316, 457; between races, 320.

Fertilization, 40.

Feuds, among hunting and fishing races, 152; among agricultural races, 171.

Fiji, lactation, 185; restriction of intercourse, 186; fertility, 188; abortion, 189, 221; infanticide, 191, 219; war, 193; obligation to work, 212; age at marriage, 226; food, 233.

Flores, abortion, 190.

Food, co-operation in search for, 211.

Franks, contraceptive methods, 255.

Fuegians, early intercourse, 137; lactation, 138; fertility, 144; abortion, 146; infanticide, 149; war, 152; treatment of aged, 155; infant mortality, 160; restriction of intercourse, 166; property, 207; marriage customs, 225.

Funafuti, infanticide, 190, 219.

Gallinomero, infanticide, 149.

Gallinas, restriction of intercourse, 175; war, 180.

Gametes, nature of, 40.

Geological strata, time occupied by deposition of, 107.

Ghiliaks, lactation, 138; infant mortality, 160.

Glacial epoch, duration of, 108; subdivisions of, 109.

Gonorrhoea, effect upon fecundity, 89.

Greece, discussion regarding population in, 19; celibacy, 251; contraceptive methods, 255; abortion, 256; infanticide, 258; malaria, 349.

Grimaldi man, 117.

Guanas, fertility, 168; infanticide, 169; age at marriage, 230.

Guaranis, fertility, 168; war, 171; abortion, 220.

Guatemala, early intercourse, 164.

Guaycurus, abortion, 146; infanticide, 149; war, 152.

Guiana, lactation, 165; infanticide, 169; feuds, 171; marriage customs, 229; food, 234.

Habit, inheritance of, 362; tradition and, 414, 462.

Haidahs, abortion, 146; infanticide, 149; war, 151; feuds, 154; property, 206; marriage customs, 225.

Hausa, lactation, 174; restriction of intercourse, 175; infanticide, 180.

Hawaii, early intercourse, 185; abortion, 189.

Head, shape of, and environment, 341.

Head hunting, 194.

Health, of primitive races, 158, 196, 231; of historical races, 245.

Heidelberg man, 114.

Hobbés, restriction of intercourse, 175.

Hottentots, fertility, 178; infanticide, 179, 180; war, 182; health, 183; property, 208.

Housing accommodation, population and, 280.

Hualaga tribes, fertility, 168.

Hudson Bay tribes, fertility, 143; abortion, 145.

Hungary, lactation, 263.

Hurons, early intercourse, 165.

Ibo-speaking people, early intercourse, 173.

Ice Age, see Glacial epoch.

Illinois, early intercourse, 165; restriction of intercourse, 166.

Imitation, inheritance of, 364; tradition and, 413.

Income, average per head, 310.

Increase, possible among animals and plants, 54; actual, 55.

India, fecundity, 100; early intercourse, 104; infant mortality, 250; celibacy, 251; early intercourse, 253; contraceptive methods, 255; fertility, 255; abortion, 256; infanticide, 260; climate, 274; over-population, 275; caste system, 432.

Infant mortality, see Children.

Infanticide, hunting and fishing races, 146; agricultural races, 169, 179, 190, 196; extent of under-estimated, 215; origin of, 216; importance of, in regulating numbers, 228; among historical races, 257, 268.

Ingaliks, lactation, 138.

Inheritance, relation of, to social problems, 18; physical basis of, 64; biparental, 71; environment and, 326; in man, 356; of physical characters, 359; of disease, 359; of mental characters, 361.

Initiation ceremonies, 138.

Instinct, nature of, 47; inheritance of, 363.

Intellect, inheritance of, 364; among prehistoric races, 387, 398; primitive races, 389; negroes, 393; in the Bahamas, 396; evolution of, 399, 409, 438; influence upon progress, 447.

Intelligence, nature of, 47; development among animals, 50.

Interdependence of organisms, 56.

Ireland, over-population, 284, 294.

Iron Age, 127.

Iroquois, restriction of intercourse, 166; fertility, 167; health, 172.

Jakun, marriage customs, 225.

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