1908] on Biology and History. 55 



And the biologist is right. The "dying nation" alters its 

 psychical environroent. It introduces the practice of education, it 

 begins to shake off the yoke of ecclesiasticism ; and what are the 

 consequences ? 



The new generation is found to be potentially little worse, and 

 little better, than its predecessors of the sixteenth century. There 

 has been no racial degeneration. The environment is modified for 

 the better, i.e. so as to clioose the better, and Spain, as they say in 

 misleading phrase, " takes on a new lease of life." 



But tlie historian might well write a volume upon the same 

 thesis as appUed to China and Japan. The popular belief used to 

 be, that China illustrated the so-called law of nations. It was the 

 decadent, though monstrous, relic of an ancient civilisation ; it had 

 had its day; inevitable degeneration, which must befall all peoples, 

 had come upon it. Behold it in the paralysis which precedes 

 death ! 



But in the light of the facts of Japan, and such a phrase as " the 

 yellow peril," we have discarded our old theories. The metaphor 

 must be changed. This is not paralysis, but merely stupor. It is 

 suspense, not recuperation ; but assuredly it is not paralysis. Who 

 now would dare to say that China has had its day, even if he still 

 clings to the old fictions about Spain ? 



There is another factor of history to which, I believe, the biologist 

 must attach enormous importance, but which no historian yet has 

 adequately reckoned with. The prime assumption of this lecture from 

 beginning to end, is that " there is no wealth but life ; " and, in the 

 attempt to suggest interpretations of history based upon this truth, 

 so little recked of by the historian, we have considered the life in 

 question from the point of view of its determination by heredity, 

 and its varying value according to the inherent and transmissible 

 characters selected for perpetuation in each generation. But a w^ord 

 must be said as to the other factor which, with heredity, determines 

 the character of every individual — and that factor is the environ- 

 ment. We must note the most important aspect of the environ- 

 ment of human beings, and observe that historians hitherto have 

 wholly ignored it ; yet its influence is incalculable. This is 

 motherhood. 



It is man's intelligence that has made him lord of the earth ; it 

 is qualities of intelligence that have largely determined the course of 

 history as wrought out between human races and civilisations. Now 

 intelligence is a limitless thing — it can learn everything ; lut, it has 

 everything to learn. The lower animals have instincts — neither 

 needing nor capable of education, but in order that intelligence 

 shall be possible, instinct must make room for it. Thus, at birth 

 we human beings have nothing ; intellect being only potential, not 

 actual, and instinct having almost entirely lapsed. We come into 



