108 CHANGE IN CHARACTER. 



To ascend from these fundamental though relevant 

 and indeed, in this discussion, essential matters to the 

 level of practical life, it becomes clear that we must 

 divide circumstance into violent and exceptional on 

 the one hand, and average or moderate on the other. 

 I have already spoken of violent circumstance such 

 as certain diseases, and material and non-material 

 injuries as well as of certain abnormal surroundings. 

 Exceptional circumstance may not only prevent, or 

 dwarf, or pervert the normal unfolding of nerve life 

 and of character, or actually change already unfolded 

 character; it may in the form, say, of a bullet put an 

 end to both nerve and character in a single moment. 

 , No broad line separates ordinary from extraordinary 

 ^circumstance ; but they who believe that circumstance 

 has more to do with character than organisation have 

 in view, as a rule, the average environment of not 

 strikingly eventful life. And indeed the circumstance 

 which encompasses the vast majority of men and 

 women is not specially remarkable is not in fact 

 abnormal : it certainly affects character in some degree 

 but affects it within such limits that beyond all doubt 

 long-inherited organisation mainly dominates its fea- 

 tures. 



No doubt, from the evolutionist's point of view, 

 circumstance has very materially controlled human 

 and all other character because it has, under the 

 physiological law of infmitesimally slight steps of 

 change, controlled all bodily and nerve organisation. 

 But what does this imply ? Not the fallacious idea 

 that circumstance has at any time impressed itself 

 upon and changed organisation and character : but 

 that, during incalculable time, the organisation and 



