242 RULES FOR THE PROPER EXERCISE 



situation. Taking the average of mankind, the limits 

 to which this modification may be carried are not 

 narrow. Place a child, for example, of average pro- 

 pensities, sentiments, and intellect, among a class 

 of people thieves in whom the selfish faculties 

 are exclusively exercised; by whom gain is wor- 

 shipped as tKe end of life, and cunning and cheating 

 as the means, and among whom it never hears one 

 word of disapprobation or moral indignation against 

 either crime or sentiment; and its lower faculties 

 will be exclusively exercised and increase in strength, 

 while the higher will be left unemployed and become 

 weak. A child so situated will consequently not 

 only act as those around do, but insensibly grow up 

 resembling them in disposition and character, be- 

 cause, by the law of repetition, the organs of the 

 selfish faculties will have acquired proportionally 

 greater aptitude and vigour, just as the muscles of 

 the fencer or dancer. But suppose the same indi- 

 vidual placed from infancy in the society of a supe- 

 riorly endowed moral and intellectual people ; the 

 moral faculties will then be habitually excited and 

 their organs invigorated by repetition, till a greater 

 aptitude, or in other words, a higher moral char- 

 acter, will be formed. There are, of course, limits 

 set to this modification by the natural endowments 

 of the individual : but where the original dispositions 

 are not strongly marked, the range is still a wide one. 



From this source arise many differences, not only 

 of individual, but of national character, and such dif- 

 ferences as we observe take place from changes of 

 fortune and condition. The Negro free in Africa 

 differs widely from the Negro subjected to the 

 scourge of the colonist. 



The truth of these remarks is confirmed by M. 

 Arago, in his account of Freycinet's Voyage round 

 the World in 1818-19-20. In speaking of the dif- 

 ferent results of the same education in the Isle of 

 France and in the mother country, he observes, that 



