HABITS OF MIND 499 



savage. Therefore religions, in so far as they are false, are bars to 

 the discovery of truth. Nevertheless, false beliefs owe their 

 stability mainly to the way in which they are taught to the pupil. 

 For instance, it is possible to teach Mohammedanism and 

 Buddhism, as in the case of the Spanish Moors and the Japanese, 

 in such a way as to leave the mind open to fresh evidence. More- 

 over, it is not credible that the Pagan Greeks and Romans were 

 intellectually greater than their Christian descendants of the Dark 

 Ages merely because their religious beliefs were more true, or at 

 any rate less false. Nor is it credible that the comparatively 

 trifling doctrinal differences which separate Protestant races from 

 their mediaeval ancestors, and, in a lesser degree, from modern 

 Catholics and Greek Churchmen, are the causes of their considerable 

 social superiority. 



814. As in the case of susceptibility to alcohol, racial intel- 

 lectual peculiarities have been attributed to all sorts of causes. 

 For example, climate has been alleged as a cause. But both 

 stagnant and progressive races have existed in all the zones of 

 the earth, and while climates change only in geological time, 

 races may change their characteristics in a generation. Moreover, 

 the effect produced by climate is either germinal, or one which 

 is * acquired ' by every generation in turn. If germinal, it comes 

 under the heading of innate ; if acquired, under that of mental 

 training. However, all thinking that has connected mental 

 peculiarities with climate has been excessively vague. Because 

 individuals, whose race has evolved in fitness to a cold or 

 temperate climate, have found a warm climate enervating, the 

 latter, in spite of natural selection, has been supposed to enervate 

 the race that has evolved in it. On the other hand, hot climates 

 and fiery suns have been thought to conduce to 'hot' and 

 'fiery' natures. Equally absurd is the notion that 'young' 

 races tend to be vigorous and ' old ' races decrepit, or that there 

 is a law of nature that causes races to swing continually between 

 states of high and low efficiency. Every human race is of the 

 same age. Indeed, if it be true that living beings are genetically 

 related, all species known to us are derived from an equal 

 antiquity. 



815. To sum up: the method by which religion is taught 

 profoundly affects mental development. If it be such that the 

 pupil, as in the case of fanatical Mohammedans, is made to hold 

 his beliefs as a mass of obstructive prejudices, then, no matter 

 what the truth of the religion, it becomes a cause of social 



