THE MIND OF MAN 285 



the truth is discovered ; and we ought to inquire not only 

 how many instances there are of hereditary talents, etc., but 

 how many instances there are of such qualities not being 

 hereditary. Until something of this sort is attempted we 

 can know nothing about the matter deductively ; while until 

 physiology and chemistry are much more advanced, we can 

 know nothing about it inductively." l 



456. As a general rule, however, most scientific men appear 

 to hold a contrary opinion. Thus Mr. Francis Galton says : 

 " The long period of the Dark Ages under which Europe has 

 lain is due, I believe, in a very considerable degree, to the 

 celibacy enjoined by religious orders on their votaries. When- 

 ever a man or a woman was possessed of a gentle nature that 

 fitted him or her to deeds of charity, to meditation, to 

 literature, or to art, the social conditions of the time were 

 such that they had no refuge elsewhere except in the bosom 

 of the Church. But the Church chose to preach and exact 

 celibacy. The consequence was that these gentle natures had 

 no continuance, and thus, by a policy so singularly unwise 

 and suicidal that I am hardly able to speak of it without 

 impatience, the Church brutalized the breed of our fore- 

 fathers. She acted precisely as if she aimed at selecting the 

 rudest portion of the community to be, alone, the parents of 

 future generations. She practised the arts which breeders 

 would use, who aimed at creating ferocious, currish, and 

 stupid natures. No wonder that club law prevailed for 

 centuries over Europe; the wonder is that enough good 

 remained in the veins of Europeans to enable their race to 

 rise to its present very moderate level of natural morality." 2 

 Investigation has proved that medieval monks had, on an 

 average, larger brains than the laity. If, as Mr. Galton 

 implies, gentle natures are inborn, then the Church certainly 

 did her best to brutalize the breed of our ancestors ; but if 



fentleness is a character which almost any one may acquire, 

 ut which only a few people in the mediaeval environment 

 did acquire, then the Church can have exercised no real 

 selection. Women are not, perhaps, especially distinguished 

 by a love of meditation or literature, but all the world over 

 they have been regarded as the gentler sex. When, however, 

 women are emancipated from ancestral tradition, when they 

 acquire new traits by imitation, they are apt to be as fierce 

 and violent as men. Witness the women of more than one 

 French revolution and the black Amazons of West Africa. 



1 Buckle, History of Civilization) vol. i., p. 177. 



2 Galton, Hereditary Genius, pp. 343-4. 



