286 THE PRINCIPLES OF HEREDITY 



If brains grow in size by use, there is a strong 

 that the superior cranial development of the monks was due 

 not to germinal peculiarities but to the more intellectual 

 nature of their pursuits. 



457. Again, Professor Karl Pearson declares : " The upper 

 middle class is the backbone of a nation, it depends on it 

 for its thinkers, readers, and organizers. This class is not a 

 mushroom growth, but the result of a long process of select- 

 ing the intellectually able and fitter members of society; 

 roughly speaking, its members marry within the caste, they 

 form opinion and think for a nation. We want every possible 

 ladder for attracting to that class able members of the hand- 

 working class; but with very considerable experience of 

 those who have climbed those ladders, and some of them are 

 brilliant men, or were brilliant lads at least, I am prepared 

 to maintain that the middle classes (owing to their long 

 period of selection and selective mating) produce relatively 

 to the working classes a vastly greater proportion of ability ; 

 it is not the want of education, it is the want of stock which 



is at the basis of this difference The population of 



France is becoming more and more Celtic because the Bretons 

 are the one element in the population which does not limit 

 the family. Who can affirm that this is for the benefit of 

 France, or that her national character will not change with 

 this predominance ? " 1 



458. The opinions of such keen thinkers as Mr. Galton 

 and Professor Pearson are entitled to respect, but the en- 

 vironments in which the infancy and childhood of the middle 



1 The Grammar of Science, ed. 1900, pp. 466-7. See also Pearson's 

 Huxley Lecture (Times, Oct. 17, 1803). "We inherited our parents' 

 tempers, conscientiousness, shyness, ability, even as we inherited their 

 stature, fore-arm, and span. Again, within broad lines, physical characters 

 were inherited at the same rate in man and the lower forms of life. The 

 irresistible conclusion was, that if man's physical characters were in- 

 herited even as those of the horse, the greyhound, and the water-flea, 

 what reason was there for demanding a special evolution for man's 

 mental and moral side ? If the relation of the psychical characters to the 

 physical characters was established, what was its lesson ? Simply that 

 geniality and probity and ability might be fostered by home environ- 

 ment, and by provision of good schools and well-equipped institutions 

 for research, but that their origin, like health and muscle, was deeper 

 down than those things. They were bred, and not created." There 

 can be no doubt that we tend to inherit our parents' ability their 

 powers of making mental acquirements plus their powers of learning to 

 utilize these acquirements to advantage. But would any man be " able " 

 if reared among fools, or genial if trained by ill-tempered people or 

 dour fanatics, or upright if taught by thieves ? Under what process of 

 Natural Selection was " probity " evolved ? 



