290 THE PRINCIPLES OF HEREDITY 



peculiarities. He says : " I cordially subscribe to the remark 

 of one of the greatest thinkers of our time who says of the 

 supposed differences of race, ' Of all vulgar methods of 

 escaping from the effects of social and moral influences on 

 the mind, the most vulgar is that of attributing the 

 diversities of conduct and character to inherent natural 

 differences/ " (Mill's Principles of Political Economy, vol. i., 

 p. 389.) Ordinary writers are constantly falling into the 

 error of assuming the existence of this difference, which may 

 or may not exist, but which assuredly has never been proved. 

 Some singular instances of this will be found in Alison's 

 History of Europe, vol. ii., p. 336 ; vol. vi., p. 138 ; vol. 

 viii., pp. 525, 526; vol. xiii., p. 347, where the historian 

 thinks that by a few strokes of his pen he can settle a 

 question of the greatest difficulty connected with some of 

 the most intricate problems of physiology. 1 



462. " Whatever therefore the moral and intellectual 

 progress of men may be, it resolves itself not into a progress 

 of natural capacity, but into a progress, if I can say so, of 

 opportunity, that is, an improvement of the circumstances 

 under which that capacity after birth comes into play. Here, 

 then, lies the gist of the whole matter. The progress is one, 

 not of internal power, but of external advantage. The child 

 born in a civilized land is not likely as such to be superior to 

 one born among barbarians ; and the difference which ensues 

 between the acts of the two children will be caused, so far as 

 we know, solely by the pressure of external circumstances ; 

 by which I mean the surrounding opinions, knowledge, 

 associations, in a word, the entire mental atmosphere, in 

 which the two children are respectively nurtured." 2 



463. Now, since so little in man that is mental is inborn, 

 and so much is acquired deductively, it seems probable that 

 Buckle is right. An attempt to judge the innate ability 

 or other mental characters of a family, class, or race simply 

 by counting distinguished heads or estimating the general 

 culture is on a level with an attempt to estimate the amount 

 of water in a river by measuring its width while ignoring its 

 depth. Our chances of success are best when we deal with 

 members of the same family or class, because here, within 

 wide limits, the general training, the sum-total of the experi- 

 ence of individuals is somewhat similar. But, when we attempt 

 by such means to compare classes and races, the sources of 

 error are so numerous and great that our conclusions are 



1 Buckle's History of Civilization, vol. i., p. 40. 

 2 Op. cit., p. 178. 



