302 THE PRINCIPLES OF HEREDITY 



the balance as nothing compared to the way in which they 

 are taught, for it is possible so to teach true doctrines as to 

 make them intellectually disastrous to the recipient ; and so 

 to teach false doctrines as to render them intellectually bene- 

 ficial or, at any rate, not nearly so disastrous as the truth may 

 be made. Suppose I tell my child that the earth is flat, and 

 succeed in surrounding him with influences which raise in 

 his mind a prejudice in favour of that belief so strong that 

 he will ever after be impervious to rebutting evidence, and 

 will, in fact, regard all such evidence with abhorrence. The 

 thing has been done, and may be done again. Then all 

 people, who have been trained similarly and who, therefore, 

 agree with him, will describe his frame of mind as one of 

 " simple faith " or " steadfast faith," or by some such eulogistic 

 expression. People trained according to the same method, 

 but in a different though perhaps equally absurd belief, will be 

 less complimentary, as will be those who know on positive 

 evidence that the world is round. Now since in this particular 

 I shall have abolished the child's splendid human power of 

 learning and thinking, since I shall have rendered him as 

 incapable of profiting from experience as a purely instinctive 

 animal, his mental condition will evidently be one of extreme 

 stupidity. A human being cannot be made stupid in com- 

 partments. If he acquires a vicious habit of thought in one 

 thing, he is liable to apply it to other things. The main 

 injury that I shall have done my child, will be due, therefore, 

 not to the untrue doctrine, but to the way in which I taught 

 it. Had he been educated by a better method, he would 

 soon have discovered and repudiated the untruth. His mind 

 will have been more than burdened by an untruth. It will 

 have been enfeebled and shackled. 



479. But now, suppose I taught him that the world is 

 round, but still by the old vicious method. Then I shall not 

 have loaded his mind with an untruth; but I shall put 

 chains on it nevertheless. I shall have equally limited his 

 power of learning and thinking. He will hold the truth as 

 he held the falsehood, as a mere superstition, a prejudice. I 

 take it that a superstition is not necessarily an untrue belief. 

 It is a belief, true or false, held in a certain unreasoning, 

 unintelligent way. So far as any man holds a belief in this 

 unreasoning way he limits his power of learning and thinking. 

 If his mind be loaded and limited on all sides by a multitude 

 of superstitions and prejudices he will of necessity be very 

 stupid, very incapable of learning and thinking. The epithet 

 is opprobrious ; but I do not know how else to describe an 



