310 THE PRINCIPLES OF HEREDITY 



influence exercised by any Church. The phenomenon is a 

 universal one, and may be observed equally amongst the ad- 

 herents of non-Christian religions. Moral precepts, however 

 excellent, are seldom effective and never long effective, when 

 opposed to the deeper influence of a limitation of thought. 

 The type of mind created wages successful war against them. 

 Those apologists who attribute the violence and cruelty of 

 mediaeval churchmen to the spirit of the age do not realize 

 that the spirit of every age is always largely the product 

 of the contemporary religious teaching. 



490. Immediately after the Reformation every heretical 

 nation began to surpass its orthodox rivals. Of professedly 

 orthodox communities the most progressive were, as they 

 are still, those which contained the largest leaven of heretics. 

 Multitudes of great men arose among the unorthodox, 

 especially at first when the activity of thought was greatest, 

 as in our own Elizabethan age. Internal peace and order 

 were evolved out of the original chaos ; civil wars and con- 

 spiracies grew rare. Political liberty widened, not only 

 because the growing intelligence of the people demanded 

 power, but because their greater reasonableness, their lessened 

 savagery, rendered the possession of power no longer a signal 

 for rapine. 1 A community such as that which now inhabits 

 the United States of America would not for a week endure 

 the autocratic government of Russia ; but the danger to the 

 rulers of surrendering power would be infinitely less in 

 America than in Russia. In the former they would, probably, 

 be pensioned, in the latter murdered. An autocratic govern- 

 ment is a natural and practically inevitable accompaniment 

 of orthodoxy ; democratic government of heresy. 



491. If the reader even now thinks that the distinctive 

 racial characters which we commonly observe are mainly 

 inborn, not acquired, let him consider the present situation 

 in Christendom. Christendom is divided between three 

 great sects, two of which are orthodox, the third heretical 

 that is, in two the Church maintains its authority over the 

 minds of its adherents, whereas, in the third, authority of the 

 Church, or rather of the multitude of Churches, has been 

 transferred to a book on which each man exercises his intel- 

 ligence. During the last century almost every orthodox 



1 Our laws, too, have grown milder. Formerly men were executed 

 for many trivial offences ; now even the convicted murderer is sometimes 

 permitted to escape death. It is commonly assumed that legislators have 

 become less ferocious. But this is not the whole truth ; criminals have 

 become more amenable to mild laws. 



