456 TRADITION AND HEREDITY 



the regime was uncongenial, tended to emigrate. The Bolshevist 

 regime obviously favours a peculiar mentality. From such in- 

 stances it is clear that the average germinal constitution may be 

 changed in very different directions in neighbouring countries 

 with great suddenness. But in seeking the explanation of what 

 follows in these cases, it is clear that germinal change is following 

 traditional change ; it may accelerate traditional change, but it 

 is only a contributory cause of the historical movement that we 

 observe. The lack of enterprise that has marked the Spanish 

 people during the last three hundred years was not caused by 

 germinal change but by traditional change which moulded the 

 outlook and disposition of the people ; germinal change doubtless 

 followed in the same direction and contributed to the present 

 position. The true importance of germinal change is not, as some 

 authors would have it, that it sets movements in progress among 

 civilized nations, but that it exaggerates the tendencies of tra- 

 ditional change, and renders it difficult for nations to get out of 

 the grooves into which they have moved. 



Just as germinal change may set in different directions owing 

 to lethal selection, so it may do owing to reproductive selection. 

 In the religious celibates of the Middle Ages we have probably 

 to recognize a distinct mental type, though how far a more 

 valuable type than the average it is impossible to say. Some of 

 their peculiar qualities were doubtless valuable, but they pre- 

 sumably lacked other valuable qualities, since they were dis- 

 inclined to face the difficulties of the normal social life of their time. 

 Even if it is held that their peculiar qualities were on the whole 

 distinctly valuable, we have, before a final judgement is passed 

 .as to the effects of celibacy, to remember that it may have had 

 a beneficial influence on tradition. An authority upon the Middle 

 Ages has said that ' It is more than probable that any real 

 familiarity with the early Middle Ages will lead an unprejudiced 

 student to the belief that the celibacy of the clergy was at that 

 time essential to the setting apart of the clerical order, to the 

 purification of the Church, and to its influence upon the world, 

 that clerical celibacy was in fact a necessary stage in the spirituali- 

 zation of European society '.^ 



Reproductive selection chiefly arises because certain classes 

 make greater contributions to the following generation than other 



* Smith, Church and State in the Middle Ages, p. 83. 



