THE MIND OF MAN 287 



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

 vironments in which the infancy and childhood of the middle 

 and lower classes are passed are so different that it is not 

 possible to form a safe opinion by comparing adults or even 

 lads. The little children of the lower classes appear to me, 

 as a rule, more intelligent than those of the upper, a result 

 due, no doubt, to the rough-and-tumble of the streets, which 

 in some respects compares favourably with the coddling and 

 the often dull seclusion of a nursery. So also city children 

 are generally more intelligent than country children. When 

 the lower classes have favourable opportunities they have 

 produced many distinguished men, as in France during the 

 great Revolution, and in America. In Russia and other 

 conservative and aristocratic countries, where their oppor- 

 tunities for acquiring and utilizing mental traits are more 

 restricted, they rarely produce distinguished men, and are 

 always regarded with contempt as innately inferior. No 

 doubt middle-class people have married mainly amongst 

 themselves, a fact that is proved by their greater sobriety as 

 compared with the hand-workers. 1 But, except as regards 

 alcohol, the stringency of selection was greater in former 

 times amongst the latter. The unintelligent were weeded 

 out more thoroughly. On the other hand, the most able, or 

 at least successful, of the hand-workers have often reinforced 

 with their strength and intellect the class above. On the 

 whole, therefore, while it is certain that the two classes 

 differ much in their acquirements, it is probable that they 

 differ little, if at all, in their germinal peculiarities. At any 

 rate if they differ, yet, so greatly do man's acquirements 

 outweigh his inborn traits, and so completely are the two 

 intermingled, that we have no means of ascertaining it. 



459. The Celtic element in France, as elsewhere, is 

 certainly less intelligent and progressive than the non- 

 Celtic; but here again it is a question of germinal versus 

 acquired peculiarities. The whole problem of racial character- 

 istics, however, is so interesting and important that we must 



1 The reader may be reminded that alcohol, like opium, tobacco, food, 

 warmth, sexual intercourse, and the like, is a cause of pleasant sensa- 

 tions, and that sensations cannot be altered by education. Experience 

 of alcohol awakens in some men a craving for deep indulgence, no matter 

 how they have been educated. They may acquire a moral abhorrence 

 of drunkenness, and may abstain from it, but they still remain capable 

 of enjoying the sensations. An acquired love for drinking, therefore, 

 differs in toto ccelo from the acquirements we are considering. No man 

 is depressed or nervous, for instance, for the sake of the pleasant sensa- 

 tions those frames of mind awaken. 



