96 Heredity. 



We have already seen that the contemplative faculties imagina- 

 tion and simple intellect are transmissible by heredity. History 

 must answer whether it is the same with the active faculties. How- 

 ever, we must first consider what is meant by active faculties. 



So far, we have employed a method of analysis, which, 

 though really artificial, was necessary and sufficiently exact. We 

 have been enabled to examine instinct, perception, imagination, 

 memory, intellect, sentiments, and have inquired whether each of 

 these modes of mental life, taken separately, is hereditary. In the 

 present instance, the analytical method is impossible. With the 

 statesman, the soldier, and, generally, with those who are called men 

 of action, the play of the various faculties must be simultaneous. 

 Their processes are essentially synthetic. In them, the work of 

 each faculty counts only in so far as it concurs in the general 

 result; the aim to which all means are subordinate. In the 

 statesman, moreover, the mental activity must be exerted in every 

 direction. M. Guizot somewhere observes that public life is ' the 

 highest occupation of man's faculties.' If we reflect on the con- 

 ditions it demands, and the faculties it requires, we may, perhaps, 

 agree with him. The great advantage of public life is that it 

 develops simultaneously our various faculties, and that it is, as has 

 been said, of a synthetic nature. A thinker, a man of science, 

 may isolate himself in the highest regions of intellect, but may be 

 without sentiment, and unsuited for action. An artist may, by 

 his imagination, be enchanted with the most delightful dreams, 

 and yet know nothing of the real world. For politics, on the 

 other hand, is required an intellect capable of grasping at once 

 the universal and the particular, the abstract and the concrete. Is 

 a statesman incapable of generalization ? he can have no broad 

 views, and is the slave of routine. He cannot, moreover, like the 

 man of science, content himself with general results : he must 

 decide particular and definite cases ; hence he must be able to 

 grasp at once the whole, and its details. Furthermore, his re- 

 flections must of necessity result in acts. He is no speculative 

 theorizer : for him theory is but a means, action alone is his end. 

 Hence he is characterized by a strong power of will, always exer- 

 cised, as also by the qualities which this implies ; viz. boldness, 

 courage, self-confidence, and mastery over the timid and irresolute 



