1 1 o Heredity. 



formation of the character of a people. Such a science may one 



day exist; at present we have but fragments. In France, M. Taine 



has based on the law of heredity his studies on the literature, the 



^constitution, and the manners of England, considered as an 



J expression of national character he has shown how firmly the old 



| Germanic and Scandinavian groundwork was established, and sees 



V in Lord Byron a true descendant of the Berserkers. 



? In Germany, Lazarus and Steinthal have laid the foundation for 

 a psychology of nations, ' of which the object is to determine the 

 nature of the mind of a people, and to discover the laws which 

 govern its internal, intellectual, or ideal activity in life, in art, and 

 in science.' * Even in the absence of such scientific researches, 

 based on exact criticism, historians have long been accustomed to 

 express decided judgments upon national character, and the 

 impossibility of altering it. Thus, the French of the i9th century 

 are, in fact, the Gauls described by Csesar. In the Commentaries, in 

 Strabo, and in Diodorus Siculus we find all the essential traits of 

 our national character : love of arms, taste for everything that 

 glitters, extreme levity of mind, incurable vanity, address, great 

 readiness of speech, and disposition to be carried away by 

 phrases. There are in Csesar some observations which might have 

 been written yesterday. 'The Gauls,' says he, 'have a love of 

 revolution ; they allow themselves to be led by false reports into 

 acts they afterwards regret, and into decisions on the most im- 

 portant events ; they are depressed by reverses ; they are as ready 

 to go to war without cause as they are weak and powerless in 

 the hour of defeat.' 2 



But it is, perhaps, among that people which has borne succes- 

 sively the names of Ancient Greeks, Byzantines, and Modern 

 Greeks that we must look for the most striking instance of the 

 tenacity of character. ' Amid all these vicissitudes,' says Ampere, 

 ' the fundamental character of the Greek has not changed ; he has 

 now the same qualities, the same defects, as of old.' Pougueville 

 found in the Morea Apelles's and Phidias's models \ and, what is 



1 Zeitschrlft fur Volkerpsychologie und Sprachwissenschaft, band i. 



2 Coesar, De BeUo Gallico, iv. 5. See also Strabo, iv. 4. Diodorus Siculus, 

 v. ; Michelet and H. Martin, tome i. ; and Carlyle, French Revolution, 

 vol ii. book iii. ch. 2. 



