284 PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. 



of their parent-stocks, and are gifted with the spirit of enter- 

 prise and fearlessness which distinguished one, the tenacity 

 and seriousness which distinguished another ; with the in- 

 ventiveness and spirituality of this stock, the reflectiveness 

 and depth of that one, the strength and adaptiveness of all. 

 And added to that primary cause, two other causes, besides, 

 have tended to accentuate their native disposition and 

 characteristics, viz., INSULARITY, due to their habitat, and 

 LIBERTY, due to their institutions. These two elements have 

 endowed the race with a strong individuality, and every man 

 has his own strongly marked idiosyncrasy, his own indepen- 

 dent spirit which hardly ever excludes that flexibility of 

 adaptation the common heritage of all which is the 

 product of heterogeneous ancestors. This doubtless is the 

 powerful spring, the fruitful source of the PRODIGIOUS 

 SUCCESS which has attended the progress of England in so 

 many ways, and in the pursuit of science, no less in letters, 

 politics, colonisation, and empire. 



