The Psychological Consequences of Heredity. 331 



The sentiment of music is reckoned by Herbert Spencer among 

 those which are formed by hereditary accumulation. ' The habitual 

 association of certain cadences of human speech with certain 

 emotions, has slowly established in the race an organized and 

 inherited connection between such cadences and such emotions. 

 The combination of such cadences, more or less idealized, which 

 constitutes melody, has all along had a meaning in the average 

 mind, only because of the meaning which cadences had acquired 

 in the average mind. By the continual hearing and practice of 

 melody, there has been gained and transmitted an increasing 

 musical sensibility.' When we call to mind that Mozart, Beeth- 

 oven, Hummel, Haydn, and Weber, were the sons of distinguished 

 composers and musicians, and if we note the surprising instance 

 of the Bachs, we can hardly consider these facts to be spon- 

 taneous variations. They ' can be ascribed to nothing but in- 

 herited developments of structure, caused by augmentations of 

 function.' x 



And Galton, assuming the standpoint of the heredity of the 

 sentiments, with its consequences, passes this severe judgment 

 on the Middle Ages. ' The long period of the dark ages under 

 which Europe has lain is due, I believe, in a very considerable 

 degree, to the celibacy enjoined by religious orders on their 

 votaries. Whenever a man or woman was possessed of a gentle 

 nature that fitted him or her to deeds of charity, to meditation, to 

 literature, or to art, the social condition of the time was such that 

 no refuge was possible elsewhere than in the bosom of the Church. 

 But the Church chose to preach and exact celibacy ; the conse- 

 quence was that these gentle natures had no continuance ; and 

 thus, by a policy so singularly unwise and suicidal that I am 

 hardly able to speak of it without impatience, the Church brutalized 

 the breed of our forefathers. She acted precisely as if she had 

 aimed at selecting the rudest portion of the community to be alone 

 the parents of future generations. She practised the arts which 

 breeders would use who aimed at creating ferocious, currish and 

 stupid natures. No wonder that club law prevailed for centuries 

 over Europe; the wonder rather is, that enough good remained in 



1 Spencer, Biology, i. 82. 



