IDIOSYNCRASY. 397 



selection ; but it will itself form the basis of favorable variations 

 without which natural selection can do nothing. It seems to me easy 

 to understand how survival of the fittest may result in progress, start- 

 ing from such functionally - produced gains : but impossible to un- 

 derstand how it could result in progress if it had to start from 

 mere accidental structural increments due to spontaneous variation 

 alone. 



Thus it becomes clear why certain countries have by mere geo- 

 graphical position necessarily produced certain high types of human 

 intelligence, while in certain other countries the race has never pro- 

 gressed beyond a very low level. There are places like Central 

 Africa, where the physical conditions do not tend to produce any 

 great diversity of occupation ; and here the general average of intelli- 

 gence does not tend to rise high. On the other hand, there are places, 

 like Greece, Italy, the West European peninsulas and islands, where 

 the physical conditions tend to differentiate the population into many 

 groups, agricultural, mercantile, sea-faring, military, naval, and profes- 

 sional ; and here the general average of intelligence tends to rise very 

 high indeed. Of course, one must allow much influence to the time- 

 element ; for every such increase in differentiation involves yet further 

 increases in the sequel, and brings the social organism, or parts of it, 

 into contact with new environments. The iEga?an is not now of the 

 same importance in this respect as during the days when coasting 

 voyages from island to island were the utmost possible stretch of 

 navigation : the science acquired there has widened the sphere of 

 navigation itself, first to the entire Mediterranean, then to the open 

 Atlantic, finally to all the oceans of the whole earth. But in principle 

 it has always seemed to me (as against the really accidental view 

 advocated by Mr. Bagehot) that the "philosophy of history," the 

 general stream of human development, could be traced throughout to 

 perfectly definite physical causes of this sort. Mr. Bagehot, basing 

 himself on the pure Darwinian theory of spontaneous variations, be- 

 lieved that the differences between races of men were due to mere 

 minute physical sports in their nervous constitution : it appears to me 

 rather that they are due to the action of a definite environment, thus 

 effecting a differentiation of circumstances, and in many cases calling 

 into constant functional activity the highest existing faculties of the 

 various social units in the most diverse ways. We may not thus 

 (though vide post) be able to account for the particular character and 

 genius of a Pericles, an Aristotle, a Hannibal, a Cjesar, a Newton, or 

 a Goethe ; but we can thus at least account for the general average of 

 intelligence which made Greece, or Carthage, or Rome, or England, 

 or Germany, capable of producing such an individual, as a slight vari- 

 ation on the common type, due to the convergence of separately rich 

 and varied lines of descent. The real illuminating point is this — that 

 such men do arise from time to time among the most intelligent na- 



