EVOLUTIONARY SIGNIFICANCE OF HUMAN CHARACTER. 387 



be a derivative faculty, but is '^intuitive" in man. The objec- 

 tion to this view is its great variability and occasional entire ab- 

 sence in man, individually and racially. It is the last to appear 

 in individual growth, as it has doubtless been in the order of evo- 

 lution, of mind. 



I now devote a little space to the discussion of the distribution 

 of these qualities in races and sexes. 



As regards the relative preponderance in action of the emotive 

 and intellectual faculties, it is an axiom that in the great majority 

 of mankind, apart from the necessities imposed by the simple 

 physical instincts, it is a taste or an affection or an emotion that 

 lies at the basis of their activities. Perhaps the most universal is 

 the affection of sex. Given two types of rational beings who are 

 objects of admiration and of pleasure to each other, each of whom 

 desires to possess the other, and who therefore employs many de- 

 vices to please and attract the other, and we have an effective agent 

 of general development. Then the parental, and especially the 

 maternal, affections arouse and direct many labors. Fear of suf- 

 fering and death is at the basis of many others. The love of power 

 or of possession, including ambition, is a well-known stimulus. 

 The love of beauty is a strong motive in many persons. The 

 pleasure derived from the exercise of the intelligence is a sufficient 

 motive for a life-work in a comparatively small number of persons. 

 These are the artists and the scientists ; but it is far from being an 

 unmixed motive in many of them. 



Intellectual motives, however, enter into association with the 

 affectional in many instances, as, for example, in the profession of 

 teaching. But it is as guide and agent in the accomplishment of 

 the main ends of life that the intellect, especially the reason, has 

 its great field, and displays itself in an endless variety of ways. 



If we now survey men as we find them, it is a general truth 

 that it is in the male sex that the greatest proportion of rational 

 method is to be found, and in the female the greatest proportion 

 of the affectional and emotional. As we descend the scale of 

 humanity, the energy and amount of the rational element grows 

 less and less, while the affectional elements change their propor- 

 tions. The benevolent and sex elements diminish in force more 

 rapidly than the other sentiments, but it is probable that all the 

 emotions are less active in savages, excepting those of power and 

 of fear. In the lowest races there is a general deficiency of the 

 emotional qualities, excepting fear, a condition which resembles 



