SOCIAL HEREDITY 298 



in which the deeds of modern Prussia became 

 possible were Treitschke and Nietzsche, neither of 

 whom was Prussian in descent. A very large 

 proportion of the thinkers and leaders of Prussia 

 have not l?een Prussians. It is curious to note, 

 remarks a recent writer, 1 "that the majority of 

 Prussian figures that have held the Western imagina- 

 tion have not been Prussian by birth, and have 

 seldom been even Germanic in origin." 



In none of the dominant peoples of the world to- 

 day, and in none of the ruling races which have been 

 prominent in history in the past, is the basis of Power 

 to be found in inborn intellectual superiority over 

 the peoples ruled. What, therefore, is the basis of 

 Power in human history ? 



The answer to this question carries us very far. 

 In arriving at it, the belief, which prevailed in the 

 popular mind throughout the West until recently, 

 as to the inborn nature of the causes establishing 

 superiority in races, and the prepossessions as to the 

 controlling importance of inborn heredity in ruling 

 races and ruling peoples, of the kind which have come 

 down to us in England through Gait on in science and 

 through Freeman in the teaching of history, will have 

 to be abandoned. There can be no doubt that the 



1 F. M. Hueffer, When Blood is their Argument. Part I. 

 chap. n. ii. 



