156 PART IV. PREPARATORY STAGE. 



the animal, as in the suppleness of the cat, of (e) certain pro- 

 tective structures like the tortoise's armour, and for the so- 

 called (/) automatic and (<?) reflex acts which determine certain 

 bodily actions, internal and external. Only when the problem 

 is conceived in this many-sided way by allowing for at least 

 seven distinct inborn factors, is it probable that we shall not 

 be ensnared in a net of words when comparing, for example, 

 human and animal "instincts". Methodologically it is inconceiv- 

 able that a world-wide movement, inspired by scholars of dis- 

 tinction, should have existed for a number of years favouring 

 the instinct theory, and that yet the theory should remain in 

 a shockingly rudimentary state. 



The kindred problem of heredity and culture is in the same 

 predicament. Scores of works, dealing directly or indirectly 

 with heredity, assert emphatically that just as the activities 

 of animals are determined primarily by congenital capacities^ 

 so are those of human beings. In whatever walk of life there- 

 fore men or women are superior to their fellows, they have r 

 it is contended, to ascribe their superiority mainly to their 

 native outfit. Education has assigned to it a certain value., 

 but a quite subsidiary one. Yet methodologically this consti- 

 tutes again an impossible attitude. Why not learn what primi- 

 tive peoples can and do achieve at school and at college 

 economic, scholastic, and other surrounding conditions being 

 approximately equal? 1 Why not observe cases of the adoption 

 of new-born infants where family circumstances have been radi- 

 cally altered? Or, as a matter of fact, why not pursue the 

 recognised experimental method, adopting children of different 

 peoples and social layers from birth, and giving each as nearly 

 as possible the very same and the very best education and 

 upbringing? Why not? Because our age is as yet mostly 

 unconscious of the need of procedure being determined methodo- 

 logically, and is too frequently content to pronounce magiste- 

 rially on matters for which it has no verified evidence. 



Similarly with the cognate case of the historical advance of 

 culture. Here, from Darwin onwards, it has been ceaselessly 

 reiterated that the changes in species are too slow to be directly 

 observable. Nevertheless, Darwin and his followers have alleged 

 the existence of a chain of traceable biologically-produced trans- 

 formations in man, from the Australian aboriginal (whose men- 

 tality and morality were supposed to be scarcely higher than 

 those of the apes) to the advanced European (said to be capable 

 of acute logical penetration and limitless altruism). Methodo- 

 logical reflection would have forced the contradiction into the 

 foreground and would have shown that if natural selection has 

 produced the cultural differences between Australian and Cen- 

 tral European, it necessarily follows that about equally great 



1 E. B. Sargant, Report on Native Education in South Africa, Part III, 1908. 



