CHAP. XLi.j NATUKAL SELECTION IN HISTOKY. 185 



no children ; so that, even without taking into account any 

 direct action of the climate in adapting the people to itself, 

 the action of natural selection will, in the course of genera- 

 tions, cause the colonial poptdation to consist exclusively 

 of persons who are suited to the climate in virtue of their 

 physical constitution. Noav, it is scarcely possible to doubt and having 

 that with any such peculiarity of physical constitution ch^i!["ter 

 some peculiarity of mental constitution will be correlated, 

 though we know nothing of the laws of such correlations. 

 And thus will a new national character be formed.^ It is 

 true that in this process there is no moral element, and no 

 certainty, or even preponderant probability, of the new 

 type of character being on the whole better than that of 

 the parent race. But variety is ensured ; and variety 

 for its own sake appears to be a part of the purpose of 

 nature. 



" God fulfils Himself in many ways, 

 Lest one good custom should corrupt the world." ^ 



The process which I have now described is a purely This 

 physical one, and in no way peculiar to human history ; P'°f'^s* i^ 

 indeed, there can be no doubt that new races of animals physical, 

 and of plants originate in this way, and have so originated Natural 

 in countless instances during the course of geological time. ?'^l'*ction 



° o o IS also 



1 now go on to speak of natural selection as a law of the true of the 

 moral world and a cause of historical progress. world 



The laws of habit and variation, as we have seen, are 

 true of both the bodily and the mental functions ; and, as 

 I have endeavoured in the preceding chapter to show, 

 those laws are applicable to the facts of human history. History is 

 JSTow, human history is determined almost exclusively, not mined by 

 by the bodily but by the mental nature of man — not by uiaii's 



ii i 1 • I T 1 • • T 1 ■ 1 mental 



that nature which he has in common with other animals, nature. 



1 According to Darwin (Origin of Species, p. 166), acclimatization is 

 effected partly by the self-adajitation of the race to the new climate, and 

 partly by natural, or in the case of cultivated plants by artificial, selec- 

 tion ; and he avows himself unable to separate the respective effects of the 

 two causes. 



- Tennyson's " Morte d'Arthur.''^ I have no doubt that Tennyson is 

 perfectly aware of the thoroughly modern character of this sentiment, and 

 of the anachronism of 2ilaciug it in the mouth of a king of the heroic age. 



