XLI.] NATURAL SELECTION IN HISTORY. 187 



quite a different set of qualities — uot by physical but by 

 moral superiority. 



This will probably be assented to as self-evident ; never- 

 theless, I think the conditions on which depend the 

 success and predominance of races and nations are gene- 

 rally and systematically misunderstood. It is the most 

 obvious, and, I suppose, the commonest notion, that victory 

 belongs as a matter of course to the most courageous. Other 

 things being equal, this no doubt is true. But it is very 

 seldom that all other things are equal; and of all moral 

 endowments, there is probably none in which men are 

 more nearly ecjual than in what is significantly called 

 " mere animal courage." The Duke of "Wellington, a very 

 competent judge, used to say that as a general rule all men 

 are brave ; and there is no doubt of the fierce valour of 

 many Asiatic tribes ; yet, with some partial exceptions in 

 the history of the Mahomedan conquests, Asiatics, from 

 the time of Miltiades till now, have always given way 

 before Europeans. The causes of victory must reside, not It does not 

 in that lowest moral quality with respect to which men chFeflif on 

 are comparatively on a level, but in those higher moral courage, 

 qualities with respect to which they differ indetinitely. 



The most obvious and commonplace of all the conditions 

 on which victory depends is the relative number on each 

 side. In our times, this in no way depends on any moral 

 superiority of the more numerous army, or of the nation 

 that sends it forth. But it was not so at the beginning of 

 civH society. We know that primitive tribes tend to 

 break up into fragments, as in the case of the separation of 

 the families of Abraham and Lot, and those of Jacob and 

 Esau.i We have not, so far as I am aware, any direct 

 evidence on the subject ; but from what we know of human oritrof 

 nature we may safely infer that the tendency to split up powei- in a 

 will be greater among a people of selfish and contentious sta™V^ue 

 temper, while those in whom the domestic virtues are \° ^^^^,. 



domestic- 

 more highly developed, and the civic virtues are coming virtues. 



1 I believe the Book of Genesis, from Abraham forwards, to be mainly 

 historical ; ut whether it is so or not, the incidents referred to in the text 

 are not the less characteristic of the period. 



