88 PHYSICAL INVESTIGATION. [PART I. 



great performance that the Arab children, from seven to eight 

 years, in Lower Mesopotamia, cross the stream. 1 The four 

 year old children of the Gauchos in South America are per- 

 fectly skilful horsemen. 3 Among the Bushmen babies creep 

 about, children not one year old walk about boldly, whilst 

 those a little older dig out the onions in the fields. 3 As the 

 child of the civilized man instinctively adopts the habits of his 

 parents, so does the child of the uncultured, which is moreover 

 with difficulty civilized, and always retains a tendency to return 

 to the mode of life of the parents. Supported by such and 

 similar facts, which we shall investigate hereafter, Rush, Girou, 

 Spurzheim, Burdach, and others, have maintained that acquired 

 mental development is transmitted just as is physical develop- 

 ment. Lucas especially has given many instances to that 

 effect. Nott and Gliddon maintain that the development of 

 civilization among peoples does not depend so much upon the 

 mental effort to attain certain objects, nor upon the concatena- 

 tion of external circumstances, as upon innate and inherited 

 instincts, which are nobler among nations capable of cultiva- 

 tion than among uncivilized peoples, where the instincts are 

 more of an animal nature. This opinion has been expressed 

 by others in different terms, namely, that the lower a people 

 stands in the scale of civilization, its mode of life is more 

 instinctive; the more the people becomes civilized the more 

 the instincts are replaced by a conscious mode of life. 



How frequently mechanical and artistic talents, and even the 

 predilection for certain kinds of occupation, are transmitted 

 from the father to the son and grandson is well known, and 

 may be explained by a particular capacity for a peculiar use of 

 the limbs and a higher perfection in the employment of the 

 senses, having its origin in organic causes. But the extent of 

 such hereditary transmission is not only limited to qualities of 

 psychical life depending on physical conditions, but also to 

 what is the proper source of it, for there is no doubt that we 

 find a higher mental activity and capacity among some tribes 



1 Bitter, " Erdk.," xi., p. 970. 



2 Scarlett, "South Am. and the Pacific," 1838. Head, "Eough notes taken 

 during journies across the Pampas," p. 20, 1826. 



3 Lichtenstein, "E. im Siidl. Africa," p. 376, 1811. 



