324 PSYCHOLOGICAL INVESTIGATION. [PART II. 



endowment of a people as something constant and given once 

 for all, is inadmissible, based as it is upon an empty, scientifi- 

 cally useless abstraction. There is no agent, real and substan- 

 tive, which can be considered as the spirit of a people or of 

 humanity ; individuals alone are real. But as there exist highly 

 gifted individuals and geniuses among all races, and as happy 

 occasions for their activity may occur among all races, we 

 dare not deny to any race the capacity for progress and a 

 higher cultivation. 



Our investigations of the physical changes of man have ren- 

 dered it probable that the race-type may, by the influence of 

 climate, aliment, mode of life, and social condition, be slowly, 

 and to some extent only, altered. Parallel with this physical 

 transformation, we may also assume a change in mental capacity, 

 which, from its very nature, never exhibits itself in peoples as 

 something fixed and unalterable, but as fluctuating, which is 

 proved by the rise and decline of civilization among the 

 same people. Materialists, as well as their opponents, admit 

 that physical changes influence the development of mental 

 capacities. 1 We assert, moreover, in opposition to the usual 

 theory, that the degree of civilization of a people, or of an in- 

 dividual, is exclusively the product of his mental capacity; 

 that his capacities, which designate merely the magnitude 

 of his performances, depend on the degree of cultivation 

 which he has already reached. The capacities of a people do 

 not alter merely in the course of time, but according to its his- 

 torical fate. An old civilization which has continued for cen- 

 turies (shown also in the differences exhibited by the children 

 of the same people in different ranks of society) produces, in 

 combination with an altered mode of life, social relations, etc., 

 gradually a race of men altered, both externally and psy- 

 chically. 



If, then, we are agreed that an absolute judgment regarding 

 the mental capacity of a people or race is impossible, it must 

 also be admitted that it would be extremely difficult to base 

 upon it specific differences of mankind. Two groups of facts 



1 Remarks on the subject will be found in my " Allg. Padagogik," p. 42. 



