APPENDIX D 235 



or indolent, or servile, and so forth. To illustrate my remarks and 

 conclude my essay, I may cull a few examples from an enormous 

 field. Mr Francis Gallon says : " The importance to be attached 

 to race is a question that deserves a far larger measure of exact 

 investigation than it receives. We are exceedingly ignorant of the 

 respective ranges of the natural and acquired faculties in different 

 races; and there is too great a tendency among writers to 

 dogmatise wildly about them, some grossly magnifying, others as 

 greatly minimising, their several provinces. It seems, however, 

 possible to answer this question unambiguously, difficult as it is." 

 But, if I am right, as I think I am, in the foregoing, surely every 

 writer has too greatly exalted the importance of the inborn, and 

 too much minimised the importance of the acquired factor in 

 man. Does not Mr Galton himself exalt vastly too much the 

 importance of the inborn factor, as witness the following passage, 

 which, in this respect, is similar to many others in his work : — 



" The long period of the Dark Ages, under which Europe has 

 lain, is due, I believe, in a very considerable degree, to the celibacy 

 enjoined by religious orders on their votaries. Whenever a man 

 or woman was possessed of a gentle nature that fitted him or her 

 to deeds of charity, to meditation, to literature, or to art, the 

 social condition of the time was such that they had no refuge 

 elsewhere than in the bosom of the Church. But the Church 

 chose to preach and exact celibacy. The consequence was that 

 these gentle natures had no continuance, and thus, by a policy so 

 singularly unwise and suicidal that I am hardly able to speak of it 

 without impatience, the Church brutalised the breed of our fore- 

 fathers. She acted precisely as if she aimed at selecting the 

 rudest portion of the community to be, alone, the parents of 

 future generations. She practised the arts which breeders would 

 use, who aimed at creating ferocious, currish, and stupid natures. 

 No wonder that club law prevailed for centuries over Europe ; the 

 wonder is that enough good remained in the veins of Europeans 

 to enable their race to rise to its present very moderate level of 

 natural morality." Mr Galton implies that a tendency to charity, 

 meditation, or to the cultivation of literature, is an inborn and 



