236 A STUDY IN HEREDITY 



transmissible character, whereas it is, in fact, acquired. A 

 Quaker's child, for example, reared by North American or West 

 African savages shows nothing of the gentle altruistic nature of his 

 progenitors, and obviously shows no literary tendencies. The 

 child of a bloodthirsty and immoral savage may be made 

 sanctimonious to an even unpleasant degree, as has happened 

 under the influence of missionaries in certain Polynesian islands, 

 where, by act of the native legislature, flirtation is now a legal 

 offence. The children of aborigines have done exceedingly well, 

 as compared to Europeans, in the Australian Government schools. 

 The Church, therefore, may have brutalised society in the Dark 

 Ages by its influence on the characters acquired by the individuals 

 comprising it ; for instance, by inculcating celibacy, it may have 

 prevented people who had the best characters from having 

 families, and so passing on their acquired excellences, like 

 language or even property, to descendants. But since mere 

 chance, not innate tendencies, must have determined in each case 

 the inclination or disinclination towards charity, etc., the Church 

 cannot have selected any particular type, and therefore cannot 

 have caused real evolution or retrogression. 



It is, of course, impossible, for obvious reasons, to prove of a 

 particular person with, for instance, charitable inclinations that in 

 a diiferent environment he would have acquired different inclina- 

 tions. But what cannot be proved of the individual can be 

 proved of the race, which is but an aggregate of individuals. If 

 my definitions are correct, innate inclinations or tendencies are 

 of the nature of instincts, and these can arise only very slowly 

 under the prolonged action of Natural Selection, and, if they 

 disappear, can do so only equally slowly after cessation of selection. 

 But consider how rapidly a race {e.g. the Japanese) may change 

 its characteristics. Consider, in particular, the enormous change, 

 as expressed in the resultant civilisation, which occurs in the 

 character of a race when it changes its religion. Compare the 

 mental characters of the races of Asia Minor and North Africa as 

 they changed successively from Pagan to Christian and from 

 Christian to Mahomedan. Consider how much Pagan, 



