194 ORGANIC EVOLUTION — MENTAL 



purity, the civilization which is associated with any 

 religion, we must turn to a time and place at which the 

 civilization was not modified by the pressure of other 

 civilizations — a condition which, as regards the civiliza- 

 tion associated with the Roman Church, was fulfilled in 

 the Middle Ages. 



This subject might be pursued much further with 

 very interesting results, but it is somewhat foreign to 

 the general purposes of this work, and besides, I have 

 no desire to incur at present the odium iheologicum. 

 Suffice it therefore to point out, that even the adherents 

 of the three great Churches into which Christendom is 

 divided, differ profoundly as regards their mental traits, 

 especially in districts in which the sects intermix but 

 little. Almost all the intellectual and material progress 

 of the last century or more is due to the adherents of 

 one of the Churches alone, or at least to them and to 

 actual if not declared seceders from the other two ; and 

 if we compare the respect shown for law and order as 

 measured by the statistics of crimes of violence — brig- 

 andage, murder, conspiracies against the Government, 

 rebellions, civil wars, &c. — we find here also a marked 

 difference. If, notwithstanding all the foregoing, it be 

 maintained that this is due to racial — i. e. inborn — not to 

 educational — i. e. acquired — traits, let the reader lay down 

 this work, and for a little while endeavour to call to 

 mind as many as possible of the distinguished men, good 

 or bad, of the first rank, who have made the last one 

 hundred and twenty years the most remarkable in 

 human history — naval and military heroes, statesmen, 

 scientists, philosophers, historians, poets, novelists, 

 inventors, travellers, accumulators of wealth, thinkers, 

 and men of action of all sorts ; he will find that all, or 

 nearly all, whose names occur to him have belonged to 

 one only of the three Churches, or else have been 

 seceders (actual if not declared) from the other two, 



