64 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



by antagonistic or disturbing causes, the fact remains that heredity- 

 has not the upper hand. With what ingenious reasons soever you 

 console yourself on seeing the ideal sovereignty of heredity brought 

 down, in matter of fact, to a very low grade of authority, still heredity 

 is not helped. In a word, if non-heredity has in fact a far wider em- 

 pire than heredity, the question arises, Why does M. Ribot adopt a 

 formula which implies the contrary ? 



Besides, does not the history of the development of civilization 

 itself show existing in man the preponderant force of an eternal ten- 

 dency to metamorphosis, to innovation, and to change ? Fixedness 

 of thoughts and immobility of habits were, it is true, the law of primi- 

 tive peoples, as they still are of savage tribes ; but then there is noth- 

 ing to show that this is owing to heredity. This more or less pro- 

 tracted repetition of identical societies should rather, we think, be at- 

 tributed to the strong and irresistible instinct of imitation and to the 

 profound respect entertained for rites and customs established by re- 

 ligion. Among such peoples the future is like the present, and the 

 present like the past, because the same inflexible rule, the same author- 

 ity, and the same tyrannical superstition are imposed on them all. 

 Nothing possesses strength or obtains respect except through tradi- 

 tion, and tradition among such people is only the revered memory of 

 the will of the mysterious powers, manifested in days of yore. When 

 the English would have the Hindoos take a part in road-building and 

 the hygienic improvement of their country, they have still to show 

 that the usefulness of such enterprises was understood by the most 

 ancient Brahmans — so hard is it for this old race to conceive of a law 

 which should be obligatory without being traditional. 



However that may be, and whatever part heredity may act here, 

 certain it is that this part is not important, since this singular homo- 

 geneity of primitive races, instead of being maintained and growing 

 stronger, does, sooner or later, give place to diversity. Every people 

 is in turn invaded by a force at once capable of acting counter to its 

 hereditary influences, and of releasing it from the iron yoke of antique 

 customs. It was in Greece that about 3,000 years ago the first move- 

 ment of this force brought about what Goethe calls " the liberation of 

 humanity." Since that day the crossings of distinct races, the many 

 new wants, and the various inventions to which they have given rise, 

 and the ideas which men, owing to their more and more intimate con- 

 tact with Nature, have conceived, have set in the place of primitive 

 simplicity a multiple and irresistible variability, as the present state 

 of the world clearly shows. 



