1883.] Evolutionary Significance of Human Character. 917 
of fear. In the lowest races there is a general deficiency of the 
emotional qualities, excepting fear, a condition which resembles 
one of the stages of childhood of the most perfect humanity. To 
this must be added revenge, where hatred may be reinforced by 
several other sentiments, with a feeble perception of equivalent 
suffering or punishment, which may or may not be just. The 
pleasure of muscular exercise is greatly developed in people of 
out-door habits. 
The order of the appearance of the intelligence is nearly de- 
pendent on the development of the powers of observation. In 
most savages these are very acute, and vary according to the 
nature of the environment which impresses them. The character 
of most civilizations tends to diminish the power of the percep- 
tive, while the higher departments of imagination and reason are 
enlarged. The imagination reached a high development before 
reason had attained much strength. With the exception of a few 
families, the intelligence of mankind has, up to within two or 
three centuries, expressed itself in works of the imagination. 
When exact knowledge first began to be cultivated, it was in the 
department of astronomy, where the least precision was attain- 
able, and where the greatest scope for the imagination is to be 
found.’ Next in time metaphysics was the throne of learning, a 
field in which much may be said with the least possible reference 
to the facts of observation. With the modern cultivation of the 
natural and physical sciences, the perceptive faculties will be 
restored, it is to be hoped, to their true place, and thus many 
avenues opened up for the higher thought power of a developed 
race. Thus it is that in the order of human development there 
is to be a return to the primitive powers of observation, without 
loss of the later acquired and more noble capacities of the 
intellect. 
The relation of the qualities of impressibility, fineness, inten- 
sity, speed and tenacity to our development, in time, may have 
been as follows: Impressibility of mind is no doubt an embryonic 
character of “ retardation,” parallel and probably a consequence 
of the retardation which is found in the human ‘skull and face. 
1 The governments of antiquity required the knowledge of the Chaldean astrono- 
mers as important to the success of their undertakings, and the governments of Eu- 
rope and America were, for a long period, more liberal in their support of astronomy 
than any other science. At present, however, geology shares in this aid, and toa 
less degree botany and zodlogy. 
