2 q 6 The Future (i Martyrdom of Science ” [April, 
serious consideration. Just as there are family peculiarities 
reaching down through many generations, so there are in 
every moderately unmixed nation racial peculiarities which 
may be traced for centuries, which follow a people from bar- 
barism to civilization, and which survive changes of law and 
government and all those varied agencies to which rhe- 
toricians are fond of ascribing national chara<5ter. What 
training or what institutions, for instance, would ever enable 
a normal Teuton to lie with the readiness, the skill, and the 
predilection of the normal Slav ? 
But this very law of heredity, tacitly admitted by every 
breeder or trainer of domestic animals, and proved as clearly 
as is any law of organic nature, is not merely denied by the 
“ advanced thinkers,” i.e., Buckle, but excites a John Stuart 
Mill to something bordering upon fury. Why is this? If 
we examine the inferences which may possibly be drawn 
therefrom, we shall see that they, to appearance at least, 
clash with certain principles which the “ advanced thinkers” 
uphold, and which they seek to embody in the form of laws 
and social arrangements. I hasten to say that I have no 
wish to decide whether this contradiction is real or only 
seeming, and whether the differences referred to may or may 
not be ultimately harmonized. One of these principles is 
“ equality.” “ All men are born equal,” says the Revolu- 
tion, “ and one man is as good as another.” “All men are 
not born equal,” replies biological science. It may, indeed, 
be urged that the equality contended for is merely one of 
social rights and privileges, and does not involve an equality 
of being. Is it always practicable to define these two kinds 
of equality so as to draw a definite line between them ? And 
if our “ advanced thinkers” claim for all men merely an 
equality of legal rights why are they so angry at the doCtrine 
of heredity ? 
Again, it is contended by a certain school of writers and 
speakers, following more or less thoroughly in the footseps of 
Helvetius, that the difference between the genius, the man 
of mere average faculties, and the fool, is simply one of edu- 
cation. This dream was long ago condemned in the old 
adage “ poeta nascitur, non fit.” We now know that 
education and discipline at home and at school can do very 
great things with and for the average man, but can effeCt 
little for the highest and the lowest order of minds. The 
genius can dispense with it, and upon the dolt it is to a great 
extent thrown away. In virtue of the law of heredity science 
denies universal educability. 
A third point of collision is the treatment of crime. If 
