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galton.org 129
Nurture and Nature
129
at one period, and by a commercial one at another; they may be humbly
submissive to a monarch, or become outrageous republicans. The love of
art, gaiety, adventure, science, religion may be severally paramount at
different times.
One of the most notable changes that can come over a nation is from a
state corresponding to that of our past dark ages into one like that of the
Renaissance. In the first case the minds of men are wholly taken up with
routine work, and in copying what their predecessors have done; they
degrade into servile imitators and submissive slaves to the past. In the
second case, some circumstance or idea has finally discredited the
authorities that impeded intellectual growth, and has unexpectedly
revealed new possibilities. Then the mind of the nation is set free, a
direction of research is given to it, and all the exploratory and hunting
instincts are awakened. These sudden eras of great intellectual progress
cannot be due to any alteration in the natural faculties of the race, because
there has not been time for that, but to their being directed in productive
channels. Most of the leisure of the men of every nation is spent in rounds
of reiterated actions; if it could be spent in continuous advance along new
lines of research in unexplored regions, vast progress would be sure to be
made. It has been the privilege of this generation to have had fresh fields
of research pointed out to them by Darwin, and to have undergone a new
intellectual birth under the inspiration of his fertile genius.
A pure love of change, acting according to some law of contrast as yet
imperfectly understood, especially characterises civilised man. After a
long continuance of one mood he wants to throw himself into another for
the pleasure of setting faculties into action that have been long disused,
but not yet paralysed by disuse, and which have become fidgety for
employment. He has so many opportunities for procuring change, and has
so complex a nature that he easily learns to neglect a more deeply-seated
feeling that innovation is wicked, and which is manifest in children and
barbarians. To a civilised man the varied interests of civilisation are
temptations in as many directions; changes in dress and appliances of all
kinds are comparatively
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