OCR Rendition - approximate

same way, as I sh paper, that by solec of rare and simila them together, gen tion, an extraor might be develop rigid selection, ha moral nature, woul a no less marked i natural disposition. Let us consider different social in fied the inborn dis The North Ameri bred from the mo bative class of during the last to tions, a political o suffered defeat, its whether they were noisiest, have bee America, as a refu Men fled to Americ and for that of una Every scheming k ruffian, who feared also turned his ey tion. Peasants spirit rebelled aga society and the mo life, and men of a chafed under conve yearned towards dispositions of the can people have bee and usually extrem for evil. But in on universally agreed. emigrant family bi restless character, rebel. If we estim of Americans from state, we shall find we might have ex parentage. They are and touchy ; impa furious politicians fraud and violence high and generous s religious feeling, bu to cant. We have seen tha selection develops di of a varied charact i wed in my previous ing men and women talent, and mating ration after genera'naiily gifted race d; so a yet more ing regard to their I believe, result in provement of their n instance in which uences have modiositions of a nation. an people has been t restless and comurope. Whenever, or twelve generareligious party has rominent members, the best, or only the apt to emigrate to o from persecution. for conscience' sake,' preciated patriotism.. ave, and every brutal the arm of the law, s in the-same direcd artisans, whose st the tyranny of otony of their daily igher position, who - tional restraints, all merica. Thus the arents of the Ameriexceedingly varied, either for good or respect they almost Every head of an ught with him a nd a spirit apt to to the moral nature heir present social it to be just what ected from such a nterprising, defiant, ient of authority ; very tolerant of - possessing much irit, and sonic true strongly addicted o f, Hereditary Talent and Character. 325 and barbarian man. Is the same law different in its requirements when acting on civilized man 4 It is no doubt more favourable, . on the whole to civilized progress, but we must not expect to find as.yet many marked signs of its action. As a matter of history, our Anglo-Saxon civilization is only skin-deep. It is but eight hundred years, or twenty-six generations, since the Conquest, and the ancestors of the large majority of Englishmen were the merest boors at a much later date than that. It is said that among the heads of the noble houses of England there can barely be found one that has a right to claim the sixteen quarterings-that is to say, whose greatgreat-grandparents were, all of them, (sixteen in number), entitled to carry arms. Generally the nobility of a family is represented by only a ' few slender rills among a multiplicity of non-noble sources. The most notable quality that the requirements of civilization have hitherto bred in us, living as we do in a rigorous climate and on a naturally barren soil, is the instinct of continuous steady labour. This is alone possessed by civilized races, and it is possessed in a far greater degree by the feeblest individuals among them than by the most able-bodied savages. Unless a man can work hard and regularly in England, he becomes an outcast. If he only works by fits and starts he has not a chance of competition with steady workmen. An artizan who has variable impulses, and wayward moods, is almost sure to end in intemperance and ruin. In short, men who are born with wild and irregular dispositions, even though they contain much that is truly noble, are alien to the spirit of a civilized country, and they and their breed are elirminated from it by the law of selec-' tion. On the other hand, a wild, untameable restlessness is innate with savages. . I have collected numerous instances where children of a low race have been separated at an early age from their parents, and reared as part of a the law of natural settler'J3 - family, quite apart from their interested affection own people. Yet, after years of civilized r even in animals ways, in some fit of passion, or under