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Hereditary Genius
xxiii
Whatever other countries may or may not have lost, ours has certainly
gained on more than one occasion by the infusion of the breed of selected
sub-races, especially of that of the Protestant refugees from religious
persecution on the Continent. It seems reasonable to look upon the
Huguenots as men who, on the whole, had inborn qualities of a distinctive
kind from the majority of their countrymen, and who may, therefore, be
spoken of as a sub-type—that is to say, capable, when isolated, of
continuing their race without its showing any strong tendency to revert to
the form of the earlier type from which it was a well-defined departure. It
proved, also, that the cross breed between them and our ancestors was a
singularly successful mixture. Consequently, England has been largely
indebted to the natural refinement and to the solid worth of the Huguenot
breed, as well as to the culture and technical knowledge that the Huguenots
brought with them.
The frequency in history with which one race has supplanted another over
wide geographical areas is one of the most striking facts in the evolution of
mankind. The denizens of the world at the present day form a very
different human stock to that which inhabited it a dozen generations ago,
and to all appearance a no less difference will be found in our successors a
dozen of generations hence. Partly it may be that new human varieties have
come into permanent or only into temporary existence, like that most
remarkable mixed race of the Normans many centuries ago, in whom, to
use well-known words of the late Professor Freeman, the indomitable
vigour of the Scandinavians, joined to the buoyant vivacity of the Gaul,
produced the conquering and ruling race of Europe. But principally the
change of which I spoke is due to great alterations in
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