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350
Hereditary Genius
be expected that the natural aptitudes of his race should already have
become moulded into accordance with his very recent advance. We,
men of the present centuries, are like animals suddenly transplanted
among new conditions of climate and of food: our instincts fail us
under the altered circumstances.
My theory is confirmed by the fact that the members of old
civilizations are far less sensible than recent converts from barbarism,
of their nature being inadequate to their moral needs. The conscience
of a negro is aghast at his own wild, impulsive nature, and is easily
stirred by a preacher, but it is scarcely possible to ruffle the self-
complacency of a steady-going Chinaman.
The sense of original sin would show, according to my theory, not
that man was fallen from a high estate, but that he was rising in moral
culture with more rapidity than the nature of his race could follow.
My view is corroborated by the conclusion reached at the end of
each of the many independent lines of ethnological research—that
the human race were utter savages in the beginning; and that, after
myriads of years of barbarism, man has but very recently found his
way into the paths of morality and civilization.
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