Page:George Archdall Reid 1896 The present evolution of man.djvu/195

Rh races of men as well as to lower animals (sexual love, &c.), are of very subordinate importance.

It is possible, however, since, as seems probable from the above considerations, the Bushman's power of acquiring mental traits is smaller than the Englishman's, that his instincts have undergone less retrogression, and therefore that, while the latter do not differ in kind in the two races, they may differ in degree. They cannot differ in kind, or at least it is highly improbable that they do, because though there is much evidence that man has undergone great retrogression in many directions as regards instinct, there is no evidence that he has undergone evolution in any direction as regards this faculty, his entire mental evolution apparently having been in the direction of the power of acquiring mental traits. This becomes evident when we consider that not only are his powers of instinct on the whole less than those of any other mammal, and very much less than those of any reptile, but that even in those particular instincts which have survived in him, and are essential to his persistence, he shows no evolution beyond lower types. Not one of these instincts is peculiar to him, in not one does he surpass inferior animals.

If the above be true, it follows, since the evolution of instinct has ceased in man, that no new instincts have been evolved either in the Bushman or the Englishman, and therefore that they can differ as regards instinct only in that one race may have more and others less of this or that instinct. But because, even in the Bushman, that which is mentally acquired so greatly overshadows and replaces that which is mentally inborn, practically the whole mental difference between him and the Englishman must consist (1) in the powers of acquiring mental traits, and (2) in the traits acquired, which differ according to differences in the environment, the second factor being of vastly greater import-