So that
the theory which would make government by discussion the exclusive
patrimony of a single race of mankind is on the face of it
untenable.
I am not prepared with any simple counter theory. I cannot profess
to explain completely why a very small minimum of mankind were, as
long as we know of them, possessed of a polity which as time went on
suggested discussions of principle, and why the great majority of
mankind had nothing like it. This is almost as hopeless as asking
why Milton was a genius and why Bacon was a philosopher. Indeed it
is the same, because the causes which give birth to the startling
varieties of individual character, and those which give birth to
similar varieties of national character, are, in fact, the same. I
have, indeed, endeavoured to show that a marked type of individual
character once originating in a nation and once strongly preferred
by it, is likely to be fixed on it and to be permanent in it, from
causes which were stated. Granted the beginning of the type, we may,
I think, explain its development and aggravation; but we cannot in
the least explain why the incipient type of curious characters broke
out, if I may so say, in one place rather than in another. Climate
and 'physical' surroundings, in the largest sense, have
unquestionably much influence; they are one factor in the cause, but
they are not the only factor; for we find most dissimilar races of
men living in the same climate and affected by the same
surroundings, and we have every reason to believe that those unlike
races have so lived as neighbours for ages.
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