ottom of the question, and
is not at all sufficient as an answer.

Let us leave this problem, which, on account of its complexity, we can
hardly solve through peremptory reasoning, and let us try to examine
_objectively_ the relation between creation and environment in order
that we may see to what extent the creative imagination, without losing
its individual character--which is impossible--depends on the
intellectual and social surrounding.

If, with the American psychologists,[69] we term the disposition for
innovating a "spontaneous variation"--a Darwinian term explaining
nothing, but convenient--we may enunciate the following law:

_The tendency toward spontaneous variation (invention) is always in
inverse ratio to the simplicity of the environment._

The savage environment is in its nature very simple, consequently
homogeneous. The lower races show a much smaller degree of
differentiation than the higher; in them, as Jastrow says, physical and
psychic maturity is more precocious, and as the period just before the
adult age is the plastic period _per se_, this diminishes the chances of
a departure from the common type. Thus comparison between whites and
blacks, between primitive and civilized peoples, shows that, for equal
populations, there is an enormous disproportion as to the number of
innovators.

The barbarian environment is much more complex and heterogeneous: it
contains all the rudiments of civilized life. Consequently, it favors
more individual variations and is richer in superior men. But these
variations are rarely produced outside of a very restricted
field--political, military, religious. So it seems impossible to agree
with Joly[70] that neither primitive nor barbarian peoples produce
superior minds, "unless," as he says, "by this name we mean those that
simply surpass their congeners." But is there a criterion other than
that? I see none. Greatness is altogether a relative idea; and would not
our great creators seem, to beings better endowed than we, very small?

The civilized environment, requiring division of labor and consequently
a constantly growing complexity of heterogeneous elements, is an open
door for all vocations. Doubtless, the social spirit always retains
something of that tendency toward stagnation that is the rule in lower
social orders; it is more favorable to tradition than to innovation. But
the inevitable necessity of a warm competition between individuals and
peoples is a