them. The comparative absence of genius
is fully paralleled by the want of its opposite. Not only are the paths
of preeminence untrodden; the purlieus of brutish ignorance are likewise
unfrequented. On neither side of the great medial line is the departure
of individuals far or frequent. All men there are more alike;--so much
alike, indeed, that the place would seem to offer a sort of forlorn hope
for disappointed socialists. Although religious missionaries have not
met with any marked success among the natives, this less deserving class
of enthusiastic disseminators of an all-possessing belief might do
well to attempt it. They would find there a very virgin field of a most
promisingly dead level. It is true, human opposition would undoubtedly
prevent their tilling it, but Nature, at least, would not present quite
such constitutional obstacles as she wisely does with us.

The individual's mind is, as it were, an isolated bit of the race mind.
The same set of traits will be found in each. Mental characteristics
there are a sort of common property, of which a certain undifferentiated
portion is indiscriminately allotted to every man at birth. One soul
resembles another so much, that in view of the patriarchal system
under which they all exist, there seems to the stranger a peculiar
appropriateness in so strong a family likeness of mind. An idea of how
little one man's brain differs from his neighbor's may be gathered from
the fact, that while a common coolie in Japan spends his spare time
in playing a chess twice as complicated as ours, the most advanced
philosopher is still on the blissfully ignorant side of the pons
asinorum.

We find, then, that in all three points the Far East fulfils what our
theory demanded.

There is one more consideration worthy of notice. We said that the
environment had not been the deus ex materia in the matter; but that the
soul itself possessed the germ of its own evolution. This fact does
not, however, preclude another, that the environment has helped in the
process. Change of scene is beneficial to others besides invalids.
How stimulating to growth a different habitat can prove, when at all
favorable, is perhaps sufficiently shown in the case of the marguerite,
which, as an emigrant called white-weed, has usurped our fields. The
same has been no less true of peoples. Now these Far Eastern peoples, in
comparison with our own forefathers, have travelled very little. A race
in its travels g