“Adaptation to environment” belongs to plant life and brute life. Man at his best aims at the nobler task of moulding the environment to his own will and wishes. He is not its slave, but its master. Does arctic cold threaten to freeze the blood in his veins? He builds a hut and lights a lamp; and the summer zephyr is not milder than the air he breathes. Does the equatorial sun dart its fatal rays from the zenith? He spreads an umbrella and dons a helmet, and is as cool as if under orchard shades of temperate zones.
Reason-directed, unflagging activity,—this is the one indispensable and all-sufficient security for the indefinite progress of individual or group. The definition of “genius,” said Goethe, “is the willingness to labour unremittingly.” The willingness presupposes the will, and he of the indomitable will soon becomes master of his purpose.
This trait has long been familiar as a criterion in ethnic psychology. Professor Klemm in his history of human culture, written half a century ago, divided the tribes and nations of humanity into those who have been “passive” and those who have been “active.” He maintained that the love of labour is the simple and sufficient measure for the capacities of any race.
Many later writers have followed him in this discrimination, although they phrase it in various forms. The latest, Professor Vierkandt, repeats it in a more psychological guise when he states that the real source and centre of all differences between the cultures of human groups is the one difference between their voluntary and involuntary activities. The latter are instinctive, the former reflective; the latter are mechanical, the former are rational; the latter are of bondage, the former of freedom.
The sum of average brain-industry in an ethnic mind is the measure of its comparative value. Not single brilliant examples of genius, cases here and there of exceptional ability, but a prevailing love of labour is what guarantees success. A true genius, a Camoens or a Cervantes, belongs more to the world than to the nation. Both these illustrious names have stimulated thought more in foreign lands than in their own homes.
3. Inventiveness.—When the neolithic man invented a sword of bronze to replace his dagger of stone, he invested his tribe with the kingship of the known world. The less-inventive hordes became their slaves.
The victory of man over nature has been won by his inventions; and the tribe, group, or nation which leads in the control of natural forces will also lead in the struggle for existence, and supremacy. Others may sing sweeter songs or dream diviner visions, but the potency of life will not be won thereby.
Inventiveness is another word for that knowledge which is really power, force, strength—brutal, if you will, but present, actual.
Man is distinctively a tool-using animal, and those with the most efficient tools will bring the others to terms; for when it is a tool of war, a weapon, victory is to him who has the best.
Inventiveness is the foe of habit, and habit is the foe to advancement. As the sickle gave way to the scythe, and the scythe to the mowing-machine, the food-supply was insured against failure, famines disappeared, and aggregations of millions in cities became possible.