INTELLIGENCE OF MODERN MAN.

Taranaki Daily News, 13 May 1920, Page 2

INTELLIGENCE OF MODERN MAN.

(To the Editor.) Sir,—According to a paragraph to your Issue of to-day, Professor Osborne is credited with the statement that modern man is no mor-o intelligent than the primitive being of 40,000 years ago. Taken without the general context of the whole Address, it Is rather uncertain what the learned Professor meaatt to express, but the question la one of great Interest and one upon which there exists no small amount of popular ignorance. I have spent a good deal of time In leading various books, some grave, some gay; and I cannot help but notice that, if the average novelist's ideas upon heredity are expressions of public opinion, the public opinion Is very much at fault. In modern novels It Is quite common to come upon expressions such as "His nobility of character bespoke a long llne ; of noble ancestors'/ "He Inherited the chaste i morality of his mother," ''He inherited his, father's nice judgment and insight," etc., etc. There Is nothing more certain than that such things are not inheritable. If Professor Osborne moans that the average newly-born baby of to-day is no more intelligent than a newly-horn baby of the Cave Age, he would be stating the truth; for, if it could hap- 1 pen that all the children born this day could be kept segregated and alive in a place entirely apart from all other human beings and Inventions, such children would start life at the primitive age, and in all probability would develop no language further than names for themselves, and the sun and moon, earth, sky, food, and forest. They could not possibly have any sense of right or wrong, morality, religion, etiquette, or how to be a perfect English gentleman. In other words, they would start life as animals, and such they would remain until they or their descedanta had developed thoughts. Now. reflective thought, except consciousness of the elementary appetites common to all animals, Is impossible without language. Let anyone try the experiment of thinking without thhiklng In some language or another, and he will not get very far. Our Infant colony would develop thought, only after it had a developed language, and thinking would become deeper and more reflective In proportion as the language became fuller and mora complex. Consequently as it will be readily cofticedett that all morality, religion, and all conduct, excepting primitive conduct common to animals, are Ihe outcome of reflective thought, and that thought depends upon language we can readily grasp that; the human baby has all to learn whatever agcl he Is born In. That Is why it takes so long for him to grow up. Fortunately, we have the experince and work of every man and woman since Adam to guide and help us to-day, but it all comes from the outside. tt,te the result of environment, not of heredity. We are borne into it; it is not bom in us. We are born into a world with grown up people with many appliance* to teach us what to do. Thus if the child Is born of parents who can give it education and refinement It becomes educated and refined. If it Is born among thieves, it becomes a thief. But should ho use his affluence, the refined gentleman can quickly become a thief, and who shall say that a thief cannot become a refined gentleman if given a new environment? The sooner that the uulearned among our politicians learn this truth the sooner will we have humane treatment of persons who offend against law.—l am, etc ,

P. B. FITZHERBERT. New Plymouth, May 10, 1920.