Individual variation

“ What we have said before in regard to the overlapping of variations among different races and types, and the great range of variability in each type, may also be expressed by saying that the differences between different types of man are, on the whole, small as compared to the range of variation in each type. ”

“ Such high degree of acquired homogeneity of individual qualities seems to be due in about equal parts to uniformity of social and of physical environment, both of which make strongly in the same direction. ”

“ Must we not say that habits not only modify emotions in the individual, and not only beget tendencies to like habits and accompanying emotions in descendants, but that when the conditions of the race make the habits persistent, this progressive modification may go on to the extent of producing emotions so far distinct as to seem new? ”

“ My main object has been to give the life history of a primitive motive in the development of the race, and to emphasize the dynamic significance of this motive. Later other motives may be dealt with in more detail if it is proved that both in normal and abnormal psychology we may best understand the mental development of the individual through our knowledge of the development of the race. ”

“ In the state of differentiation to which superior and cultivated human species have attained, each individual forms surely a separate variety determined by what is called, abstractly, "the character." ”

“ The distinctions between individual and individual, and even the greater distinctions between one group and another, become buried under the overwhelming mass-effect of their difference from ourselves. ”

“ Those species that have long been associated with man have, I think, a greater capacity for suffering. The individuality of each domestic race has been developed; the difference of temperament and character of each individual becomes more marked, and more or less humanized, according to the influences by which it is surrounded. ”

“ The proposition that all progress in the psychical world depends upon individuality, just as all organic progress, and indeed, all organic evolution, depends upon the physical individuality which biologists call variation, may suggest to the reader the importance which must attach to our study of talent and genius, and the possibility of aiding their production. ”

“ We have now followed a definite motive in mental development through its rise, its elaboration and its decadence. We therefore have its life history in the race before us; we have been enabled by analogies of other motives and by utilizing the conclusions of various writers, to understand its meaning and [Pg 123] to give its interpretation. It remains to be seen what general conclusions regarding either racial or individual development in this sphere may be drawn. ”

“ In the organic world, however, the habits are more variable than this. Even instincts vary from one individual to another of a kind; and are modified in the same individual, as we shall later see, to suit the exigencies of the case. ”

“ It is moreover a name well contrived for the purposes of the class; because it is calculated to keep the real character of the associations out of sight.
6. The aggregate, included under the comprehensive term Mankind, is in so many ways associated with our pains and pleasures, that the interest of each individual appears, in some degree, bound up in the interest of the race. Any act of ours, then, by which the interest of the race can be promoted, is associated in our minds with our own interest; and becomes a motive. ”

“ Types Earlier than Races
¶ The student of Human Analysis reads the disposition and nature of every individual with ease regardless of whether that individual be an American, a Frenchman, a Kaffir or a Chinaman, because Human Analysis explains those fundamental traits which run through every race, color and nationality, according to the externals which always go with those traits. ”

“ There was a time when the division of mankind into two classes, a small one of masters and a numerous one of slaves, appeared, even to the most cultivated minds, to be a natural, and the only natural, condition of the human race. ”

“ We do not discuss the anatomical, physiological, and mental characteristics of man considered as an individual; but we are interested in the diversity of these traits in groups of men found in different geographical areas and in different social classes. ”

“ In particular, I have long felt that the prevailing tendency to regard all the marked distinctions of human character as innate, and in the main indelible, and to ignore the irresistible proofs that by far the greater part of those differences, whether between individuals, races, or sexes, are such as not only might but naturally would be produced by differences in circumstances, is one of the chief hindrances to the rational treatment of great social questions, and one of the greatest stumbling blocks to human improvement. ”

“ These causes are to be found in the contact of different minds. Variability depends to a considerable extent on the size of a genus, but only in so far as greater size involves greater complexity and variety of interests; the vast but homogeneous societies of the East being less progressive than the smaller but more complex ones of the West. "Where freer scope is left to individual inclinations or aptitudes, there the friction of mind against mind is more intense. New ideas are generated in the more vivid consciousness of the people, and life becomes more inventive." ”

“ The herd instinct may be an explanation of conformity but it does not explain variation. Variation is an important fact in society as it is in nature generally.
Homogeneity and like-mindedness are, as explanations of the social behavior of men and animals, very closely related concepts. ”

“ I reply at once that where the character, as something distinguished from the intellect, is concerned, the causes of human diversity lie chiefly in our differing susceptibilities of emotional excitement, and in the different impulses and inhibitions which these bring in their train. ”

“ The literature of experimental psychology and anthropology is crammed with such examples as the above. No matter what trait of the individual be chosen, results are analogous. If one takes the simplest traits, to eliminate the most chances for confusion, one finds the same conditions every time. ”

“ Part I consists of an analysis of the types of behavior, a survey of individual traits and their significance in social life, a brief consideration of the nature and development of the self, individual differences, language and communication, racial and cultural continuity. Those fruits of psychological inquiry have been stressed which bear most strikingly on the relations of men in our present-day social and economic organization. ”

“ To trace out the different natures of men, to account for the variation, either from innate difference, or the influence of dissimilar circumstances, is, perhaps, one of the most useful objects of a biographer. We all vary one from another, yet none of us tolerate the difference in others: the haughty and independent spirit disdains the pliant and tender, while this regards its opposite as unfeeling and lawless. ”

“ The study of it in all its bearings is called the study of individual differences. When the traits involved are mental, we speak of the psychology of individual differences. It is one of the marvelous facts about human beings that of all the millions born, no two are just equal in possession of a given trait, except by chance; and no two are identical in their combinations of traits, for the infinite possibilities of permutation practically exclude identity by chance. These combinations, which go to make up personality, are combinations of amounts of the same traits. ”

“ The meaning of individual differences. The major part of this volume has been devoted to a consideration of those traits, interests, and capacities which all individuals share, and which may in general be described as the "original nature of man." These distinctive inborn tendencies were treated, for purposes of analysis, in the most general terms, and, on the whole, as if they appeared in the same strength and variety in all individuals. When we thus stand off and abstract those characteristics which appear universally in all individuals, human nature appears constant. ”

“ One may say, in effect, that an individual is differentiated in his mental traits by early association with a certain race, and by his immediate ancestry or family, rather than by the fact of belonging physically to a certain race. ”

“ Bearing in mind these facts relating to types and variability, we are in a position to turn to a consideration of the characteristics of primitive man and of civilized man, and of members of distinct races.
We will first direct our attention to the differences between civilized man and primitive man, both being members of the same race. ”

“ I had also fully appreciated the importance of mere individual differences, and this led me to insist so strongly on the importance of that unconscious form of selection by man, which follows from the preservation of the most valued individuals of each breed, without any intention on his part to modify the characters of the breed. ”

“ All contribute their specific effect, and the blend, the sum of the additions and subtractions constituting their influences, appears as a specific trait of the individual, a trait so significant as to be used by the professionals absorbed in the study of man, the anthropologists, as a criterion of racial classifications. ”

“ This we must attribute to homogeneity of mental qualities which is in the main not innate but acquired, a uniformity of acquired qualities, especially of all those that are most important for national life. ”

“ And pursuing the subject somewhat further, if we not only accept variation as an established fact, but look upon intelligence as the principal factor, as it is so regarded by many, then the attempt to explain the stereotyped uniformity, which we everywhere see around us, becomes even more difficult. ”

“ Among the myriads of the same species, are discriminations, sufficient to distinguish them from one another. We observe this in our race. And in the creatures beneath us. Among mankind these differences are most noticeable and most interesting. They relate to every thing which belongs to man—to the mind, and to the body, and to the powers of each—to the temper—appetites— passions—talents—trials—opportunities, and means of information. There is in every respect an almost infinite variety—differences which run into innumerable particulars. ”

“ In this last case as much as in that of specific difference, we ought to find divergent form the embodiment and organic expression of divergent opinion. Form is mind made manifest in flesh through action: shades of mental difference being expressed in shades of physical difference, while broad fundamental differences of opinion are expressed in broad fundamental differences of bodily shape. ”

“ Hence, in studying the degrees of mental variability shown us in the daily lives of the different races, we must ask how far variability characterizes the whole mind, and how far it holds only of parts of the mind. ”

“ The great law of variation teaches—both in the general theory of evolution and in the smaller field of biology where it becomes the theory of descent—that the variety of phenomena flows from an original unity, [Pg 15] the diversity of functions from a primitive identity, and the complexity of organization from a primordial simplicity. The conditions of existence for all individuals are, from their very birth, unequal. ”

“ The whole of our analysis has tended to lay emphasis on habit. [Pg 463] And this leads us to comment on a certain disdain and contempt for habit and custom which is continually arising in some quarters. The whole history of mankind is the history of the formation, gradual change, and spread of the change, of habit, and of custom as the social form of the latter. With the progress of society, habits and customs grow old and must be discarded ”

“ There is a great diversity in human character, resulting from the diverse proportions and combinations of those powers of mind which the race have in common. At the same time, there is a variety in the scale of being, or relative grade of each mind. While all are {188} alike in the common faculties of the human mind, some have every faculty on a much larger scale than others, while some are of a very humble grade. ”

“ The variety, observable in the organs of individuals of the human species suffices to explain the differences in what is called their intellectual faculties. More or less delicacy in these organs, warmth in the blood, mobility in the fluids, flexibility or stiffness in the fibres and nerves, must necessarily produce the infinite diversity, which we observe in the minds of men. It is by exercise, habit and education, that the mind is unfolded and becomes superior to that of others. Man, without culture and experience, is as void of reason and industry, as the brute. ”

“ The variability or diversity of the mental faculties in men of the same race, not to mention the greater differences between the men of distinct races, is so notorious that not a word need here be said. ”

“ Human types, instead of being standardized, should be diversified , and their cultural differences maintained and exaggerated by different modes of education and life habits. Each type will find its place. ”

“ Although the wonderful developments of human history teach that the grosser physical differences of color, hair and bone go but a short way toward explaining the different roles which groups of men have played in Human Progress, yet there are differences–subtle, delicate and elusive, though they may be– which have silently but definitely separated men into groups. ”