No More Learning

Mr. Galton first took up the subject of the transmissibility of intel-
lectual gifts in his 'Hereditary Genius' (1869). An examination of
the relationships of the judges of England for a period of two hun-
dred years, of the statesmen of the time of George III. , of the pre-
miers of the last one hundred years, and of a certain selection of
divines and modern scholars, together with the kindred of the most
illustrious commanders, men of letters and science, poets, painters,
and musicians of all times and nations, resulted in his conclusion that
man's mental abilities are derived by inheritance under exactly the
same limitations as are the forms and features of the whole organic
world. Mr. Galton argued that, as it is practicable to produce a highly
gifted race of men by judicious marriages during several consccu-
tive generations, the State ought to encourage by dowries and other
artificial means such marriages as make for the elevation of the race.
Having set forth the hereditary nature of general intellectual
ability, he attempts to discover what particular qualities commonly
combine to form genius, and whether they also are transmissible.
'English Men of Science: Their Nature and Nurture' (1874) was a
summary of the results obtained from inquiries addressed to the most
eminent scientific men of England, respecting the circumstances of
heredity and environment which might have been influential in direct-
ing them toward their careers. One hundred and eighty persons were
questioned. From the replies it appeared that in the order of their
prevalence, the chief qualities that commonly unite to form scientific
genius are energy both of body and mind; good health; great inde-
pendence of character; tenacity of purpose; practical business habits;
and strong innate tastes for science generally, or for some branch of


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FRANCIS GALTON
6175
it. The replies indicated the hereditary character of the qualities in
question, showing incidentally that in the matter of heredity the
influence of the father is greater than that of the mother. It would
have been interesting to have had the results of similar inquiries in
the case of other classes of eminent persons,-statesmen, lawyers,
poets, divines, etc. However, it is problematical whether other
classes would have entered so heartily into the spirit of the inquiry,
and given such full and frank replies.
Large variation in individuals from their parents is, he argues, not
only not incompatible with the strict doctrine of heredity, but is a
consequence of it wherever the breed is impure. Likewise, abnormal
attributes of individual parents are less transmissible than the gen-
eral characteristics of the family. Both these influences operate to
deprive the science of heredity of the certainty of prediction in indi-
vidual cases. The latter influence-i. e. , the law of reversion - is
made the subject of a separate inquiry in the volume entitled
'Natural Inheritance' (1889).
In 'Inquiries into the Human Faculty and its Development (1883),
he described a method of accurately measuring mental processes,
such as sensation, volition, the formation of elementary judgments,
and the estimation of numbers; suggested composite photography as
a means of studying the physiognomy of criminal and other classes;
treated the subject of heredity in crime; and discussed the mental
process of visualizing.
'Finger Prints' (1892) is a study from the point of view of he-
redity of the patterns observed in the skin of finger-tips. These
patterns are not only hereditary, but also furnish a certain means of
identification - - an idea improved in Mark Twain's story of Pudd'n-
head Wilson. '
Mr. Galton is himself an example of the heredity of genius, being
a grandson of Erasmus Darwin, the author of 'Zoönomia,' and a
cousin of Charles Darwin. Born near Birmingham in 1822, he studied
some time at Birmingham Hospital and at King's College, London,
with the intention of entering the medical profession; but abandoned
this design, and was graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge, in
1844. He soon after made two journeys of exploration in Africa, the
latter of which is described in his 'Narrative of an Explorer in South
Africa (1853). An indirect result of these journeys was 'The Art of
Travel; or Shifts and Contrivances in Wild Countries' (1855).
'Meteorographica' (1863) is noteworthy as the first attempt ever
made to represent in charts on a large scale the progress of the
weather, and on account of the theory of anti-cyclones which Mr.
Galton advances in it.
Although strictly scientific in aim and method, Mr. Galton's writ-
ings, particularly those on heredity, appeal to all classes of readers


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6176
FRANCIS GALTON
and possess a distinct literary value. One may admire in them sim-
plicity and purity of diction, animation of style, fertility in the con-
struction of theory, resourcefulness in the search for proof, and a
fine enthusiasm for the subject under consideration.
THE COMPARATIVE WORTH OF DIFFERENT RACES
From Hereditary Genius
Ε
VERY long-established race has necessarily its peculiar fitness
for the conditions under which it has lived, owing to the
sure operation of Darwin's law of natural selection. How-
ever, I am not much concerned for the present with the greater
part of those aptitudes, but only with such as are available in
some form or other of high civilization. We may reckon upon
the advent of a time when civilization, which is now sparse and
feeble and far more superficial than it is vaunted to be, shall
overspread the globe. Ultimately it is sure to do so, because
civilization is the necessary fruit of high intelligence when found
in a social animal, and there is no plainer lesson to be read off
the face of Nature than that the result of the operation of her
laws is to evoke intelligence in connection with sociability. Intel-
ligence is as much an advantage to an animal as physical strength
or any other natural gift; and therefore, out of two varieties of
any race of animal who are equally endowed in other respects, the
most intelligent variety is sure to prevail in the battle of life.
Similarly, among animals as intelligent as man, the most social
race is sure to prevail, other qualities being equal.
Under even a very moderate form of material civilization, a
vast number of aptitudes acquired through the "survivorship of
the fittest" and the unsparing destruction of the unfit, for hun-
dreds of generations, have become as obsolete as the old mail-
coach habits and customs since the establishment of railroads,
and there is not the slightest use in attempting to preserve them;
they are hindrances, and not gains, to civilization. I shall refer
to some of these a little further on, but I will first speak of the
qualities needed in civilized society. They are, speaking gener-
ally, such as will enable a race to supply a large contingent to
the various groups of eminent men of whom I have treated in
my several chapters. Without going so far as to say that this
very convenient test is perfectly fair, we are at all events justi-
fied in making considerable use of it, as I will do in the esti-
mates I am about to give.


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FRANCIS GALTON
6177
In comparing the worth of different races, I shall make fre-
quent use of the law of deviation from an average, to which I
have already been much beholden; and to save the reader's time
and patience, I propose to act upon an assumption that would
require a good deal of discussion to limit, and to which the
reader may at first demur, but which cannot lead to any error of
importance in a rough provisional inquiry. I shall assume that
the intervals between the grades of ability are the same in all
the races.
I know this cannot be strictly true, for it
would be in defiance of analogy if the variability of all races
were precisely the same; but on the other hand, there is good
reason to expect that the error introduced by the assumption
cannot sensibly affect the off-hand results for which alone I
propose to employ it; moreover, the rough data I shall adduce
will go far to show the justice of this expectation.
Let us then compare the negro race with the Anglo-Saxon,
with respect to those qualities alone which are capable of produ-
cing judges, statesmen, commanders, men of literature and science,
poets, artists, and divines. If the negro race in America had
been affected by no social disabilities, a comparison of their
achievements with those of the whites in their several branches
of intellectual effort, having regard to the total number of their
respective populations, would give the necessary information. As
matters stand, we must be content with much rougher data.
First, the negro race has occasionally, but very rarely, pro-
duced such men as Toussaint L'Ouverture.
Secondly, the negro race is by no means wholly deficient in
men capable of becoming good factors, thriving merchants, and
otherwise considerably raised above the average of whites.
Thirdly, we may compare, but with much caution, the relative
position of negroes in their native country with that of the trav-
elers who visit them. The latter no doubt bring with them the
knowledge current in civilized lands, but that is an advantage of
less importance than we are apt to suppose. The native chief
has as good an education in the art of ruling men as can be de-
sired; he is continually exercised in personal government, and
usually maintains his place by the ascendency of his character,
shown every day over his subjects and rivals. A traveler in wild
countries also fills to a certain degree the position of a com-
mander, and has to confront native chiefs at every inhabited.
place. The result is familiar enough—the white traveler almost
XI-387


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6178
FRANCIS GALTON
invariably holds his own in their presence.
It is seldom that we
hear of a white traveler meeting with a black chief whom he
feels to be the better man. I have often discussed this subject
with competent persons, and can only recall a few cases of the
inferiority of the white man,- certainly not more than might be
ascribed to an average actual difference of three grades, of which
one may be due to the relative demerits of native education, and
the remaining two to a difference in natural gifts.
Fourthly, the number among the negroes of those whom we
should call half-witted men is very large. Every book alluding
to negro servants in America is full of instances. I was myself
much impressed by this fact during my travels in Africa. The
mistakes the negroes made in their own matters were so childish,
stupid, and simpleton-like as frequently to make me ashamed of
my own species. I do not think it any exaggeration to say that
their is as low as our e, which would be a difference of two
grades, as before. I have no information as to actual idiocy
among the negroes—I mean, of course, of that class of idiocy
which is not due to disease.
The Australian type is at least one grade below the African
negro. I possess a few serviceable data about the natural capa-
city of the Australian, but not sufficient to induce me to invite
the reader to consider them.
The average standard of the Lowland Scotch and the English
North Country men is decidedly a fraction of a grade superior to
that of the ordinary English, because the number of the former
who attain to eminence is far greater than the proportionate
number of their race would have led us to expect. The same
superiority is distinctly shown by a comparison of the well-being
of the masses of the population; for the Scotch laborer is much
less of a drudge than the Englishman of the Midland counties -
he does his work better, and "lives his life" besides.
The peas-
ant women of Northumberland work all day in the fields, and
are not broken down by the work; on contrary, they take a
pride in their effective labor as girls, and when married they
attend well to the comfort of their homes. It is perfectly dis-
tressing to me to witness the draggled, drudged, mean look of
the mass of individuals, especially of the women, that one meets
in the streets of London and other purely English towns. The
conditions of their life seem too hard for their constitutions, and
to be crushing them into degeneracy.


## p. 6179 (#149) ###########################################

FRANCIS GALTON
6179
The ablest race of whom history bears record is unquestion-
ably the ancient Greek, partly because their masterpieces in the
principal departments of intellectual activity are still unsur-
passed and in many respects unequaled, and partly because the
population that gave birth to the creators of those masterpieces
was very small. Of the various Greek sub-races, that of Attica
was the ablest, and she was no doubt largely indebted to the fol-
lowing cause for her superiority: Athens opened her arms to
immigrants, but not indiscriminately, for her social life was such
that none but very able men could take any pleasure in it; on the
other hand, she offered attractions such as men of the highest
ability and culture could find in no other city. Thus by a sys-
tem of partly unconscious selection she built up a magnificent
breed of human animals, which in the space of one century-
viz. , between 530 and 430 B. C. -produced the following illus-
trious persons, fourteen in number:-
Statesmen and Commanders. - Themistocles (mother an alien),
Miltiades, Aristides, Cimon (son of Miltiades), Pericles (son of
Xanthippus, the victor at Mycale).
Literary and Scientific Men. — Thucydides, Socrates, Xenophon,
Plato.
Poets. Eschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes.
Sculptor. - Phidias.
We are able to make a closely approximate estimate of the pop-
ulation that produced these men, because the number of the in-
habitants of Attica has been a matter of frequent inquiry, and
critics appear at length to be quite agreed in the general results.
The average ability of the Athenian race is, on the lowest
possible estimate, very nearly two grades higher than our own—
that is, about as much as our race is above that of the African
negro. This estimate, which may seem prodigious to some, is
confirmed by the quick intelligence and high culture of the Athe-
nian commonalty, before whom literary works were recited, and
works of art exhibited, of a far more severe character than could
possibly be appreciated by the average of our race, the calibre of
whose intellect is easily gauged by a glance at the contents of a
railway book-stall.
We know, and may guess something more, of the reason why
this marvelously gifted race declined. Social morality grew ex-
ceedingly lax; marriage became unfashionable, and was avoided;
many of the
more ambitious and accomplished women were


## p. 6180 (#150) ###########################################

6180
FRANCIS GALTON
In a
avowed courtesans and consequently infertile, and the mothers of
the incoming population were of a heterogeneous class.
small sea-bordered country, where emigration and immigration are
constantly going on, and where the manners are as dissolute as
were those of Greece in the period of which I speak, the purity of
a race would necessarily fail. It can be therefore no surprise to
us, though it has been a severe misfortune to humanity, that the
high Athenian breed decayed and disappeared; for if it had main-
tained its excellence, and had multiplied and spread over large
countries, displacing inferior populations (which it well might
have done, for it was exceedingly prolific), it would assuredly
have accomplished results advantageous to human civilization, to
a degree that transcends our powers of imagination.
If we could raise the average standard of our race only one
grade, what vast changes would be produced! The number of men
of natural gifts equal to those of the eminent men of the present
day would be necessarily increased more than tenfold;
but far more important to the progress of civilization would be
the increase in the yet higher orders of intellect. We know how
intimately the course of events is dependent on the thoughts of a
few illustrious men. If the first-rate men in the different groups
had never been born, even if those among them who have a place
in my appendices on account of their hereditary gifts had never
existed, the world would be very different to what it is.
·
It seems to me most essential to the well-being of future
generations, that the average standard of ability of the present
time should be raised. Civilization is a new condition imposed
upon man by the course of events, just as in the history of geo-
logical changes new conditions have continually been imposed on
different races of animals. They have had the effect either of
modifying the nature of the races through the process of natural
selection, whenever the changes were sufficiently slow and the
race sufficiently pliant, or of destroying them altogether, when
the changes were too abrupt or the race unyielding. The num-
ber of the races of mankind that have been entirely destroyed
under the pressure of the requirements of an incoming civiliza-
tion, reads us a terrible lesson. Probably in no former period of
the world has the destruction of the races of any animal what-
ever been effected over such wide areas, and with such startling
rapidity, as in the case of savage man. In the North-American
continent, in the West-Indian islands, in the Cape of Good Hope,


## p. 6181 (#151) ###########################################

FRANCIS GALTON
6181
in Australia, New Zealand, and Van Diemen's Land, the human
denizens of vast regions have been entirely swept away in the
short space of three centuries, less by the pressure of a stronger
race than through the influence of a civilization they were inca-
pable of supporting. And we too, the foremost laborers in creat-
ing this civilization, are beginning to show ourselves incapable of
keeping pace with our own work. The needs of centralization,
communication, and culture, call for more brains and mental
stamina than the average of our race possess. We are in crying
want for a greater fund of ability in all stations of life; for
neither the classes of statesmen, philosophers, artisans, nor labor-
ers are up to the modern complexity of their several professions.
An extended civilization like ours comprises more interests than
the ordinary statesmen or philosophers of our present race are
capable of dealing with, and it exacts more intelligent work than
our ordinary artisans and laborers are capable of performing.
Our race is overweighted, and appears likely to be drudged into
degeneracy by demands that exceed its powers.
When the severity of the struggle for existence is not too
great for the powers of the race, its action is healthy and con-
servative; otherwise it is deadly, just as we may see exemplified
in the scanty, wretched vegetation that leads a precarious exist-
ence near the summer snow line of the Alps, and disappears
altogether a little higher up. We want as much backbone as we
can get, to bear the racket to which we are henceforth to be ex-
posed, and as good brains as possible to contrive machinery, for
modern life to work more smoothly than at present. We can in
some degree raise the nature of man to a level with the new
conditions imposed upon his existence; and we can also in some
degree modify the conditions to suit his nature. It is clearly
right that both these powers should be exerted, with the view of
bringing his nature and the conditions of his existence into as
close harmony as possible.
In proportion as the world becomes filled with mankind, the
relations of society necessarily increase in complexity, and the
nomadic disposition found in most barbarians becomes unsuitable
to the novel conditions. There is a most unusual unanimity in
respect to the causes of incapacity of savages for civilization,
among writers on those hunting and migratory nations who are.
brought into contact with advancing colonization, and perish, as
they invariably do, by the contact. They tell us that the labor


## p. 6182 (#152) ###########################################

6182
FRANCIS GALTON
of such men is neither constant nor steady; that the love of a
wandering, independent life prevents their settling anywhere to
work, except for a short time, when urged by want and encour-
aged by kind treatment. Meadows says that the Chinese call the
barbarous races on their borders by a phrase which means "hither
and thither," "not fixed. " And any amount of evidence might
be adduced, to show how deeply Bohemian habits of one kind or
another were ingrained in the nature of the men who inhabited
most parts of the earth, now overspread by the Anglo-Saxon and
other civilized races. Luckily there is still room for adventure,
and a man who feels the cravings of a roving, adventurous spirit
to be too strong for resistance, may yet find a legitimate outlet
for it in the colonies, in the army, or on board ship. But such
a spirit is, on the whole, an heirloom that brings more impatient
restlessness and beating of the wings against cage bars, than
persons of more civilized characters can readily comprehend, and
it is directly at war with the more modern portion of our moral
natures. If a man be purely a nomad, he has only to be nomadic
and his instinct is satisfied; but no Englishmen of the nineteenth
century are purely nomadic. The most so among them have also
inherited many civilized cravings that are necessarily starved
when they become wanderers, in the same way as the wandering
instincts are starved when they are settled at home. Conse-
quently their nature has opposite wants, which can never be sat-
isfied except by chance, through some very exceptional turn of
circumstances. This is a serious calamity; and as the Bohemian-
ism in the nature of our race is destined to perish, the sooner it
goes the happier for mankind. The social requirements of Eng-
lish life are steadily destroying it. No man who only works by
fits and starts is able to obtain his living nowadays, for he has
not a chance of thriving in competition with steady workmen. If
his nature revolts against the monotony of daily labor, he is
tempted to the public-house, to intemperance, and it may be to
poaching, and to much more serious crime; otherwise he banishes
himself from our shores. In the first case, he is unlikely to
leave as many children as men of more domestic and marrying
habits; and in the second case, his breed is wholly lost to Eng-
land. By this steady riddance of the Bohemian spirit of our race,
the artisan part of our population is slowly becoming bred to its
duties, and the primary qualities of the typical modern British
workman are already the very opposite of those of the nomad.


## p. 6183 (#153) ###########################################

FRANCIS GALTON
6183
What they are now was well described by Mr. Chadwick as con-
sisting of "great bodily strength, applied under the command of
a steady, persevering will; mental self-contentedness; impassibility
to external irrelevant impressions, which carries them through
the continued repetition of toilsome labor, 'steady as time. ""
It is curious to remark how unimportant to modern civiliza-
tion has become the once famous and thoroughbred-looking Nor-·
man. The type of his features, which is probably in some
degree correlated with his peculiar form of adventurous disposi-
tion, is no longer characteristic of our rulers, and is rarely found
among celebrities of the present day; it is more often met with
among the undistinguished members of highly born families, and
especially among the less conspicuous officers of the army. Mod-
ern leading men in all paths of eminence, as may easily be seen
in a collection of photographs, are of a coarser and more robust
breed: less excitable and dashing, but endowed with far more
ruggedness and real vigor. Such also is the case as regards the
German portion of the Austrian nation.
Much more alien to the genius of an enlightened civilization
than the nomadic habit is the impulsive and uncontrolled nature
of the savage. A civilized man must bear and forbear; he must
keep before his mind the claims of the morrow as clearly as
those of the passing minute; of the absent as well as of the pres-
ent. This is the most trying of the new conditions imposed on
man by civilization, and the one that makes it hopeless for any
but exceptional natures among savages to live under them. The
instinct of a savage is admirably consonant with the needs of
savage life; every day he is in danger through transient causes;
he lives from hand to mouth, in the hour and for the hour, with-
out care for the past or forethought for the future: but such an
instinct is utterly at fault in civilized life. The half-reclaimed
savage, being unable to deal with more subjects of consideration
than are directly before him, is continually doing acts through
mere maladroitness and incapacity, at which he is afterwards
deeply grieved and annoyed. The nearer inducements always
seem to him, through his uncorrected sense of moral perspec-
tive, to be incomparably larger than others of the same actual size
but more remote; consequently, when the temptation of the mo-
ment has been yielded to and passed away, and its bitter result
comes in its turn before the man, he is amazed and remorseful
at his past weakness. It seems incredible that he should have
·


## p. 6184 (#154) ###########################################

6184
FRANCIS GALTON
done that yesterday which to-day seems so silly, so unjust, and
so unkindly. The newly reclaimed barbarian, with the impulsive,
unstable nature of the savage, when he also chances to be gifted
with a peculiarly generous and affectionate disposition, is of all
others the man most oppressed with the sense of sin.
Now, it is a just assertion, and a common theme of moralists
of many creeds, that man, such as we find him, is born with an
imperfect nature. He has lofty aspirations, but there is a weak-
ness in his disposition which incapacitates him from carrying his
nobler purposes into effect. He sees that some particular course
of action is his duty, and should be his delight; but his inclina-
tions are fickle and base, and do not conform to his better judg-
ment. The whole moral nature of man is tainted with sin, which
prevents him from doing the things he knows to be right.
The explanation I offer to this apparent anomaly seems per-
fectly satisfactory from a scientific point of view. It is neither
more nor less than that the development of our nature, whether
under Darwin's law of natural selection or through the effects
of changed ancestral habits, has not yet overtaken the develop-
ment of our moral civilization. Man was barbarous but yester-
day, and therefore it is not to be expected that the natural
aptitudes of his race should already have become molded into
accordance with his very recent advance. We, men of the pres-
ent centuries, are like animals suddenly transplanted among new
conditions of climate and of food: our instincts fail us under the
altered circumstances.
My theory is confirmed by the fact that the members of old
civilizations are far less sensible than recent converts from bar-
barism, of their nature being inadequate to their moral needs.
The conscience of a negro is aghast at his own wild, impulsive
nature, and is easily stirred by a preacher; but it is scarcely pos-
sible to ruffle the self-complacency of a steady-going Chinaman.
The sense of original sin would show, according to my theory,
not that man was fallen from high estate, but that he was rising
in moral culture with more rapidity than the nature of his race
could follow. My view is corroborated by the conclusion reached
at the end of each of the many independent lines of ethnological
research that the human race were utter savages in the begin-
ning; and that after myriads of years of barbarism, man has but
very recently found his way into the paths of morality and civil-
ization.


## p. 6185 (#155) ###########################################

6185
ARNE GARBORG
(1851-)
A
RNE GARBORG is one of the most potent forces in the new
school of Norwegian literature. The contemporary of Alex-
ander Kielland, who is more widely known abroad, he is
however the representative of a vastly different phase. Kielland's
works, except for their setting, are the result of general European
culture; whereas Garborg has laid the foundations of a literature
essentially Norse.
The new literature of young Norway is a true exponent of its
social conditions. The ferment of its strivings and its discontent
permeates the whole people. Much of Garborg's work is the chron-
icle of this social unrest, particularly among the peasant classes,
where he himself by birth belongs. In the reaction against the sen-
timental idealism of the older school, he is the pioneer who has
blazed the paths. Where Björnson gives rose-colored pictures of
what peasant life might be, Garborg with heavy strokes of terrible
meaning draws the outline of what it is. His daring and directness
of speech aroused a storm of opposition, and he has also been made
to suffer in a material way for the courage of his opinions, in that
the position which he had held in the government service since 1879
was taken from him as a consequence of his books.
Arne Garborg was born at Jæderen, in the southwestern part of
Norway, January 1851. The circumstances of his life were humble,
and all of his surroundings were meagre in the extreme. His father,
a village schoolmaster, was a man of nervous, fanatical tempera-
ment, with whom religion was a mania. In the obscure little village
where he lived, Garborg's boyhood was outwardly uneventful but
inwardly filled with conflict. Brought up in an atmosphere of pietism,
the natural reaction led him into a kind of romantic atheistic un-
belief. In the turmoil of his mind, the battles were fought again and
again, until at length he reached the middle ground of modern
thought. His education was extremely desultory; but from the age
of nine, when from the only models within his reach he wrote hymns
and sermons, he showed a strong tendency for literature. He passed
the required examinations for a school-teacher in 1870, and alter-
nately taught and studied, until in 1875 he entered the University of
Christiania. His life as a student was by no means smooth, but he
persisted, in spite of poverty and indeed sometimes actual want.


## p. 6186 (#156) ###########################################

6186
ARNE GARBORG
He had previously, in Risör, published a Teacher's Journal (1871),
a small paper dealing principally though not exclusively with school
affairs; and a year later, in Tvedestrand, he established the Tvede-
strand Post. This experience as county editor and printer had quali-
fied him for newspaper work, and in 1877 he became connected with
the Aftenbladet of Christiania. The same year he founded the Fed-
raheimen, "a weekly paper for the Norse people. " This was really
the beginning of his literary career, although besides his early enter-
prises in journalism he had as a student contributed occasional
articles to the newspapers, and had already published his first book,
a critical essay on Ibsen's 'Emperor and Galilean. '
The attempt made by Ivar Aasen to establish in Norway a na-
tional language through a normalization of the peasant dialects, found
in Garborg one of its warmest supporters. Discarding Danish as a
literary medium, he advocated the use of the strong Norse, and the
Fedraheimen appeared as the organ of the new movement. Garborg
wrote a book upon the subject in the year after the establishment of
his journal, and ever since, by precept and practice, he has been the
chief propagandist of the new speech.
His first novel, En Fritenkjar' (A Freethinker), appeared anony-
mously in the Fedraheimen in 1878. The subject of the story was
one of the vital questions of the day, the conflict between iron-bound
dogmatism and rational thought; a theme now threadbare with much
handling, but then startlingly new. The author's early training and
his own environment of intolerant theology supplied material for the
story. The hero of the tale, the man who dared to think for him-
self, was looked upon as a criminal, to be ranked with house-breakers
and thieves. The ostracism which he brought upon himself was but
the just punishment for his crimes. The Freethinker, treated as a
moral leper, is driven from his home and goes abroad to expiate his
sin of unorthodoxy. In later years he returns to his native land, to
find most of his acquaintances dead. Of his family only one still
lives, and that is his son, who has become a clergyman!
Garborg's second romance, 'Bondestudentar' (Peasant Students)
(1883), deals with a problem no less real. In Norway, although there
is no rank of nobility, class distinctions are nevertheless strongly
marked; and in this novel his pen is directed against the evils which
result from the inordinate striving of the lower orders for a position
to which they are unfitted both by nature and circumstances.
This
book, again, is to a degree autobiographical; for Garborg, as has been
said, is himself peasant, and he has fought the fight and suffered
the anguish of the new culture attained with incalculable sacrifice.
'Peasant Students' is undoubtedly his greatest work. Nowhere else
has he indicated more clearly his seriousness of purpose, or worked


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out his theme with more effectiveness. The hero, Daniel Braut, is
the representative of the ideal student, a son of the people who shall
strive for "poetry and the soul" and introduce the elements of cul-
ture among his class. Manual labor is his aversion; and at last,
forced by the weakness of his nature and the necessity of his poverty,
he goes over to the ranks of philistinism, marries a woman of prop-
erty, and studies theology. Both books are stories of high ideals and
humiliating compromises. The author's pessimism is in the ascend-
ant, and in the end the lower nature conquers.
In 'Mannfolk' (1886) he takes up a different theme, the relation
of the sexes, a question which he treats with startling frankness.
Garborg is a realist in so far that he prefers to depict life as it is,
well knowing that fiction cannot approach truth in point of interest.
He bears true testimony of what he sees and knows, but his realism
is very far removed from the naturalism of the French school.
Following 'Peasant Students' appeared in 1884 Forteljinger og
Sogar' (Narratives and Tales), a volume of stories dealing sometimes
with subjects generally proscribed. Of his other works the most im-
portant are the narrative 'Hjaa ho Mor' (With Mama), Kolbotnbrev
og andre Skildringar' (Kolbotn Letters and Other Sketches: 1890),
the novels Trætte Mænd' (Weary Souls: 1891), 'Fred' (Peace: 1893),
and the drama 'Uforsonlige' (The Irreconcilables: 1888).
After being deprived of his government position upon the publica-
tion of 'Mannfolk,' Arne Garborg retired with his wife and child into
the solitude of the mountains, where for two years he lived and
wrote in his sæter hut; but at last, overcome by the loneliness of
this isolated life, he left Norway and settled in Germany.
THE CONFLICT OF THE CREEDS
From A Freethinker›
THE
HE noise of carriage wheels increased. The carriage drove up
before the door, and all the people of the parsonage sprang
up in joy. Ragna however reddened somewhat. A minute
after, both Hans Vangen and Eystein Hauk stood in the room.
Hans embraced his parents and his sister, and on the surface was
happy; Hauk greeted them kindly and warmly like an acquaint-
ance of the family, and bowed deep before Ragna.
"A good evening to you, and a merry Christmas-time! " called
out Hans. "Here is the great foreign traveler and wise man
Eystein Hauk, and here”—he pointed to the chaplain - "is the
strict man of God, Balle; chaplain now, pastor later on, finally


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ARNE GARBORG
bishop; a well-founded theologian and a true support to the
Church in these distracted times. It will be well with you if you
do not fall into a quarrel about belief. "
There was talking and laughing; the pastor's wife poured out
wine; the new-comers sat down; the table was quickly set, and
then they went into the dining-room, where Christmas grits and
Christmas fish stood smoking in a great dish and "awaited the
help of the people. " The pastor read a blessing, which was not
listened to with any further devoutness. Ragna and Balle sat for
the most part and looked at Hauk, but Hauk looked at Ragna,
and the pastor's wife said of Hans how he had grown during the
past year, and how his good looks and his affability had im-
proved.
The one who talked most at the table was Hans.
Hauk was
rather silent. The pastor asked him in a few words about his
travels abroad; he answered promptly but shortly, and often in
such a cleverly turned way of speaking that it was difficult to
find out his real meaning.
The chaplain, too, would have liked to hear about foreign
lands. What was the state of the Christian religion in France?
- Well, it was various. It was there as here: there were people
of all sorts. - But was not the great majority unchristian? — Well,
of enlightened and learned people it was, to be sure, the smallest
part who strictly could be called Christians. But with morals?
Was there not a great deal of social viciousness and impro-
priety? Well, if it were only considered under certain conditions,
in certain cities, it was probably there as in other places. In-
deed! - Balle, rebuffed, looked away from Hauk, and did not talk
with him afterward.
-
-
When they left the table there was set out dessert, with wine,
and pipes were also brought. The conversation went on as be-
fore, but it was none the less Hans who talked most.
He was a
fresh, happy fellow. His mother sat and found pleasure in look-
ing at him. The pastor and Balle sat and smoked, glanced now
and then at Hauk, who was a little way off at a smaller table,
talking small-talk with Ragna. The pastor had become more
silent, and Balle looked as if he little liked the state of things,
although he tried to control himself. Hans understood this, and
laughed.
"Do not bother yourself about Hauk," said he. "He has
been in Paris and has learned French manners, and consequently


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he likes women's society best; but even if he is a little grand,
he will quickly become Norse again, keep to his pipe and his
glass, and let the women take care of themselves. "
Balle bit his lips; the pastor smiled a little. "Young people
are more bashful here in Norway," said he. "That is true," he
continued. "You have read the new novel 'Virginia,' that the
people have waited so long for? "
"Virginia'? -pfh! that is a vile book," answered Hans, and
smiled.
"Vile? " said the chaplain questioningly.
"It is a scandalous book! says Christiania. It has set the
whole town on end.
town on end. It works destruction upon marriage, they
upon morals, upon society. I have never seen Christiania
so moral as in these days. "
say;
<<
H'm! " said Balle; "Christiania is on the whole a moral
town. "
«
It is at this time!
The young poets are happy for all the
days of their life. The men forbid the women to read the book,
and
the women forbid their daughters —»
And so they all read it together? " said the pastor.
«
Certainly! The women read it and say, 'Paugh! the poets
do
not know life. ' The daughters, the poor dear angels, they
read it and say, 'Dear me, is that anything? Have we not read
worse books than that ? >»
«
"But tell us, then, what the book is about? " said the pastor.
"It is about that married people shall love each other," said
Hans stoutly.
«
―――
Oho! free love! " called out the chaplain.
Certainly! Free love! All true love is free,' says the fool-
hardy fellow of a poet. »
he
lain.
"Do you hear that, pastor? " said Balle.
"If our own poets also take it up, let us have a care! Then
recognizes 'free thought'; and what then? " asked the chap-
"That is true," replied Hans. "All thoughts are free,' he
says, and not merely duty free. > >
"Of course he does not believe in God? »
"I doubt it; but even that is not the worst. "
"Not the >>
"No, for there are many people in Christiania who do not
believe in God. But these poets do not even believe in the


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ARNE GARBORG
Devil! " Hans laughed like a child at the face that the chaplain
made; the pastor looked severely at Hans, who cast down his
eyes and was silent.
"Worthless fruit," sighed the chaplain. "Our poets have
hitherto kept themselves free from these godless thoughts, even
if they have not always had the right opinion of Christianity,
and particularly have taken up with the confusions of Grundtvig-
ianism; but now, now it has taken another path. Do you see the
spirit of revolt, pastor? Do you hear how they rise and tear
asunder all its bonds; how opposition arises against all that is
high and holy, and they storm even against the foundations of
society ? »
"May God help us! " sighed the pastor. "It does not look
right. Is there anything new in the newspapers? " he asked,
as if to get away from a conversation that plainly oppressed
him.
Hans ran out, and came quickly in again with the newspapers.
Such of these as were French he took for himself, the rest he
gave to Balle.
"Do you see, father? " said Hans with the mien of a school-
master. "If you will have politics, you must turn to France. All
other politics are merely an echo of theirs. France is Europe.
France is the world! "
"Do you hear, pastor? " said Balle. "Do you hear how the
French spirit spreads and increases in power? the French spirit,
which has always been one and the same with rationalism and
revolution? ”
"Here is an article that will do Balle good! " called out Hans.
"It does not assume the good tone or prattle tediously like our
Norse newspaper articles. There is fire and burning in it; you
recognize something like a clenched fist back of the words, pre-
pared for everything upon which it may hit. That is what I
call politics! "
"Oh, you are a foolish fellow," said the pastor. "Come, out
with it! "
Hans read an article against the priestly party or clericals,
and the piece was severely radical. It was particularly to the
effect that the clergy and Christianity must be ousted from the
public schools, if thinkers were to be really for a genuine and
sound popular education. Christianity had already done what it
could do; hereafter it lay merely in the way. "Freedom and


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self-government was the war-cry now, for this generation.
They might be fair enough, many of the dreams which the new
time compelled us to abandon; but light and life and truth were
ten times fairer than all dreams.
The chaplain sat and sulked, and looked into one of the
Norse papers.
"Here stands the same," said he. "No, but-?
Yes, the same, and yet not the same. The Norse paper has cut
out or changed all that treats directly of Christianity; the rest is
the same. "
"Ha, ha, ha! " laughed Hans.
"Yes, they are as wise as serpents," sighed the chaplain.
"Here may plainly be seen how the matter stands. It is hidden
away in politics, but the spirit they cannot conceal; it is pre-
cisely the same French spirit of hell, the spirit of revolt, the
spirit of the Devil, which lifts itself against even the living God.
Do you see that, pastor? Do you see how wholly these 'free-
dom politics,' as they are called, are held up and impregnated
with this godless spirit of revolt? In truth, it becomes more
and more clear that it is the part of us, the watchmen of Zion,-
more now than ever before, to watch and pray. "
The pastor sat and meditated. He looked oppressed and sor-
rowful. It was too quiet for Hans: he moved away to Hauk and
Ragna. The chaplain appeared to like this, and became more
calm.
"Dear pastor," said he after a while, "just as surely as there
is truth in our work,—yes, this question presses itself more and
more in upon me,- as surely as there is truth in our work: that
we shall watch over God's house and people,— we cannot remain
silent and be calm when we see a spirit like this coming bearing
in upon us a spirit which is directly founded upon heathenism,
and so plainly shows its Satanic origin. Shall it be? Can we
answer for that before our Lord and God? »
The pastor was silent. He was in great doubt and uncer-
tainty of mind. "I do not believe that it is right to bring poli-
tics into the house of God," said he at last.
"Politics, no! But this is not politics; this is a spirit of the
times, a view of life which takes the outward garb of politics,
but at the bottom is merely a new outbreak of the same old
heathenism that the Church at all times has had to contend with.
I, for my part, do not believe that I can keep silent with a quiet
conscience. "


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The pastor held his peace and thought. "This is a hard
question," he said finally. "May our Lord give us wisdom! ”
"Amen," said the chaplain.
That night the old pastor did not sleep well. He walked up
and down his chamber and thought. "When it comes to the
point," said he to himself, "Balle is right; there is something
bad and evil in the spirit of the time; there is something devil-
ish. Merely look, now, at this Eystein Hauk, this clever fine fel-
low: he is not to be got at. He is frozen to ice and hardened
to steel, slippery and smooth as a serpent. There came such an
uncanny spirit from him that he made me downright sick: no
respect, no veneration even for his own father; God knows how
he can hold fast to his Christian faith. They call it freedom,
humanity; but it is not that. It is hate, venom, bad blood. —
They will tear from them all bonds, as Balle says, raise a re-
volt-revolt against all that is beautiful and good, against God,
against belief. H'm! Build the State, this whole earthly life,
upon a heathen foundation! Sever connection with Christianity,
cast the Church away from them like old trash. That is terrible!
And free love, free thought the Christian religion out of the
schools-no! that is Satan himself who rages. Free thoughts in
my time were not so: they were warm and beautiful; there was
heart in them; they made us good and happy. " He shook him-
self, as if to throw off a chill. Should one be silent at such
things? Should one look quietly on while this evil spirit eats
itself in among the people? or should one, like a disciple of God,
lift up the sword of the Word and the Spirit against this poison-
ous basilisk?
-
He read in the Bible and in Luther. Then he got up again
and walked. The clock struck hour after hour, but the old man
did not hear it. He thought only of the heavy responsibility.
Was it not to profane the house of God and the holy office, to
drag the struggle and strife of the day into it? Was he not set
to watch over word and teaching, but not to be a judge in the
world's disputes? But of his flock, the people of the Church,
the Bride of Christ, whom he should watch, but who stood in the
midst of a wicked world, and whose souls were harmed when
such evil gusts blew? Would not every soul at the Judgment
Day be demanded at his hands? And was he a good shepherd,
who indeed kept watch against the wolf when the wolf came hav-
ing on his right garb, but looked on and was silent when he came


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clothed in sheep's garments and pretended to belong among the
good? He read anew in Luther. At last he knelt down and
prayed for a long time, and ended with a fervent and heartfelt
«< Our Father. "
Then he arose as if freed from doubt, looked meekly up to
heaven, and said, "As thou wilt, O Lord! " He seated himself
in his arm-chair, weary but happy, and fell asleep for a while.
Presently, however, the day grew gray in the east and he awoke.
He read the morning prayers to himself, chose his text, and
thought about the sermon. When the bell began to ring he
went to church.