Anthropology and modern life

_By_ Franz Boas, Ph.D. Professor of Anthropology, Columbia University

NEW YORK W · W · NORTON & COMPANY, INC _Publishers_

Copyright, 1928 W · W · NORTON & COMPANY, INC.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA FOR THE PUBLISHERS BY THE VAN REES PRESS

Contents {p. v}

Chapter Page

I. What Is Anthropology? 11

Anthropology treats of man as a member of a social group--Pure and applied anthropology.

II. The Problem Of Race 18

Significance of the term “Race”--Overlapping of racial types--Subjective existence of types--Racial heredity and family lines--Inbred and heterogeneous types--Functional differences between individuals of the same bodily form--Environmental influences upon bodily form--Races considered from an evolutionary viewpoint--Relation between the size of the brain and intelligence--Man as a domesticated form--Physiological and mental differences between races--Difficulty of distinguishing between hereditary and environmental conditions--Significance of intelligence tests--Tests of American Negroes--Relative importance of cultural experience and racial descent--Racial descent disregarded by ethnologists.

III. The Interrelation Of Races 62

Race consciousness--Open and closed societies--Race a type of closed society--Intermingling of races--Conditions under which race antipathies break down.

IV. Nationalism 78

Confusion between the terms “Race” and “Nationality”--Mixed descent of European nations--Language as basis of national groupings--Culture and political organization as basis of nationality--Fictitious groupings based on distant relation of speech--Increase in size of political units--Early development of tribal units--Decrease in feeling of difference between tribal groups--The function of nationalism.

V. Eugenics 102

Effects of selection--Effect of environment and heredity--General degeneracy--Selection for development of specific qualities--Social effects of eugenic legislation--Elimination of the unfit--Dangers of eugenic procedure.

VI. Criminology 120

Criminals as a class--Criminals as defectives--Social conditions and crime--Relative importance of hereditary and environmental factors.

VII. Stability Of Culture 131

Acceleration of cultural development--Periodicity of the rate of change--Automatic habits--Relation between material inventions and automatic habits--The relation between language and thought--Actions are more stable than their interpretations--Stability of patterns of thought--Negative effect of automatism--Intolerance--Independence.

VIII. Education 164

Phenomena of growth and development--Influence of heredity--Development of functions--Retardation and acceleration--Comparison of sexes--Application of generalized observations to the establishment of educational standards--Racial characteristics--Cases in which standards are applicable--Prediction of individual development--Generalized standards are not applicable to individuals--Cultural effects of education--Effect of education upon mental freedom--Conflicts in educational aims--Effect of education upon crises in the life of the individual--The cultural outlook of classes--Cultural outlook of educated class--Cultural outlook of the masses.

IX. Modern Civilization And Primitive Culture 198

Applicability of anthropology--Valuation of different cultural aims--Objective study must be based on different cultures--Anthropology an historic science--Prediction of development of culture impossible--Primitive cultures as historic growths--General social laws--Progress in inventions and knowledge--Stability of moral ideas--Progress in ethical behavior--Progress in social organization--Leadership--Position of woman--Marriage--Property--Is the direction of cultural development predetermined?--Culture not superorganic--Geographic and economic determinism.

References 237

CHAPTER I {p. 11}

What Is Anthropology?

Anthropology is often considered a collection of curious facts, telling about the peculiar appearance of exotic people and describing their strange customs and beliefs. It is looked at as an entertaining diversion, apparently without any bearing upon the conduct of life of civilized communities.

This opinion is mistaken. More than that, I hope to demonstrate that a clear understanding of the principles of anthropology illuminates the social processes of our own times and may show us, if we are ready to listen to its teachings, what to do and what to avoid.

To prove my thesis I must explain briefly what anthropologists are trying to do.

It might appear that the domain of anthropology, of “the science of man,” is preoccupied by a whole array of sciences. The anthropologist who studies bodily form is confronted by the anatomist who has spent centuries in researches on the gross form and minute structure of the human body. The physiologist and the psychologist devote themselves to inquiries into the functioning of body and {12} mind. Is there, then, any justification for the anthropologist to claim that he can add to our fund of knowledge?

There is a difference between the work of the anthropologist and that of the anatomist, physiologist, and psychologist. They deal primarily with the typical form and function of the human body and mind. Minor differences such as appear in any series of individuals are either disregarded or considered as peculiarities without particular significance for the type, although sometimes suggestive of its rise from lower forms. The interest centers always in the individual as a type, and in the significance of his appearance and functions from a morphological, physiological or psychological point of view.

To the anthropologist, on the contrary, the individual appears important only as a member of a racial or a social group. The distribution and range of differences between individuals, and the characteristics as determined by the group to which each individual belongs are the phenomena to be investigated. The distribution of anatomical features, of physiological functions and of mental reactions are the subject matter of anthropological studies.

It might be said that anthropology is not a single science, for the anthropologist presupposes a knowledge of individual anatomy, physiology and {13} psychology, and applies this knowledge to groups. Every one of these sciences may be and is being studied from an anthropological point of view.

The group, not the individual, is always the primary concern of the anthropologist. We may investigate the distribution of size of body as measured by weight or stature in a racial or social group. The individual interests us only as a member of the group. We inquire into determinant factors and the manner of their action in the group. The relation between the composition of the social group and the distribution of individual statures interests us. The physiologist may study the effect of strenuous exercise upon the functions of the heart. The anthropologist will investigate the interrelation between social conditions that make for strenuous exercise in a group and the physiological behavior of its members. The psychologist may study the intellectual or emotional behavior of the individual. The anthropologist will investigate the social or racial conditions that determine the behavior as distributed in the group.

The individual develops and acts as a member of a racial or a social group. His bodily form is determined by his ancestry and by the conditions under which he lives. The functions of the body, while controlled by bodily build, depend upon social conditions. If the people live by choice or necessity on an exclusive meat diet, their bodily {14} functions will differ from those of other groups of the same build that live on a purely vegetable diet; or, conversely, different racial groups that are nourished in the same way may show a certain parallelism in physiological behavior. The mental reactions of the Indians of the western plateaus, a people of simple culture, differ from those of the ancient Mexicans, a people of the same race, but of more complex organization.

The phenomena of anatomy, physiology and psychology are amenable to an individual, non-anthropological treatment, because it seems theoretically possible to isolate the individual and to formulate the problems of the variation of form and function in such a way that the social or racial factor is apparently excluded. This is quite impossible in all basically social phenomena, such as economic life, social organization of a group, religious ideas and art.

The psychologist may try to investigate the mental processes of artistic creation. Although the processes may be fundamentally the same everywhere, the very act of creation implies that we are not dealing with the artist alone as a creator but also with his reaction to the culture in which he lives and that of his fellows to the work he has created.

The economist who tries to unravel economic processes _must_ operate with the social group, not {15} with individuals. The same may be said of the study of social organization. It is possible to treat social organization from a purely formal point of view, to demonstrate by careful analysis the fundamental concepts underlying it. For the anthropologist this is the starting point for a consideration of the dynamic effects of such organization as manifested in the life of the individual and of the group.

The linguist may study the form of language, the “norm” of linguistic expression at a given time and the mechanical processes that give rise to phonetic changes; the psychological attitude expressed in language; and the conditions that bring about changes of meaning. The anthropologist is more deeply interested in the social aspect of the linguistic phenomenon, in language as a means of communication and in the interrelation between language and culture.

In short, when discussing the reactions of the individual to his fellows we are compelled to concentrate our attention upon the society in which he lives. In all these cases we cannot treat the individual as an isolated unit. He must be studied in his social setting, and the question is relevant whether generalizations are possible by which a functional relation between generalized social data and the forms and expression of individual life can be discovered; in other words, whether any {16} generally valid laws exist that govern the life of society.

A scientific inquiry of this type is concerned only with the interrelations between the observed phenomena, in the same way as physics and chemistry are interested in the forms of equilibrium and movement of matter, as they appear to our senses. The question of the usefulness of the knowledge gained is entirely irrelevant. The interest of the physicist and chemist centers in the development of a complete understanding of the intricacies of the outer world. A discovery has value only from the point of view of shedding new light upon the general problems of these sciences. The applicability of experience to technical problems does not concern the physicist. What may be of greatest value in our practical life does not need to be of any interest to him, and what is of no value in our daily occupations may be of fundamental value. The only valuation of discoveries that can be admitted by pure science is their significance in the solution of general abstract problems.

While this standpoint of pure science is applicable also to social phenomena, it is easily recognized that these concern our own selves much more immediately, for almost every anthropological problem touches our most intimate life.

The course of development of a group of children {17} depends upon their racial descent, the economic condition of their parents and their general well-being. A knowledge of the interaction of these factors may give us the power to control growth and to secure the best possible conditions of life for the group. All vital and social statistics are so intimately related to policies to be adopted or to be discarded that it is not quite easy to see that the interest in our problems, when considered from a purely scientific point of view, is not related to the practical values that we ascribe to the results.

It is the object of the following pages to discuss problems of modern life in the light of the results of anthropological studies carried on from a purely analytical point of view.

For this purpose it will be necessary to gain clarity in regard to two fundamental concepts: race and stability of culture. These will be discussed in their proper places.

Chapter II {18}

The Problem Of Race

In the present cultural conditions of mankind we observe, or observed at least until very recent time, a cleavage of cultural forms according to racial types. The contrast between European and East Asiatic civilizations was striking, until the Japanese began to introduce European patterns. Still greater appeared the contrasts between Europeans, native Australians, African Negroes and American Indians. It is, therefore, but natural that much thought has been given to the problem of the interrelation between race and culture. Even in Europe cultural differences between North Europeans and people of the Mediterranean, between West and East Europeans are striking and are correlated with differences in physical appearance. This explains why numberless books and essays have been and are being written based on the assumption that each race has its own mental character determining its cultural or social behavior. In America particularly, fears are being expressed of the effects of intermixture of races, of a modification or deterioration of national {19} character on account of the influx of new types into the population of our country, and policies of controlling the growth of the population are being proposed and laws based on these assumptions have been passed.

The differences of cultural outlook and of bodily appearance have given rise to antagonisms that are rationalized as due to instinctive racial antipathies.

There is little clarity in regard to the term “race.” When we speak of racial characteristics we mean those traits that are determined by heredity in each race and in which all members of the race participate. Comparing Swedes and Negroes, lack of pigmentation of skin, eye and hair are hereditary racial characteristics of the Swedes, deep pigmentation of the Negro. The straight or wavy hair of the Swede, the frizzly hair of the Negro, the narrowness and elevation of the nose among the Swedes, its width and flatness among the Negroes, all these are hereditary racial traits because practically all the Swedes and Negroes participate in them.

In other respects it is not so easy to define racial traits. Anatomists cannot with certainty differentiate between the brain of a Swede and of a Negro. The brains of each group vary so much in form that it is often difficult to say, if we have no other criteria, whether a certain brain belongs to a Swede or to a Negro. {20}

The nearer two races are related the more traits they will have in common. A knowledge of all the bodily traits of a particular individual from Denmark does not enable us to identify him as a Dane. If he is tall, blond, blue-eyed, long-headed and so on he might as well be a Swede. We also find individuals of the same bodily form in Germany, in France and we may even find them in Italy. Identification of an individual as a member of a definite, local race is not possible.

Whenever these conditions prevail, we cannot speak of racial heredity. In a strict sense racial heredity means that _all_ the members of the race partake of certain traits,--such as the hair, pigmentation and nose form of the Negro, as compared to the corresponding features among the North European. All those forms that are peculiar to some members of the race, not to all, are in no sense true hereditary racial characteristics. The greater the number of individuals exhibiting these traits the less is their racial significance. North Italians are round-headed, Scandinavians long-headed. Still, so many different forms are represented in either series, and other bodily forms are so much alike that it would be impossible to claim that an individual selected at random _must_ be a North Italian or a Scandinavian. Extreme forms in which the local characteristics are most pronounced might be identified with a fair degree of {21} probability, but intermediate forms might belong to either group. The bodily traits of the two groups are not racial characteristics in the strict sense of the term. Although it is possible to describe the most common types of these groups by certain metric and descriptive traits, not all the members of the groups conform to them.

We are easily misled by general impressions. Most of the Swedes are blond, blue-eyed, tall and long-headed. This causes us to formulate in our minds the ideal of a Swede and we forget the variations that occur in Scandinavia. If we talk of a Sicilian we think of a swarthy, short person, with dark eyes and dark hair. Individuals differing from this type are not in our mind when we think of a “typical” Sicilian. The more uniform a people the more strongly are we impressed by the “type.” Every country impresses us as inhabited by a certain type the traits of which are determined by the most frequently occurring forms. This, however, does not tell us anything in regard to its hereditary composition and the range of its variations. The “type” is formed quite subjectively on the basis of our everyday experience.

Suppose a Swede, from a region in which blondness, blue eyes, tall stature prevail in almost the whole population, should visit Scotland and express his experiences naïvely. He would say that there are many individuals of Swedish type, but {22} that besides this another type inhabits the country, of dark complexion, dark hair and eyes, but tall and long-headed. The population would seem to represent two types, not that biologically the proof would have been given of race mixture; it would merely be an expression due to earlier experiences. The unfamiliar type stands out as something new and the inclination prevails to consider the new type as racially distinct. Conversely, a Scotchman who visits Sweden would be struck by the similarity between most Swedes and the blond Scotch, and he would say that there is a very large number of the blond Scotch with whom he is familiar, without reaching the conclusion that his own type is mixed.

We speak of racial types in a similar way. When we see American Indians we recognize some as looking like Asiatics, others like East Europeans, still others are said to be of a Jewish cast. We classify the variety of forms according to our previous experiences and we are inclined to consider the divergent forms that are well established in our consciousness as pure types, particularly if they appear as extreme forms.

Thus the North European blond and the Armenian with his high nose and his remarkably high head, which is flat behind, appear as pure types.

Biologically speaking, this is an unjustifiable assumption. Extreme forms are not pure racial {23} types. We do not know how much their descendants may vary among themselves and what their ancestry may have been. Even if it were shown that the extreme types were of homogeneous descent, this would not prove that the intermediate types might not be equally homogeneous.

It is well to remember that heredity means the transmission of anatomical and functional characteristics from ancestors to offspring. What we call nowadays a race of man consists of groups of individuals in which descent from common ancestors cannot be proved.

All we know is that the children of a given family represent the hereditarily transmitted qualities of their ancestors. Such a group of brothers and sisters is called a fraternity.

Not all the members of a fraternity are alike. They scatter around a certain middle value. If the typical distribution of forms in all the groups of brothers and sisters that constitute the race were alike, then we could talk of racial heredity, for each fraternity would represent the racial characteristics. We cannot speak of racial heredity if the fraternities are different, so that the distribution of forms in one family is different from that found in another one. In this case the fraternities represent distinctive hereditary family lines. Actually in all the known races the single family lines as represented by fraternities show a considerable {24} amount of variation which indicates that the hereditary characteristics of the families are not the same, a result that may be expected whenever the ancestors have distinct heritable characteristics. In addition to this we may observe that a fraternity found in one race may be duplicated by another one in another race; in other words, that the hereditary characteristics found in one race may not belong to it exclusively, but may belong also to other races.

This may be illustrated by an extreme case. If I wish to know “the type” of the New Yorker, I may not pick out any one particular family and claim that it is a good representative of the type. I might happen to select a family of pure English descent; and I might happen to strike an Irish, Italian, Jewish, German, Armenian or Negro family. All these types are so different and, if inbred, continue their types so consistently that none of them can possibly be taken as a representative New Yorker. Conditions in France are similar. I cannot select at random a French family and consider its members as typical of France. They may be blond Northwest Europeans, darker Central Europeans or of Mediterranean type. In New York as well as in France the family lines are so diverse that there is no racial unity and no racial heredity.

Matters are different in old, inbred communities. {25} If a number of families have intermarried for centuries without appreciable addition of foreign blood they will all be closely related and the same ancestral traits will appear in all the families. Brothers and sisters in any one family may be quite unlike among themselves, but all the family lines will have considerable likeness. It is much more feasible to obtain an impression of the general character of the population by examining a single family than in the preceding cases, and a few families would give us a good picture of the whole race. Conditions of this type prevail among the landowners in small European villages. They are found in the high nobility of Europe and also among some isolated tribes. The Eskimos of North Greenland, for instance, have been isolated for centuries. Their number can never have exceeded a few hundred. There are no rigid rules proscribing marriages between relatives, so that we may expect that unions were largely dictated by chance. The ancestors of the tribe were presumably a small number of Eskimos who happened to settle there and whose blood flows in the veins of all the members of the present generation. The people all bear a considerable likeness, but unfortunately we do not know in how far the family lines are alike.

We have information of this kind from one of the isolated Tennessee valleys in which people have intermarried among themselves for a century. The {26} family lines in this community are very much alike.

In cases of this kind it does not matter whether the ancestry is homogeneous or belongs to quite distinct races. As long as there is continued inbreeding the family lines will become alike. The differences of racial descent will rather appear in the differences between brothers and sisters, some of whom will lean towards one of the ancestral strains, others to the other. The distribution of different racial forms in all the various families will be the more the same, the longer the inbreeding without selection continues. We have a few examples of this kind. The Bastaards of South Africa, largely an old mixture of Dutch and Hottentot, and the Chippewa of eastern Canada, descendants of French and Indians, are inbred communities. Accordingly, the family lines among them are quite similar, while the brothers and sisters in each family differ strongly among themselves.

In modern society, particularly in cities, conditions are not favorable to inbreeding. The larger the area inhabited by a people, the denser and the more mobile the population, the less are the families inbred and the more may we expect very diverse types of family lines.

The truth of this statement may readily be demonstrated. Notwithstanding the apparent homogeneity of the Swedish nation, there are many {27} different family lines represented. Many are “typical” blond Swedes, but in other families dark hair and brown eyes are hereditary. The range of hereditary forms is considerable.

It has been stated before that many individuals of Swedish types may be duplicated in neighboring countries. The same is true of family lines. It would not be difficult to find in Denmark, Germany, Holland or northern France families that might apparently just as well be Swedes; or in Sweden families that might as well be French or German.

In these cases hereditary characteristics are not “racially” determined, but belong to family lines that occur in many “racial” groups. Just as soon as family lines of the same form are found in a number of racial groups the term “racial heredity” loses its meaning. We can speak solely of “heredity in family lines.” The term “racial heredity” presupposes a homogeneity of lines of descent in each race, and a degree of difference of lines of descent in different races, that do not exist.

In short, if we wish to discuss racial traits we have to recognize that a great diversity of these occurs in every race and that they are inherited not racially, but in family lines. Characteristics of this type do not belong to the race as a whole.

Another important problem confronts us. We have seen that our concept of types is based on {28} subjective experience. On account of the preponderance of “typical” Swedes we are inclined to consider all those of different type as not belonging to the racial type, as foreign admixtures. There is a somewhat distinct type in Sweden in the old mining districts which were first worked by Walloons and it is more than probable that the greater darkness of complexion in this region is due to the influence of Walloon blood. We are very ready to explain every deviation from a type in this way. In many cases this is undoubtedly correct, for intermingling of distinct types of people has been going on for thousands of years; but we do not know to what extent a type may vary when no admixture of foreign blood has occurred. The experience of animal breeders proves that even with intensive inbreeding of pure stock there always remains a considerable amount of variation between individuals. We have no evidence to show to what extent variations of this kind might develop in a pure human race and it is not probable that satisfactory evidence will ever be forthcoming, because we have no pure races. The history of the whole world shows us mankind constantly on the move; people from eastern Asia coming to Europe; those of western and central Asia invading southern Asia; North Europeans sweeping over Mediterranean countries; Central Africans extending their territories over almost the {29} whole of South Africa; people from Alaska spreading to northern Mexico or vice versa; South Americans settling almost over the whole eastern part of the continent here and there,--in short, from earliest times on we have a picture of continued movements, and with it of mixtures of diverse people.

It may well be that the lack of clean-cut geographical and biological lines between the races of man is entirely due to these circumstances. The conditions are quite like those found in the animal world. Local races of remote districts may readily be recognized, but in many cases they are united by intermediate forms.

We have seen that on account of the lack of sharp distinctions between neighboring populations it happens that apparently identical family lines occur in both, and that an individual in one may resemble in bodily form an individual in another. Notwithstanding their resemblance it can be demonstrated that they are functionally not by any means equivalent, for when we compare their children they will be found to revert more or less to the type of the population to which the parents belong. To give an example: the Bohemians have, on the average, round heads, the Swedes long heads. Nevertheless it is possible to find among both populations parents that have the same head forms. The selected group among the {30} Swedes will naturally be more round-headed than the average Swede, and the selected Bohemians will be more long-headed than the average Bohemians. The children of the selected group of Swedes are found to be more long-headed than their parents, those of the selected group of Bohemians more short-headed than their parents.

The cause of this is not difficult to understand. If we pick out short-headed individuals among the Swedes, short-headedness may be an individual nonhereditary trait. Furthermore the general run of their relatives will be similar to the long-headed Swedish type and since the form of the offspring depends not only upon the parent, but also upon the characteristics of his whole family line, at least of his four grandparents, a reversion to the general population may be expected. The same is true among the Bohemians.

We must conclude that individuals of the same bodily appearance, if sprung from populations of distinct type, are functionally not the same. For this reason it is quite unjustifiable to select from a population a certain type and claim that it is identical with the corresponding type of another population. Each individual must be studied as a member of the group from which he has sprung. We may not assume that the round-headed or brunette individuals in Denmark are identical with the corresponding forms from Switzerland. Even {31} if no anatomical differences between two series of such individuals are discernible they represent genetically distinctive strains. Identity can occur in exceptional individuals only.

If we were to select a group of tall, blond Sicilians, men and women, who marry among themselves, we must expect that their offspring in later generations will revert more or less to the Sicilian type, and, conversely, if we select a group of brunette, brown-eyed Swedes, their offspring will revert more or less to the blond, blue-eyed Swedish type.

We have spoken so far only of the hereditary conditions of stable races. We imply by the term racial heredity that the composition of succeeding generations is identical. When one generation dies, the next one is assumed to represent the same type of population. This can be true only if random matings occur in each generation. If in the first generation there was a random selection of mates, due to chance only, the same condition must prevail in the following generations. Any preferential mating, any selective change in group mortality or fertility, or brought about by migration, must modify the genetic composition of the group.

For these reasons none of our modern populations is stable from a hereditary point of view. The heterogeneous family lines in a population {32} that has originated through migration will gradually become more homogeneous, if the descendants continue to reside in the same spot. In our cities and mixed farming communities, on account of changes in selective mating, constant changes in the hereditary composition are going on, even after immigration has ceased. Local inbreeding produces local types; avoidance of marriages between near relatives favors increasing likeness of all the family lines constituting the population; favored or proscribed cousin marriages which are customary among many tribes establish separate family types and increase in this sense the heterogeneity of the population.

Another question presents itself. We have considered only the hereditary stability of genetic lines. We must ask ourselves also whether environmental conditions exert an influence over races.

It is quite obvious that the forms of lower organisms are subject to environmental influences. Plants taken from low altitudes to high mountains develop short stems; leaves of semi-aquatic plants growing under water have a form differing from the subaërial leaves. Cultivated plants transform their stamens into petals. Plants may be dwarfed or stimulated in their growth by appropriate treatment. Each plant is so organized that it develops a certain form under given environmental conditions. Microörganisms differ so much in different {33} environmental settings that it is often difficult to establish their specific identity.

The question arises whether the same kind of variability occurs in higher organisms. The general impression is that their forms are determined by heredity, not by environment. The young of a greyhound is a greyhound, that of a shorthorn a shorthorn; that of a Norway rat a Norway rat. The child of a European is European in type, that of a Chinaman of Mongolic type, that of an African Negro a Negro.

Nevertheless detailed study shows that the form and size of the body are not entirely shaped by heredity. Records of the stature of European men that date back to the middle of the past century show that in almost all countries the average statures have increased by more than an inch. It is true, this is not a satisfactory proof of an actual change, because improvement in public health has changed the composition of the populations, and although it is not likely that this should be the cause of an increase in stature, it is conceivable. A better proof is found in the change of stature among descendants of Europeans who settle in America. In this case it has been shown that in many nationalities the children are taller than their own parents, presumably on account of more favorable conditions of life.

It has also been observed that the forms of the {34} body are influenced by occupation. The hand of a person who has to do heavy manual labor differs from that of a musician who develops the independence of all the muscles of his hand. The proportions and form of the limbs are influenced by habitual posture and use. The legs of the oriental who squats flat on the ground are somewhat modified by this habit.

Other modifications cannot be explained by better nutrition or by the use of the muscles. Forms of the head and face are not quite stable, but are in some way influenced by the environment in which the people live, so that after a migration into a new environment the child will not be quite like the parent.

All the observed changes are slight and do not modify the essential character of the hereditary forms. Still they are not negligible. We do not know how great the modifications may be that ultimately result from such changes, nor have we any evidence that the changes would persist if the people were taken back to their old environment. Although a Negro will never become a European, it is not impossible that some of the minor differences between European populations may be due to environment rather than to heredity.

So far we have discussed solely the anatomical forms of races with a view of gaining a clearer understanding of what we mean by the term race. {35} It may be well to repeat the principal result of our discussion.

We have found that the term “racial heredity” is strictly applicable only when all the individuals of a race participate in certain anatomical features. In each race taken as a whole the family lines differ considerably in their hereditary traits. The distribution of family lines is such that a considerable number of lines similar or even identical in one or many respects occur in contiguous territories. The vague impression of “types,” abstracted from our everyday experience, does not prove that these are biologically distinct races, and the inference that various populations are composed of individuals belonging to various races is subjectively intelligible, objectively unproved. It is particularly not admissible to identify types apparently identical that occur in populations of different composition. Each individual can be understood only as a member of his group.

These considerations seem necessary, because they clear up the vagueness of the term “race” as usually applied. When we speak of heredity we are ordinarily concerned with family lines, not with races. The hereditary qualities of families constituting the most homogeneous population differ very much among themselves and there is very little, if anything, that these family lines have in common and they are not sharply set off from {36} neighboring populations that may give a quite distinctive impression.

The relation of racial types may be looked at in another way. It may be granted that in closely related types the identification of an individual as a member of each type cannot be made with any degree of certainty. Nevertheless the distribution of individuals and of family lines in the various races differs. When we select among the Europeans a group with large brains, their frequency will be relatively high, while among the Negroes the frequency of occurrence of the corresponding group will be low. If, for instance, there are 50 per cent of an European population who have a brain weight of more than, let us say, 1500 grams, there may be only 20 per cent of Negroes of the same class. Therefore 30 per cent of the large-brained Europeans cannot be matched by any corresponding group of Negroes.

It is justifiable to compare races from this point of view, as long as we avoid an application of our results to individuals.

On general biological grounds it is important to know whether any one of the human races is, in regard to form or function, further removed from the ancestral animal form than another, whether the races can be arranged in an ascending series. Although we do not know the ancestral form with any degree of certainty, some of its characteristics {37} can be inferred by a comparison of the anatomical forms of man and of the apes. Single traits can be brought into ascending series in which the racial forms differ more and more from animal forms, but the arrangement is a different one for each independent trait.

The ancestral form had a flat nose. Bushmen, Negroes and Australians have flat, broad noses. Mongoloids, Europeans and particularly Armenians have narrow, prominent noses. They are in this sense farthest removed from the animal forms.

Apes have narrow lips. The lips of the Whites are thin, those of many Mongoloid types are fuller. The Negroes have the thickest, most excessively “human” lips.

The hair coat of apes is moderately strong. Among human races the Australians, Europeans and a few scattered tribes among other races have the amplest body hair; Mongols have the least.

Similar remarks may be made in regard to the forms of the foot, of the spinal column, of the proportions of the limbs. The order of the degree to which human races differ from animals is not the same in regard to these traits.

Particular stress has been laid on the size of the brain, which also differs in various races. Setting aside the pygmy Bushmen and other very small races, the negroid races have smaller brains than the Mongoloids, and these in general smaller ones {38} than the Europeans, although some Mongoloid types, like the Eskimo, exceed in size of the brain many European groups.

The brain in each race is very variable in size and the “overlapping” of individuals in the races is marked. It is not possible to identify an individual as a Negro or White according to the size and form of the brain, but serially the Negro brain is less extremely human than that of the White.

We are apt to identify the size of the brain with its functioning. This is true to a limited extent only. Among the higher mammals the proportionate size of the brain is larger in animals that have greater intelligence; but size alone is not an adequate criterion. Complexity of structure is much more important than mere size. Some birds have brains much larger proportionately than those of the higher mammals without evidencing superior intelligence.

The size of the brain is measured by its weight which does not depend upon the nerve cells and fibers alone, but includes a large amount of material that is not directly relevant for the functioning of the central nervous system.

Superior intelligence in man is in a way related to size of the brain. Microcephalic individuals whose brains remain considerably under normal size are mentally defective, but an individual {39} with an exceptionally large brain is not necessarily a genius. There are many causes that affect the size of the brain. The larger the body, the larger the brain. Therefore well-nourished people who have a larger bulk of body than those poorly nourished have larger brains, not because their brains are structurally more highly developed, but because the larger bulk is a characteristic feature of the entire bodily form. Eminent people belong generally to the better nourished class and the cause of the greater brain is, therefore, uncertain. The variation in the size of the brain of eminent men is also very considerable, some falling way beneath the norm.

The real problem to be solved is the relation between the structure of the brain and its function. The correlation between gross structure in the races of man and function is so slight that no safe inferences may be drawn on the basis of the slight differences between races which are of such character that up to this time the racial identification of a brain is impossible, except in so far as elongated and rounded heads, high and low heads and similar gross forms may be distinguished which do not seem to have any relation to minute structure or function. At least it has never been proved to exist and it does not seem likely that there is any kind of intimate relation.

The differences between races are so small that {40} they lie within the narrow range in the limits of which all forms may function equally well. We cannot say that the ratio of inadequate brains and nervous systems, that function noticeably worse than the norm, is the same in every race, nor that those of rare excellence are equally frequent. It is not improbable that such differences may exist in the same way as we find different ranges of adjustability in other organs.

Without further proof the serial arrangement in brain size cannot be identified with a higher racial intelligence.

If the anatomical structure of the brain is a doubtful indication of mental excellence, this is still more the case with differences in other parts of the body. So far as we can judge the form of the foot and the slight development of the calves of the Negro; the prominence of his teeth and the size of his lips; the heaviness of the face of the Mongol; or the difference in degree of pigmentation of the races have no relation to mentality. At least every attempt to prove such relation has failed.

In any attempt to place the human races in an evolutionary series we must also remember that modern races are not wild but domesticated forms. In regard to nutrition and artificial protection the mode of life of man is like that of domesticated animals. The artificial modification of food by {41} the use of fire and the invention of tools were the steps that brought about the self-domestication of man. Both belong to a very early period, to a time before the last extensive glaciation of Europe. Man must be considered the oldest domesticated form. The most characteristic features of human races bear evidence of this. The loss of pigmentation in the blond, blue-eyed races; the blackness of the hair of the Negro are traits that do not occur in any wild mammal form. Exceptions are the blackness of the hair coat of the black panther, of the black bear and of the subterranean mole. The frizzliness of the Negro hair and the curliness of the hair of other races, the long hair of the head do not occur in wild mammals. The permanence rather than periodicity of the sexual functions and of the female breast; the anomalies of sexual behavior are also characteristics of domesticated animals. The kind of domestication of man is like that of the animals raised by primitive tribes that do not breed certain strains by selection. Nevertheless, forms differing from the wild forms develop in their herds.

Some of the traits of man that might be considered as indicating a lower evolutionary stage may as well be due to domestication. Reduction or unusual lengthening of the face occur. The excessive reduction of the face in some White types and the elongation of the mouth parts of the {42} Negro may be due to this cause. It may be a secondary development from an intermediate form. The brain of domesticated forms is generally smaller than that of wild forms. In exceptional cases it may be larger. Pygmy forms and giants develop in domestication. In short, the “primitive traits” of races are not necessarily indications of an early arrest. They may be later acquisitions stabilized in domestication.

All this, however, has little to do with the biologically determined mentality of races, which is often assumed to be the basis of social behavior. Mental behavior is closely related to the physiological functioning of the body and the problem may be formulated as an investigation of the functioning of the body, in the widest sense of the term “functioning.”

We have seen that the description of the anatomical traits of a race in general terms involves a faulty generalization based on the impression made by the majority of individuals. This is no less true in regard to the functions, and particularly the mental functions, of a population. Our characterization of the mentality of a people is merely a conceptionalization of those traits that are found in a large number of individuals and that are, for this reason, impressive. In another population other traits impress themselves upon the mind and are conceptionalized. This does not {43} prove that, if in a third population both types are found, it is mixed in its functional behavior. The objective value of generalizations of this type is not self-evident, because they are merely the result of the subjective construction of types, the wide variability of which is disregarded.

Actually the functions exhibited by a whole race can be defined as hereditary even less than its anatomical traits, because individually and in family lines the variations are so great that not all the members of the race react alike.

When the body has completed its growth its features remain the same for a considerable length of time,--until the changes due to old age set in. It does not matter at what time we examine the body, the results will always be nearly the same. Fluctuations of weight, of the amount of fat, of muscle do occur, but these are comparatively slight, and under normal conditions of health, nutrition and exercise insignificant until senility sets in.

It is different with the functions of the body. The heart beat depends upon transient conditions. In sleep it is slow; in waking, during meals, during exercise more rapid. The range of the number of heart beats for the individual is very wide. The condition of our digestive tract depends upon the amount and kind of food present; our eyes act differently in intense light and in darkness. The {44} variation in the functions of an individual is considerable. Furthermore, the individuals constituting a population do not all function in the same way. Variability, which in regard to anatomical traits has only one source, namely, the differences between individuals, has in physiological functions an added source, the different behavior of the individual at different times. It is, therefore, not surprising that functionally the individuals composing a population exhibit a considerable variability.

The average values expressing the functioning of various races living under the same conditions are not the same, but the differences are not great as compared to the variations that occur in each racial group. Investigations of the functioning of the same sense organs of various races, such as Whites, Indians, Filipinos and people of New Guinea, indicate that their sensitiveness is very much the same. The popular belief in an unusual keenness of eyesight or hearing of primitive people is not corroborated by careful observations. The impression is due to the training of their power of observation which is directed to phenomena with which we are not familiar. Differences have been found in the basal metabolism of Mongols and Whites and there are probably differences in the functioning of the digestive tract and of the skin between Whites and Negroes. Much remains to {45} be done in the study of physiological functions of different races before we can determine the quantitative differences between them.

The variability of many functions is well known. We referred before to the heart beat. Let us imagine an individual who lives in New York and leads a sedentary life without bodily exercise. Transport this person to the high plateaus of the Bolivian Andes where he has to do physical work. He will find difficulties for a while, but, if he is healthy, he will finally become adjusted to the new conditions. His normal heart beat, however, will have changed. His lungs also will act differently in the rarefied air. It is the same individual who in the new environment will exhibit a quantitatively different functioning of the body.

We pointed out before that environmental conditions cause in general but slight modifications of anatomical form. Their effect upon most functions of the body is intense, as is the case in lower organisms which are in bodily form subject to important modifications brought about by the environment. The functions of the organs are adjustable to different requirements. Every organ has--to use Dr. Meltzer’s term--a margin of safety. Within limits it can function normally according to environmental requirements. Even a partly disabled organ can be sufficient for the needs {46} of the body. Inadequacy develops only when these limits are exceeded. There are certain conditions that are most favorable, but the loss of adequacy is very slight when the conditions change within the margins of safety.

In most cases of the kind here referred to the environmental influence acts upon different individuals in the same direction. If we bring two organically different individuals into the same environment they may, therefore, become alike in their functional responses and we may gain the impression of a functional likeness of distinct anatomical forms that is due to environment, not to their internal structure. Only in those cases in which the environment acts with different intensity or perhaps even in different directions upon the organism may we expect increased unlikeness under the same environmental conditions. When, for instance, for one individual the margin of safety is so narrow that the environmental conditions are excessive, for another one so wide that adequate adjustment is possible, the former will become sick, while the other will remain healthy.

What is true of the physiological functioning of the body is still more true of mental reactions. A simple example may illustrate this. When we are asked to react to a stimulus, for instance by tapping in response to a signal given by a bell, we {47} can establish a certain basal or minimum time interval between signal and tapping which is found when we are rested and concentrate our attention upon the signal. As soon as we are tired and when our attention is distracted the time increases. We may even become so much absorbed in other matters that the signal will go unnoticed. Environmental conditions determine the reaction time. The basal time for two individuals may differ quite considerably, still under varying environmental conditions they will react in the same way. If the conditions of life compel the one to concentrate his attention while the other has never been required to do so, they may react in the same way, although structurally they represent different types.

In more complex mental and social phenomena this adjustment of different types to a common standard is of frequent occurrence. The pronunciation of individuals in a small community is so uniform that an expert ear can identify the home of a person by his articulation. Anatomically the forms of the mouth, inner nose and larynx of all the individuals participating in this pronunciation vary considerably. The mouth may be large or small, the tongue thin or thick, the palate arched or flat. There are differences in the pitch of the voice and in timbre. Still the dialect will be the same for all. The articulation does not depend to {48} any considerable extent upon the form of the mouth, but upon its use.

In all our everyday habits imitation of habits of the society to which we belong exerts its influence over the functioning of our minds and bodies and a degree of uniformity of thought and action is brought about among individuals who differ considerably in structure.

It would not be justifiable to claim that bodily form has no relation whatever to physiological or mental functioning. I do not believe that Watson is right when he claims that the whole mental activities of man are due to his individual experiences and that what is called character or ability is due to outer conditions, not to organic structure. It seems to me that this goes counter to the observation of mental activities in the animal world as well as among men. The mental activities of a family of idiots will not, even under the most favorable conditions, equal those of a highly intelligent family, and what is true in this extreme case must be true also when the differences are less pronounced. Although it is never possible to eliminate environmental influences that bring about similarity or dissimilarity, it seems unreasonable to assume that in the mental domain organically determined sameness of all individuals should exist while in all other traits we do find differences; but we must admit that the organic {49} differences are liable to be overlaid and overshadowed by environmental influences.

Under these conditions it is well-nigh impossible to determine with certainty the hereditary traits in mental behavior. In a well-integrated society we find people of most diverse descent who all react so much in the same way that it is impossible to tell from their reactions alone to what race they belong. Individual differences and those belonging to family lines occur in such a society, but among healthy individuals these are so slightly correlated to bodily form that an identification of an individual on the basis of his functions as belonging to a family or race of definite hereditary functional qualities is also impossible.

In this case, even more than in that of anatomical form, the range of variation of hereditary lines constituting a “race” is so wide that the same types of lines may be found in different races. While so far as anatomical form is concerned Negroes and Whites have racially hereditary traits, this is not true of function. The mental life of each of the individuals constituting these races is so varied that from its expression alone an individual cannot be assigned to the one or the other. It is true that in regard to a few races, like the Bushmen of South Africa, we have no evidence in regard to this point, and we may suspend judgment, although {50} I do not anticipate that any fundamental differences will be found.

So far as our experience goes we may safely say that in any given race the differences between family lines are much greater than the differences between races. It may happen that members of one family line, extreme in form and function, are quite different from those of a family line of the opposite extreme, although both belong to the same race; while it may be very difficult to find individuals or family lines in one racial type that may not be duplicated in a neighboring type.

The assumption of fundamental, hereditary mental characteristics of races is often based on an analogy with the mental traits of races of domesticated animals. Certainly the mentality of the poodle dog is quite different from that of the bulldog, or that of a race horse from that of a dray horse.

This analogy is not well founded, because the races of domesticated animals are comparable to family lines, not to human races. They are developed by carefully controlled inbreeding. Their family lines are uniform, those of man diverse. They are parallel to the family lines that occur in all human races, which, however, do not become stabilized on account of the lack of rigid inbreeding. In this respect human races must be compared {51} to wild animals, not to selected, domesticated breeds.

All these considerations are apparently contradicted by the results of so-called intelligence tests which are intended to determine innate intellectuality. Actually these tests show considerable differences not only between individuals but also between racial and social groups. The test is an expression of mental function. Like other functions the responses to mental tests show overlapping of individuals belonging to different groups and ordinarily it is not possible to assign an individual to his proper group according to his response.

The test itself shows only that a task set to a person can be performed by him more or less satisfactorily. That the result is solely or primarily a result of organically determined intelligence is an assumption that has to be proved. Defective individuals cannot perform certain acts required in the tests. Within narrower limits of performance we must ask in how far the structure of the organism, in how far outer, environmental conditions may determine the result of the test. Since all functions are strongly influenced by environment it is likely that here also environmental influences may prevail and obscure the structurally determined part of the reaction.

Let us illustrate this by an example. One of the {52} simplest tests consists in the task of fitting blocks of various forms into holes of corresponding forms. There are primitive people who devote much time to decorative work in which fitting of forms plays an important part. It may be appliqué work, mosaic, or stencil work. Others have no experience whatever in the use of forms. We have no observations on these people, but it seems more than likely that those who are accustomed to handling varied forms and to recognize them, will respond to the test with much greater ease than those who have no such experience.

Dr. Klineberg has investigated the reactions to simple tests of various races living under very different conditions. He found that all races investigated by him respond under city conditions quickly and inaccurately, that the same races in remote country districts react slowly and more accurately. The hurry and pressure for efficiency of city life result in a different attitude that has nothing to do with innate intelligence, but is an effect of a cultural condition.

An experiment made in Germany, but based on entirely different sets of tests, has had a similar result. Children belonging to different types of schools were tested. The social groups attending elementary schools and higher schools of various types differ in their cultural attitudes. It is unlikely that they belong by descent to different {53} racial groups. On the contrary, the population as a whole is uniform. The responses in various schools were quite different. There is no particular reason why we should assume a difference in organic structure between the groups and it seems more likely that we are dealing with the effects of cultural differentiation.

In all tests based on language the effect of the linguistic experience of the subject plays an important part. Our whole sense experience is classified according to linguistic principles and our thought is deeply influenced by the classification of our experience. Often the scope of a concept expressed by a word determines the current of our thought and the categories which the grammatical form of the language compels us to express keep certain types of modality or connection before our minds. When language compels me to differentiate sharply between elder and younger brother, between father’s brother and mother’s brother, directions of thought that our vaguer terms permit will be excluded. When the terms for son and brother’s son are not distinguished the flow of thought may run in currents unexpected to us who differentiate clearly between these terms. When a language states clearly in every case the forms of objects, as round, long or flat; or the instrumentality with which an action is done, as with the hand, with a knife, with a point; or the source of {54} knowledge of a statement, as observed, known by evidence or by hearsay, these forms may establish lines of association. Comparison of reactions of individuals that speak fundamentally distinct languages may, therefore, express the influence of language upon the current of thought, not any innate difference in the form of thought.

All these considerations cause us to doubt whether it is possible to differentiate between environmental and organic determination of responses, as soon as the environment of two individuals is different.

It is exceedingly difficult to secure an identical environment even in our own culture. Every home, every street, every family group and school has its own character which is difficult to evaluate. In large masses of individuals we may assume a somewhat equal environmental setting for a group in similar economic and social position, and it is justifiable to assume in this case that the variability of environmental influence is much restricted and that organically determined differences between individuals appear more clearly.

Just as soon as we compare different social groups the relative uniformity of social background disappears and, if we are dealing with populations of the same descent, there is a strong probability that differences in the type of responses are primarily due to the effect of environment {55} rather than to organic differences between the groups.

The responses to tests may be based on recognition of sensory impressions, on motor experience, such as the results of complex movements; or on the use of acquired knowledge. All of these contain experience. A city boy who has been brought up by reading, familiar with the conveniences of city life, accustomed to the rush of traffic and the watchfulness demanded on the streets has a general setting entirely different from that of a boy brought up on a lonely farm, who has had no contact with the machinery of modern city life. His sense experience, motor habits and the currents of his thoughts differ from those of the city boy.

Certainly in none of the tests that have ever been applied is individual experience eliminated and I doubt that it can be done.

We must remember how we acquire the manner of acting and thinking. From our earliest days we imitate the behavior of our environment and our behavior in later years is determined by what we learn as infants and children. The responses to any stimulus depend upon these early habits. Individually it may be influenced by organic, hereditary conditions. In the large mass of a population these vary. In a homogeneous social group the experience gained in childhood is fairly uniform, {56} so that its influence will be more marked than that of organic structure.

The dilemma of the investigator appears clearly in the results of mental tests taken on Negroes of Louisiana and Chicago. During the World War the enlisted men belonging to the two groups were tested and showed quite distinct responses. There is no very great difference in the pigmentation of the two groups. Both are largely mulattoes. The Northern Negroes passed the tests much more successfully than those from the South. Chicago Negroes are accustomed to city surroundings. They work with Whites and are accustomed to a certain degree of equality, owing to similarity of occupation and constant contact. All these are lacking among the Louisiana rural Negroes. It is gratuitous to claim that a more energetic and intelligent group of Negroes has migrated to the city and that the weak and unintelligent stay behind, and to disregard the effect of social environment. We know that the environment is distinct and that human behavior is strikingly modified by it. We do not know that selection plays an important part in the migration of the Southern Negro to Northern cities. It is quite arbitrary to ascribe the difference in mental behavior solely to the latter, doubtful cause and to disregard the former entirely. Those who claim that there is an {57} organic difference must prove it by showing the differences between the two groups before their migration.

Even if it were true that selection accounts for the differences in the responses to tests among these two groups, it would not have any bearing upon the problem of racial characteristics, for we should have here merely a selection of better endowed individuals or family lines, all belonging to the same race, a condition similar to the often quoted, but never proved, result of the emigration from New England to the West. The question would still remain, whether there is any difference in racial composition in the two groups. So far as we know the amount of Negro and White blood in the two groups is about the same.

Other tests intended to investigate differences between the mental reactions of Negroes, Mulattoes and Whites due to the racial composition of the groups are not convincing, because due caution has not been taken to insure an equal social background. The study of mental achievement of a socially uniform group undertaken by Dr. Herskovits does not show any relation between the intensity of negroid features and mental attainment. Up to this time none of the mental tests gives us any insight into significant racial differences that might not be adequately explained by the effect of social experience. Even Dr. Woodworth’s observation {58} on the Filipino pygmies are not convincing, because the cultural background of the groups tested is unknown.

A critical examination of all studies of this type in which differences between racial groups in regard to mental reactions are demonstrated, leaves us in doubt whether the determining factor is cultural experience or racial descent. We must emphasize again that differences between selected groups of the same descent, such as between poor orphan children, often of defective parentage, and of normal children; and those between unselected groups of individuals representing various races are phenomena quite distinct in character. In the former case the results of tests may express differences in family lines. Similar peculiarities might be found, although with much greater difficulty, when comparing small inbred communities, for inbred communities are liable to differ in social behavior. For large racial groups acceptable proof of marked mental differences due to organic, not social, causes has never been given.

Students of ethnology have always been so much impressed by the general similarity of fundamental traits of human culture that they have never found it necessary to take into account the racial descent of a people when discussing its culture. This is true of all schools of modern ethnology. Edward B. Tylor and Herbert Spencer in their studies of {59} the evolution of culture, Adolf Bastian in his insistence on the sameness of the fundamental forms of thought among all races, Friedrich Ratzel, who followed the historical dissemination of cultural forms,--they all have carried on their work without any regard to race. The general experience of ethnology indicates that whatever differences there may be between the great races are insignificant when considered in their effect upon cultural life.

It does not matter from which point of view we consider culture, its forms are not dependent upon race. In economic life and in regard to the extent of their inventions the Eskimos, the Bushmen and the Australians may well be compared. The position of the Magdalenian race, which lived at the end of the ice age, is quite similar to that of the Eskimo. On the other hand, the complexities of inventions and of economic life of the Negroes of the Sudan, of the ancient Pueblos, of our early European ancestors who used stone tools, and of the early Chinese are comparable.

In the study of material culture we are constantly compelled to compare similar inventions used by people of the most diverse descent. Devices for throwing spears from Australia and America; armor from the Pacific Islands and America; games of Africa and Asia; blowguns of Malaysia {60} and South America; decorative designs from almost every continent; musical instruments from Asia, the Pacific islands and America; head rests from Africa and Melanesia; the beginning of the art of writing in America and in the Old World; the use of the zero in America, Asia and Europe; the use of bronze, of methods of firemaking, from all parts of the world cannot be studied on the basis of their distribution by races, but only by their geographical and historical distribution, or as independent achievements, without any reference to the bodily forms of the races using these inventions.

Other aspects of cultural life are perhaps still more impressive, because they characterize the general cultural life more deeply than inventions: the use of standards of value in Africa, America, Asia, Europe and on the islands of the Pacific Ocean; analogous types of family organization, such as small families, or extended sibs with maternal or paternal succession; totemic ideas; avoidance of close relatives; the exclusion of women from sacred ceremonials; the formation of age societies; all these are found in fundamentally similar forms among all races. In their study we are compelled to disregard the racial position of the people we study, for similarities and dissimilarities have no relation whatever to racial types.

It does not matter how the similar traits in {61} diverse races may have originated, by diffusion or independent origin. They convince us of the independence of race and culture because their distribution does not follow racial lines.

Chapter III {62}

The Interrelation Of Races

We have seen that from a purely biological point of view the concept of race unity breaks down. The multitude of genealogical lines, the diversity of individual and family types contained in each race is so great that no race can be considered as a unit. Furthermore, similarities between neighboring races and, in regard to function, even between distant races are so great that individuals cannot be assigned with certainty to one group or another.

Nevertheless, race consciousness exists and we have to investigate its source. It is customary to speak of an instinctive race consciousness. Even Romain Rolland says of it, “Ce vieux levain d’antipathie instinctive, qui couve au fond des cœurs de tous les hommes du Nord pour les hommes du Midi.”

The feeling between Whites and Negroes in our country is decidedly of this character. There is an immediate feeling of contrast that is expressed {63} in the popular conviction of the superiority of the White race. Very generally the feeling extends even to cases in which the Negro admixture is very slight and in which there is no certainty of the racial position of the individual. Proof of this are the numerous divorce suits based on alleged Negro descent. In this case the popular belief in the possible reversion of the offspring to a pure Negro type may be a determinant. This consideration does not enter in law suits instituted to set aside adoption of children on account of their racial descent; or in the difficulties experienced by child-placing agencies which endeavor to find homes for children of suspected Negro descent,--no matter how little this may be expressed in their outer appearance.

It is necessary to make clear to ourselves what we mean when we speak of instinctive race consciousness.

We have to inquire whether race consciousness and race antipathies are truly instinctive or whether they are established by habits developed in childhood.

The fundamental characteristic of race consciousness and race antipathy is the feeling that we belong to a definite racial group. The results which we have reached in regard to the lack of clarity of the concept of race induces us to inquire whether these feelings are universal and whether {64} other types of groups develop analogous feelings of contrast.

Race consciousness differs considerably in intensity. In the United States, taken as a whole, the feeling of aloofness between White and Negro is strongest. On the Pacific coast it is locally almost equalled by the feeling of the Whites against Asiatics. I have been told by those familiar with conditions in Humboldt County, California, that the White settlers will readily eat with Negroes, but not with Indians. In general, feeling of aversion to the Indian is rather slight. There is even a marked tendency of individuals with admixture of Indian blood to be proud of their ancestry.

Race feeling between Whites, Negroes, and Indians in Brazil seems to be quite different from what it is among ourselves. On the coast there is a large Negro population. The admixture of Indian is also quite marked. The discrimination between these three races is very much less than it is among ourselves, and the social obstacles for race mixture or for social advancement are not marked. Similar conditions prevail on the island of Santo Domingo between Spaniards and Negroes. Perhaps it would be too much to claim that in these cases race consciousness is nonexistent; it is certainly much less pronounced than among ourselves. {65}

If it is true that race antipathy among different groups of mankind takes distinctive forms and expresses itself with varying intensity, we may doubt whether we are dealing with an instinctive phenomenon.

It will be found advantageous to investigate similar phenomena in the animal world. We know the peculiar antipathies between certain animals, such as dog and cat, horse and camel. These are organically determined, although they may be individually overcome. They might be considered analogous to the feeling between races if we had the same instinctive hostility or fear between individuals of different human races; but this has never been observed. On the contrary, under favorable conditions the reaction seems to be one of friendly curiosity.

Conditions analogous to those found in racial groups occur in animal societies. Gregarious animals live either in open or in closed societies. Open societies are those in which any outside individual may join a herd. They are found among mammals and birds, but particularly among fishes, insects, and other lower animals. A swarm of mosquitoes, a shoal of fish keep together but do not exclude newcomers of the same species, sometimes even of other species. Herds of ruminants are often organized under leaders but may not exclude newcomers. The behavior of animals {66} that occupy a definite area as their feeding ground is quite different. They treat every newcomer as an enemy and while he may succeed in gaining admission after a number of combats, the first endeavor of the herd is to drive away or to kill the intruder. Many herds of monkeys are said to behave in this way. Penguins on their breeding places will drive away stray visitors, while admitting their neighbors. The best known example is that of the Pariah dogs of Oriental towns. The dogs of one street will not admit one from another street and the stranger is killed by them if he does not beat a hasty retreat. The most perfect forms of closed societies are found in the insect states. Ants of the same hill recognize one another by the scent of the hill and attack every strange ant. Even insects of another species, if only they participate in the scent of the particular hill, are welcomed. Sameness of species does not decide the attitude towards the individual. Participation in the most characteristic trait of the individual hill is the feature by which membership in the group is determined.

The groups do not need to be related by descent. They may be thrown together by accident. Nevertheless, according to the habits of the species, they will form a closed society.

In primitive human society every tribe forms a {67} closed society. It behaves like the Oriental Pariah dogs.

In the early days of mankind our earth was thinly settled. Small groups of human beings were scattered here and there; the members of each horde were one in speech, one in customs, one in superstitious beliefs. In their habitat they roamed from place to place, following the game that furnished their subsistence, or digging roots and picking the fruits of trees and bushes to allay the pangs of hunger. They were held together by the strong bands of habit. The gain of one member of the horde was the gain of the whole group, the loss and harm done to one was loss and harm to the whole community. No one had fundamental interests at stake that were not also the interests of his fellows.

Beyond the limits of the hunting grounds lived other groups, different in speech, different in customs, perhaps even different in appearance, whose very existence was a source of danger. They preyed upon the game, they threatened inroads upon the harvest of roots and fruits. They acted in a different manner; their reasoning and feeling were unintelligible; they had no part in the interests of the horde. Thus they stood opposed to it as beings of another kind, with whom there could be no community of interest. To harm them, if {68} possible to annihilate them, was a self-evident act of self-preservation.

Thus the most primitive form of society presents to us the picture of continuous strife. The hand of each member of one horde was raised against each member of all other hordes. Always on the alert to protect himself and his kindred, man considered it an act of high merit to kill the stranger.

The tendency to form closed societies is not by any means confined to primitive tribes. It exists to a marked extent in our own civilization. Until quite recent times, and in many cases even now, the old nobility formed a closed society. The Patricians and Plebeians, Greeks and Barbarians, the gangs of our streets, Mohametans and Infidels,--and our own modern nations are in this sense closed societies that cannot exist without antagonisms.

The principles that hold societies together vary enormously, but common to all of them is the feeling of antagonism against other parallel groups.

The racial grouping differs in one respect from the societies here enumerated. While the position of an individual as a member of one of the socially determined groups is not evident, it is apparent when the grouping is made according to bodily appearance. If the belief should prevail, as it {69} once did, that all red-haired individuals have an undesirable character, they would at once be socially segregated and no red-haired person could escape from his class. The Negro who may at once be recognized by his bodily build is automatically placed in his class and not one of them can escape from the effect of being excluded from a closed group.

When individuals are to be herded together in a closed group the dominant group may proscribe for them a distinguishing symbol,--like the garb of the Medieval Jews or the stripes of the convict,--so that each individual who may otherwise have no distinguishing characteristic, may at once be assigned to his group and treated accordingly.

The assignment to a closed group may also be effected by a classifying name, like the term Dago for Italians which is intended to evoke the thought of all the supposed characteristics that are without reflection ascribed to all the members of the nation. Perhaps one of the most striking illustrations of this tendency in the present life of the United States is the assignment of anyone with a Jewish name to an undesirable group whose members are, according to the fancy of the owner, not allowed to dwell in certain buildings, not admitted in hotels or clubs and are in other ways discriminated against by the unthinking, who can see {70} in the individual solely the representative of a class.

We have seen that from a biological point of view there is no reason for drawing a clean-cut line between races, because the lines of descent in each are physiologically and psychologically diverse, and because functionally similar lines occur in all races.

The formation of the racial groups in our midst must be understood on a social basis. In a community comprising two distinct types which are socially clearly separated, the social grouping is reënforced by the outer appearance of the individuals and each is at once and automatically assigned to his own group. In other communities,--as among Mohametans or in Brazil,--where the social and racial groupings do not coincide, the result is different. The socially coherent groups are racially not uniform. Hence the assignment of an individual to a racial group does not develop as easily, the less so the more equal the groups in their social composition.

If an instinctive race antipathy existed it would find expression in sexual aversion. The free intermingling of slave owners with their female slaves and the resulting striking decrease in the number of full-blood Negroes is ample proof of the absence of any sexual antipathy. The rarity of the reverse intermixture, that of male Negroes and {71} female Whites, can be fully understood on the basis of social conditions. In view of the behavior of the male White and of the forms of mixture in other societies it does not seem likely that it is reducible to sexual antipathy. The white master sought his colored mates who had little power to resist him. The colored slave was in an entirely different position towards his mistress and to other white women.

The intermingling of Indian and White throws an interesting light upon this subject. Owing to other reasons the early intermingling between the two races was also between White males and Indian females. It was caused not by the relation of master and slave woman but by the absence of white women. The general development has been such that Mestizo women--that is, those of Indian-White descent--are liable to marry Whites. Their descendants gradually pass out of the Indian population unless economic privileges, such as the right to hold valuable lands belonging to the Indians, serve as an attraction to the Indian community. The men, on the other hand, are more liable to marry Indian or Mestizo women and remain in the tribe. The male descendants of Mestizo women who no longer belong to a segregated group marry freely among the Whites, while the male descendants of Mestizo men are ordinarily not in the same position. {72}

There is no doubt that the strangeness of a foreign racial type plays an important rôle in these relations. The ideal of beauty of a person who is growing up in an exclusively White society is different from that of a Negro who lives in a Negro society and the sharper the social division between the groups, the later in life intimate social contacts occur, the greater also may be the separation created by the differences of ideals of form.

Here again the question arises whether these influences would act in the same way if the groups were socially not separated. We can find an answer to this question solely by a consideration of conditions in countries in which there is no pronounced race feeling. It would seem that there the attractiveness of forms has a much wider range, and is not determined by pigmentation and other racial traits alone. Aversion is not expressed on racial lines but on the ground of the repulsiveness of other features. Preferences and aversions differ individually.

Unfortunately these conditions cannot be proven by actual numerical observations that would be convincing. All we can give are the results of general observations. These are, however, so striking that their validity seems well established.

Since the abolition of slavery the intermingling of Negroes and Whites has taken a curious course. {73} Legitimate and illegitimate mating between Whites and Negroes has undoubtedly decreased and we find essentially marriages among Negroes and Mulattoes. Dr. Melville J. Herskovits has collected statistics on this subject. He found that, on the average, dark individuals will marry those of dark, though slightly lighter complexion, light ones those of light, though slightly darker complexion. This indicates that there is a decided preference in the mating of those of similar color,--an expression of the transfer of our own race feeling to the colored people who live among us and participate in our culture. But, furthermore, the darker man marries on the average a lighter woman. Since there is no difference in the pigmentation of the two sexes this indicates a preference on the part of the men,--another manifestation of the adoption of our valuations by the Negroes.

The effect of this selective process, if it continues for many generations, will be the passing of many of the lightest men out of the Negro community. Either they die as bachelors or they are merged in the general population. For the remainder it must inevitably lead to a darkening of the whole colored population, for the daughters of each generation, whose fathers are dark and whose mothers are light, will be darker than their {74} mothers. When they again become mothers, their children will be still darker, provided the same conditions continue. Thus there will come to be a constantly increasing intensity of Negro characteristics and a sharper contrast between the two principal races of the country.

During the time of slavery the condition was the reverse. On account of the numerous unions between White fathers and Negro mothers the new generation was lighter than their mothers. A constant lightening of the Negro population resulted and hence a lessening of the racial contrast without any modification of the descendants of white females.

An evenly mixed population can result only if the number of matings between males of one race and females of the other is equal to that of matings in the opposite direction. Otherwise the racial type of the group descended in the female line will be unstable.

When social divisions follow racial lines, as they do among ourselves, the degree of difference between racial forms is an important element in establishing racial groupings and in accentuating racial conflicts. From this point of view the present tendency is most undesirable.

Under prevailing circumstances complete freedom of matrimonial union between the two races {75} cannot be expected. The causes that operate against the unions of colored men and white women are almost as potent as in the days of slavery. Looking forward towards a lessening of the intensity of race feeling an increase of unions of white men and colored women would be desirable. The present policy of many of the Southern States tends to accentuate the lack of homogeneity of our nation.

I have tried to show in the preceding pages that the biological arguments that have been brought forward against race crossing are not convincing. Equally good reasons can be given in favor of crossings of the best elements of various races, and for closely related groups these arguments seem incontrovertible.

If we were to select the most intelligent, imaginative, energetic and emotionally stable third of mankind, all races would be represented. The mere fact that a person is a healthy European, or a blond European would not be proof that he would belong to this élite. Nobody has ever given proof that the mixed descendants of such a select group would be inferior.

If a selection of immigrants is to be made it should never be made by a rough racial classification, but by a careful examination of the individual and of his family history. {76}

No matter how weak the case for racial purity may be, we cannot hope easily to overcome its appeal. The individual is always ready to subordinate himself under the group to which he belongs. He expresses his feeling of solidarity by an idealization of his group and by an emotional desire for its perpetuation. As long as the social groups are racial groups we shall also encounter the desire for racial purity. When considerable racial differences are encountered in the same social group, they are disregarded unless there are introduced artificial ideals of bodily form that tend to establish new social divisions. This is occurring in some social groups in Europe and America who idealize the blond, blue-eyed type.

It follows that the “instinctive” race antipathy can be broken down, if we succeed in creating among young children social groups that are not divided according to the principle of race and which have principles of cohesion that weld the group into a whole. It will not be easy to establish such groups under the pressure of present popular feeling. Nevertheless, cultural coöperation cannot be reached without it.

Those who fear miscegenation, which I, personally, do not consider as in any way dangerous,--not for the White race or for the Negro, or for {77} mankind--may console themselves with their belief in a race consciousness, which would manifest itself in selective mating. Then matters would remain as they are.

Chapter IV {78}

Nationalism

There are two kinds of nationalism, one of nations, the other of nationalities. The two terms “nation” and “nationality” do not coincide. A nation is in most cases a nationality that is unified in political and economic organization; although there are also nations that embrace several nationalities, like Czecho-Slovakia and Poland.

A nationality is a group of people alike in speech, culture and in most cases representing no fundamental racial contrasts. A nationality may be divided and constitute several nations, like the Spaniards of Central America, or the Italians before the unification of Italy; or they may be included in several nations, like the Germans in Germany, Austria, France, Poland, Czecho-Slovakia and Italy.

There is, therefore, a nationalism of nations which feel and act as a unit regardless of the component nationalities; and a nationalism of nationalities which strive for unity in political and economic organization.

There is a curious vagueness in the use of the {79} terms “race” and “nation.” In the terminology of the U. S. Immigration Commission English, French, German, and Russian are designated as races. In common parlance also national groups are identified with racial strains. The blonde represent the Teutons; the short and dark, Spaniards or Italians; the heavy built brunette, the Slavs.

On account of the peculiar position of the blond type, it has been preëminently identified with the so-called Aryan race. As is well known, most of the languages of Europe are derived from one ancient form of speech,--the parental Aryan language. Slavic, Teutonic, and Romance languages are the most important modern divisions of this group in Europe, to which Greek, Celtic, Lithuanian, and Albanian also belong. Among European languages, only Finnish and its relatives on the Baltic; Magyar, Turkish, and Basque, do not belong to this extended group. Aryan languages are spoken by people of the most diverse racial types; nevertheless there are scientists who try to identify the blond North European with the ancient, pure Aryan, and who claim for the race preëminent hereditary gifts, because the people who at present and in our concept are the leaders of the world speak Aryan languages.

Scientific proof of these contentions cannot be given. They are rather fancies of North European dreamers, based on the complaisant love of {80} the achievements of the blondes. No one has ever proved that all the Aryans of the earliest times were blondes, or that people speaking other languages may not have been blonde, too; and nobody would be able to show that the great achievements of mankind were due to blond thinkers. On the contrary, the people to whom we are indebted for the basic advance of civilization belong to the dark-complexioned human types of the Orient, and not to our blond ancestors.

How deep and emotional a hold this idea has in the minds of some scientists appears when some investigators try to prove that all the achievements of Greece and Italy are due to the blond immigrants who reached these countries before the beginning of the historic era, or that Christ cannot have been a Jew by descent, but must have been an Aryan. The presence of a blond element in these countries does not prove that the cultural achievements were due to it. We might say with equal justice that the rise of North European civilization did not begin until South and Central European blood became intermingled with that of the North European.

The idea of the great blond Aryan, the leader of mankind, is the result of self-admiration that emotional thinkers have tried to sustain by imaginative reasoning. It has no foundation in observed fact. {81}

This, however, does not decrease the emotional value of the fiction that has taken hold of the mind wherever the Teutonic, German, or Anglo-Saxon type,--however it may be called,--prevails, or where the Italian “race” glories in its past greatness and virtue.

All over Europe people believe in their racial purity and in the possession of qualities that make them superior to all others; while it is assumed that the mixed, “mongrel” races are doomed to permanent inferiority; and where there is undeniable mixture the ideal type is admonished to see to it that it is not swamped by so-called inferior types and that it preserve its purity.

This notion prevails among ourselves with equal force, for we are haunted by fear of the ominous influx of “inferior” races from eastern Europe, of the mongrelization of the American people by intermixture between the Northwest European and other European types.

Inferior by heredity? No. Socially different? Yes, on account of the environment in which they have lived, and therefore different from ourselves, and not easily subject to change provided they are allowed to cluster together indefinitely.

Scientific investigation does not countenance the assumption that in any one part of Europe a people of pure descent or of a pure racial type is found, {82} and careful inquiry has failed completely to reveal any inferiority of mixed European types.

In our thoughts the local racial types of Europe have been identified with modern nations, and thus the supposed hereditary characteristics of the races have been confused with national characteristics. An identification of racial type, of language, and of nationality has been made, that has gained an exceedingly strong hold on our imagination. In vain sober scientific thought has remonstrated against this identification; the idea is too firmly rooted. Even if it is true that the blond type is found at present preëminently among Teutonic people, it is not confined to them alone. Among the Finns, Poles, French, North Italians, not to speak of the North African Berbers and the Kurds of western Asia, there are individuals of this type. The heavy-set, darker East European type is common to many of the Slavic peoples of eastern Europe, to the Germans of Austria and southern Germany, to the North Italians, and to the French of the Alps and of central France. The Mediterranean type is spread widely over Spain, Italy, Greece, and the coast of Asia Minor, without regard to national boundaries. Other local types may be readily distinguished, if we take into consideration other differences in form. These are also confined to definite territories.

In western Europe, types are on the whole distributed {83} in strata that follow one another from north to south,--in the north the blond, in the center a darker, short-headed type, in the south the slightly built Mediterranean.

National boundaries in central Europe, on the other hand, run north and south: and so we find many individuals in northern France, Belgium, Holland, Germany and northwestern Russia similar in type and descent; many of the central French, South Germans, Swiss, North Italians, Austrians, Servians and central Russians, belonging to similar varieties of man; and also persons in southern France, closely related to the types of the eastern and western Mediterranean area.

The relation of German and Slav is instructive. During the period of Teutonic migrations, in the first few centuries of our era, the Slavs settled in the region from which Teutonic tribes had moved away. They occupied the whole of what is now eastern Germany, but the population seems to have been sparse. In the Middle Ages, with the growth of the German Empire, a slow backward movement set in. Germans settled as colonists in Slavic territory, and by degrees German speech prevailed over the Slavic and a population of mixed descent developed. In Germany survivals of the gradual process may be found in a remote locality where Slavic speech still persists.

As by contact with the more advanced Germans {84} the cultural and economic conditions of the Slavs improved and their numbers and their wealth increased, their resistance to Germanization became greater and greater,--earliest among the Czechs and Poles, later in the other Slavic groups. Later on, through a similar process, a mixed population of Poles, Lithuanians and Russians originated farther to the east.

This process has led to the present distribution of languages, which expresses a fossilization of German colonization in the east, and illustrates in a most striking way the penetration of peoples. Poland and part of Russia, Slavonic and Magyar territories are interspersed with small German settlements, which are the more sparse and scattered the farther east they are located, the more continuous the nearer they lie to Germany,--at least until the recent systematic persecution of Germans in Poland.

With the increased economic and cultural strength of the Slav, the German lost his ability to impose his mode of life upon him, and with it his power to assimilate the numerically stronger people in its own home. But by blood all these people, no matter what their speech, are the same.

A process analogous to the medieval Germanization of Slavic tribes may at present be observed in Mexico, where Indian speech and culture give way to the Spanish. Each town forms a center {85} of Spanish speech which, owing to the economic and cultural strength of the town, spreads over the surrounding country.

The French Huguenots who escaped from religious persecution and settled in Germany have been completely assimilated, although the French school in which their children were educated is still in existence as a French gymnasium. Alsatians who migrated to Paris have become French in language and spirit; Germans have been absorbed by Russians; the Swedish nobility counts in their number many descendants of the nobility of foreign countries. An analysis of the descent of the population of every part of Europe proves that intermingling has been going on for long periods.

The movements of tribes in prehistoric times and during antiquity also illustrate the ways in which different strains became mixed: the Doric migration into Greece, the movements of the Kelts into Spain, Italy and eastward as far as Asia Minor; the Teutonic migrations which swept through Europe from the Black Sea into Italy, France, Spain and on into Africa; the invasion of the Balkan Peninsula by Slavs, and their extension over eastern Russia and into Siberia; Phœnician, Greek and Roman colonization; the roving Normans; the expansion of the Arabs; the Crusades, are a few of the important events that have contributed {86} to the intermingling of the European population.

In every single nationality of Europe the various elements of the continental population are represented. Nationality has only the slightest relation to racial descent. The so-called “racial” antipathies are feelings that have grown up on another basis and have been given a fictitious racial interpretation.

This claim may seem to be contradicted by the readiness with which we recognize individuals, according to their outer appearance, as members of certain nationalities. These identifications, which are far from certain, are based only in part on the essential elements of the form of the body, such as hair and eye color, face form and stature. We are led much more by the mannerisms of wearing hair and beard, and by the characteristic expressions and motions of the body, which are determined not so much by hereditary causes as by habit. The latter are more impressive than the former; and among the nations of Europe no fundamental traits of the body occur that belong to one to the exclusion of the others. It is a common experience that Americans of European descent, French, Italian or German, are recognized as Americans, notwithstanding their pure descent and solely on account of their appearance and habits.

It is clear that the term _race_, as commonly used, {87} is only a disguise of _nationality_ which has little to do with racial descent; and that the interracial relations are based on national enmities or friendships, not on racial antipathies or sympathies.

If community of racial descent is not the basis of nationality, is it community of language?

When we glance at the national aspirations that have characterized a large part of the nineteenth century, community of language might seem to be the background of national life. It touches the most sympathetic chords in our hearts. Italians worked for the overthrow of the small local and great foreign interests that were opposed to the national unity of all Italian-speaking people. German patriots strove and will strive for the federation of the German-speaking people in one empire. The struggles in the Balkans are largely due to a desire for national independence according to the limits of speech. The Poles have for more than a century longed for a reëstablishment of their state which is to embrace all those of Polish tongue.

It is, however, not very long that the bonds of language have been felt so intensely. Language establishes a basis of mutual understanding on which a community of interests may arise. The pleasure of hearing one’s own tongue spoken in a foreign country creates at once between its speakers a feeling of comradeship that is quite real, {88} and strong in proportion to the smallness of the number of speakers of the idiom. The necessity of easy communication between the members of one nation has also led generally to the endeavor to make one language the ruling language throughout the whole state. When there is a great difference of languages, as in the former Austria-Hungary, the national unity is liable to be feeble.

Unity of language is more an idealized concept than a real bond. Notwithstanding unity of language severe internal conflicts may arise that overshadow the feeling for national unity. Civil wars that may lead to the breaking up of nations may arise and the feeling for national unity may be severely restricted by division into classes, as in medieval Europe; or in the Greek cities; or by divisions on racial lines, as between Negroes and Whites in the United States. Politically Negroes and Whites are members of the same nation, and a similar kind of nationalism pervades both groups. Still, among many citizens of our country the claim that Negroes and Whites have the same nationality might provoke lively protests.

Unity of language is more an ideal than a real bond; not only that divergence of dialects makes communication difficult, but community of thought among the members of different social classes is also so slight that no communication of deeper thought and feeling is possible. The Provençale {89} and the North French, the Bavarian and the Westphalian peasant, the Sicilian and the Florentine are hopelessly divided, owing to differences of language. Unity is found in the educated groups that share the same language and the same emotional reactions. In many ways the educated Americans, Englishmen, Frenchmen, Germans, Italians, Spaniards, and Russians have more in common than each has with the uneducated classes of his own nation.

Unity of language does not comprise the whole of nationalism, for no less ardent is the patriotism of trilingual Switzerland. Even here in America we see that the bond of tongue is not the only one. Else we should feel that there is no reason for a division between Canada and the United States, and that the political ties between western Canada and French Quebec must be artificial.

Neither the bonds of blood nor those of language alone make a nation. It is rather the community of emotional life that rises from our everyday habits, from the forms of thoughts, feelings, and actions, which constitute the medium in which every individual can unfold freely his activities.

An interesting phase of national life is developing in Russia. While the policy of the Czarist government consisted in the forcible suppression of all non-Russian speech, even of local dialects, the Soviet Republic has adopted the policy of protecting {90} the right of every group to their own language, trusting in the bond of a great, radical economic experiment to unite all the people.

Language and nation are so often identified, because we feel that among a people that uses the same language every one can find the widest field for unrestricted activity.

Added to this is the consciousness that political unity gives increased power which makes it possible to emphasize the interests of the citizen as opposed to those of the foreigner.

These feelings combine to create the feeling for the existence of a national unity. Nevertheless it is perfectly clear that there is no individual, nor any group of individuals, that represents the national ideal. It is rather an abstraction based on the current forms of thought, feeling, and action,--an abstraction of high emotional value, enhanced by the consciousness of political power.

It is well to bear in mind that nationality is not necessarily based on unity of speech; for when the same type of cultural ideals prevails in a polyglottal area, in which each group is too weak to give to the individual a free field of action, this can be attained only by the development of a union of the independent groups.

For the full development of his faculties, the individual needs the widest possible field in which to live and act according to his modes of thought {91} and inner feeling. Since, in most cases, the opportunity is given among a group that possesses unity of speech, we feel full sympathy with the intense desire to throw down the artificial barriers of small political units. This process has characterized the development of modern nations.

When, however, these limits are overstepped, and a fictitious racial or alleged national unit is set up that has no existence in actual conditions, the free unfolding of the mind, for which we are striving, is liable to become an excuse for ambitious lust for power. When France dreamed of a union of all Latin people in a Pan-Latin union under her leadership, the legitimate limits of natural development were lost sight of for the sake of national ambition. When Russia promoted a Pan-Slavistic propaganda among the diverse peoples, solely on the ground that the Slavs are linguistically related, and assumed a fictitious common culture and racial origin, the actual usefulness of the nationalistic idea was lost sight of, and it was made the cover for the desire of imperialistic expansion.

There is no doubt that the idea of nationality has been a creative force, making possible the fuller development of powers by widening the field of individual activity, and by setting definite ideals to large coöperating masses; but we feel with Fichte and Mazzini that the political power of a nation {92} is important only when the national unit is the carrier of ideals that are of value to mankind.

Together with the positive, creative side of nationalism there has developed everywhere an aggressive intolerance of foreign forms of thought that can be satisfied only by the strongest emphasis laid upon the value and interest of one national unit against all others.

On a larger scale the conditions are repeated now that less than a century ago prevented the ready formation of modern nations. The narrow-minded local interests of cities and other small political units resisted unification or federation on account of the supposed conflicts between their interests and ideals and those of other units of comparable size. Governmental organization strengthened the tendency to isolation, and the unavoidable, ever-present desire of self-preservation of the existing order stood in the way of amalgamation. It was only after long years of agitation and of bloody struggle that the larger idea prevailed.

Those of us who recognize in the realization of national ideals a definite advance that has benefited mankind cannot fail to see that the task before us at the present time is a repetition of the process of nationalization on a larger scale; not with a view to leveling down all local differences, {93} but with the avowed purpose of making them all subserve the same end.

The federation of nations is the next necessary step in the evolution of mankind.

It is the expansion of the fundamental idea underlying the organization of the United States of Switzerland, and of Germany. The weakness of the League of Nations and of the modern peace movements lies in this, that they are not sufficiently clear and radical in their demands, for their logical aim cannot be arbitration of disagreement, or formal outlawing of war. It must be the recognition of common aims of all the nations.

Such federation of nations is not an Utopian idea, any more than nationalism was a century ago. In fact, the whole development of mankind shows that this condition is destined to come.

Fundamentally, the nation must be considered a closed society like those previously discussed. The differentiation between citizen and alien is not so intense as in the closed primitive horde, but it exists.

It would be instructive to follow in detail the development of modern nations from tribal units that considered every alien an enemy who must be slain, but we can only imagine the course of the gradual changes that have taken place.

Human inventions improved. The herd of hunters and food-gatherers learned the art of better {94} providing for their needs. They stored up food and thus provided for the future. With the greater regularity of the food supply and a decreased frequency of periods of starvation the number of members of the community increased. Weaker hordes, which still followed the older methods of hunting and food gathering, were exterminated or, profiting by the experience of their neighbors, acquired new arts and also increased in numbers. Thus the groups that felt a solidarity among themselves became larger and by the extermination of small, isolated hordes, that remained in more primitive conditions, the total number of groups that stood opposed to one another became gradually less.

It is impossible to trace with any degree of certainty the steps by which the homogeneous groups became diversified and lost their unity, or by which the opposing groups came into closer contact. We may imagine that the widows and daughters of the slain, who became a welcome prey of the victors, established in time kindlier relations between their new masters and their kin; we may imagine that the economic advantages of peacefully acquiring the coveted property of neighbors rather than taking it by main force added their share to establishing kindlier relations; we may attribute an important influence to the weakening of old bonds of unity due to the gradual dispersion {95} of the increasing number of members of the community. No matter how the next steps in political development happened, we see that, with increasing economic complexity, the hostility between the groups becomes less. If it was right before to slay every one outside of the small horde, we find now tribes that have a limited community of interests, that under normal conditions live at peace, although enmities may spring up at slight provocation. The group that lives normally at peace has much increased in size, and, while the feeling of solidarity may have decreased, its scope has become immensely wider.

A few examples of these conditions among the primitive members of mankind will illustrate the course of events. The Bushmen of South Africa are a people that is being exterminated, because everybody’s hand is raised against them, and theirs against everybody. Between the people of more advanced type of culture that surround them their small bands are being annihilated. They feel themselves a group different from the rest of the world, and for them there is no place in the life of their neighbors. So a bitter war has been waged against them for centuries and is on the point of ending with their extinction. Similar conditions prevail in parts of South America where the hunting Indian is outlawed like the wild South African. {96}

Not so in more advanced types of society. Notwithstanding the cruel wars between the natives of our northern continent, there had been laid the germs of larger political units among which peace normally reigned. The fierce Iroquois created a desert around themselves, but in their midst developed a large industrious community. The Zulu of South Africa, the terror of the country, formed a unit infinitely larger than any of those that existed before in that region.

This process of enlargement of political units and the reduction of the number of those that were naturally at war with one another began in the earliest times, and has continued without interruption, almost always in the same direction. Even though hostilities have broken out frequently between parts of what had come to be a large political unit, the tendency for unification has in the long run been more powerful than that of disintegration. We see the powers at work in antiquity, when the urban states of Greece and of Italy were gradually welded into larger wholes; we see it again at work after the breaking up of ancient society in the development of new states from the fragments of the old ones; and later on in the disappearance of the small feudal states.

In the nations of our days in which law rules supreme we find the greatest numbers of people united in political units that the world has seen. {97} In these war is excluded, because all members are subject to the same law, and excessive strains in the community, that lead to internal bloodshed, have decreased in frequency, although perhaps not in violence, as long as the whole masses of the people in a nation enjoy somewhat equal advantages.

From this point of view the breaking up of the old empire of Austria-Hungary must be regretted. Notwithstanding the stupid resistance of the governing class to the development of a confederation rather than of a centralized empire, the force of circumstances was operating in this direction. Hungary had attained a status of independence and the recognition of the rights of the South-Slavs was coming. How much better would the peacemakers have served humanity if they had created a confederacy of language groups of equal rights rather than a number of rival nations each of which is bent only upon the attainment of its own selfish ends!

Thus the history of mankind shows us the spectacle of the grouping of man in units of ever-increasing size that live together in peace, and that are ready to go to war only with other groups outside of their own limits. Notwithstanding all temporary revolutions and the shattering of larger units for the time being, the progress in the direction of unification has been so regular and so {98} marked that we must needs conclude that the tendencies which have swayed this development in the past will govern our history in the future. The concept of thoroughly integrated nations of the size to which we are now accustomed would have been just as inconceivable in earlier times of the history of mankind as appears now the concept of unity of interests of all the peoples of the world, or at least of all those who share the same type of civilization and are subject to the same economic conditions. The historical development shows, however, that such a feeling of opposition of one group towards another is solely an expression of existing conditions, and does not by any means indicate their permanence.

The forces that have kept political units apart are manifold, but none of them has resisted the attacks of changing culture. In modern times the abhorrence of members of a strange horde which sprang from the idea that they are specifically different is on the point of vanishing. We still find it in the so-called race instincts of the Whites, as opposed to the Negro and Asiatic, and in the anti-Semitic movement, but in most of these cases rather as an element of internal strife than as one that leads to war. It is still active in the wars of extermination that are waged against primitive tribes, but these are nearly at an end, owing to the approaching extinction of the weakest tribes. {99}

In course of time differences in customs and beliefs, differences in form of government and social structure, devotion to feudal lords or ruling dynasties, opposing economic interests, diversity of language, have been causes that separated distinct communities and impelled them to take hostile attitudes towards one another.

Thus it appears that it is not any rational cause that forms opposing groups, but solely the emotional appeal of an idea that holds together the members of each group and exalts their feeling of solidarity and greatness to such an extent that compromises with other groups become impossible. In this mental attitude we may readily recognize the survival of the feeling of specific differences between the hordes, transferred in part from the feeling of physical differences to that of mental differences. The modern enthusiasm for race superiority must be understood in this light. It is the old feeling of specific differences between social groups in a new guise.

Progress has been slow and halting in the direction of expanding the political units from hordes to tribes, from tribes to small states, confederations, and nations. The concept of the foreigner as a specifically distinct being has been so modified that we are beginning to see in him a member of mankind.

Enlargement of circles of association, and {100} equalization of rights of distinct local communities have been so consistently the _general_ tendency of human development that we may look forward confidently to their consummation.

It is obvious that the standards of ethical conduct must be quite distinct between those who have grasped this ideal and those who still believe in the preservation of the isolated nationality in opposition to all others.

Once we recognize this truth we are brought clearly face to face with those forces that will ultimately abolish warfare as well as legislative conflicts between nations; that will put an end not only to the wholesale slaughter of those representing distinct ideals, but also prevent the passage of laws that favor the members of one nation at the expense of all other members of mankind.

In order to form a fair judgment of the motives of action of the leaders of nations at the present time we should bear in mind that in all countries the standards of national ethics, as cultivated by means of national education, are opposed to this wider view. Devotion to the nation is taught as the paramount duty and is instilled into the minds of the young in such a form that with it grows up and is perpetuated the feeling of rivalry and of hostility against all other nations.

Conditions in modern states are intelligible only when we remember that by education patriotism is {101} surrounded by a halo of sanctity and that national self-preservation is considered the first duty. Often the demands of national and international duty are hopelessly at variance.

The interests of mankind are, therefore, ill served if we try to instill into the minds of the young a passionate desire for national power; if we teach the preponderance of national interest over human interest, aggressive nationalism rather than national idealism, expansion rather than inner development, admiration of warlike, heroic deeds rather than of the object for which they are performed.

Chapter V {102}

Eugenics

The possibility of raising the standards of human physique and mentality by judicious means has been preached for years by the apostles of eugenics, and has taken hold of the public mind to such an extent that eugenic measures have found a place on the statute books of a number of states, and that the public conscience disapproves of marriages that are thought bound to produce unhealthy offspring.

The thought that it may be possible by these means to eliminate suffering and to strive for higher ideals is a beautiful one, and makes a strong appeal to those who have at heart the advance of humanity.

Our experiences in stock and plant breeding have shown that it is feasible, by appropriate selection, to change a breed in almost any direction that we may choose: in size, form, color. Even physiological functions may be modified. Fertility may be increased, speed of movement improved, the sensitiveness of sense organs modified, and mental traits may be turned in special directions. {103} It is, therefore, more than probable that similar results might be obtained in man by careful mating of appropriately selected individuals,--provided that man allowed himself to be selected in the same manner as we select animals. We have also the right to assume that, by preventing the propagation of mentally or physically inferior strains, the gross average standing of a population may be raised.

Although these methods sound attractive, there are serious limitations to their applicability. Eugenic selection can affect only hereditary features. If an individual possesses a desirable quality the development of which is wholly due to environmental causes, and that will not be repeated in the descendants, its selection will have no influence upon the following generations. It is, therefore, of fundamental importance to know what is hereditary and what not. Features, and color of eyes, hair and skin, are more or less rigidly hereditary; in other words, in these respects children resemble organically their parents, no matter in what environment they may have been brought up. In other cases, however, the determining influence of heredity is not so clear. We know that stature depends upon hereditary causes, but that it is also greatly influenced by environmental conditions prevailing during the period of growth. Rapidity of development is no less influenced by these two causes, and in general the more subject an anatomical {104} or physiological trait to the influence of environment the less definitely can we speak of a controlling influence of heredity, and the less are we justified in claiming that nature, not nurture, is the deciding element.

It would seem, therefore, that the first duty of the eugenist should be to determine empirically and without bias what features are hereditary and what not.

Unfortunately this has not been the method pursued; but the battle cry of the eugenists, “Nature not nurture,” has been raised to the rank of a dogma, and the environmental conditions that make and unmake man, physically and mentally, have been relegated to the background.

It is easy to see that in many cases environmental causes may convey the erroneous impression of hereditary phenomena. Poor people develop slowly and remain short of stature as compared to wealthy people. We find, therefore, in a poor area, apparently a low hereditary stature, that, however, would change if the economic life of the people were changed. We find proportions of the body determined by occupations, and apparently transmitted from father to son, provided both father and son follow the same occupation. The more far-reaching the environmental influences are that act upon successive generations the more readily will a false impression of heredity be given. {105}

Here we reach a parting of the ways of the biological eugenist and the student of human society. Most modern biologists are so entirely dominated by the notion that function depends upon form that they seek for an anatomical basis for all differences of function. The stress laid upon the relation between anatomical form or constitution and pathological conditions of the most varied character are an expression of this tendency. Whenever the anatomical and pathological conditions are actually physiologically interdependent such relations are found. In other cases, as for instance, in the relation of anatomical form and mental disturbances the relation may be quite remote. This is still more the case when a relation between social phenomena and bodily form is sought. Many biologists are inclined to assume that higher civilization is due to a higher type; that better social health depends solely upon a better hereditary stock; that national characteristics are determined by the bodily forms represented in the nation.

The anthropologist is convinced that many different anatomical forms can be adapted to the same social functions; and he ascribes greater weight to these and believes that in many cases differences of form may be due to adaptations to different functions. He believes that different types of man may reach the same civilization, that better health {106} may be produced by better bringing up of any of the existing types of man.

The anatomical differences to which the biologist reduces social phenomena are hereditary; the environmental causes which the anthropologist sees reflected in human form are individually acquired, and not transmitted by heredity.

In view of what has been said before it will suffice to point out a very few examples.

Sameness of language is acquired under the same linguistic environment by members of the most diverse human types; the same kinds of foods are selected from among the products of nature by people belonging to the same cultural area; similarity of movements is required in industrial pursuits; the habits of sedentary or nomadic life do not depend upon race but upon occupation. All of these are distributed without any reference to physical type, and give ample evidence of the lack of relation between social habits and racial position.

The serious demand must be made that eugenists cease to look at the forms, functions, and activities of man from the dogmatic point of view according to which each feature is assumed to be hereditary, but that they begin to examine them from a more critical point of view, requiring that in each and every case the hereditary character of a trait must be established before it can be assumed to exist. {107}

The question at issue is well illustrated by the extended statistics of cacogenics, of the histories of defective families. Setting aside for a moment cases of hereditary pathological conditions, we find that alcoholism and criminality are particularly ascribed to hereditary causes. When we study the family histories in question, we can see often, that, if the individuals had been protected by favorable home surroundings and by possession of adequate means of support against the abuse of alcohol or other drugs as well as against criminality, many of them would have been no more likely to fall victims to their alleged hereditary tendencies, than many a weakling who is brought up under favorable circumstances. If they had resisted the temptations of their environment they would have been entitled to be classed as moral heroes. The scales applied to the criminal family and to the well-to-do are clearly quite distinct; and, so far as heredity is concerned, not much more follows from the collected data of social deficiences than would follow from the fact that in an agricultural community the occupation of farmers descends from father to son.

Whether or not constitutional debility based on hereditary causes may also be proved in these cases is a question by itself that deserves attention. It remains to be proved in how far it exists, and furthermore it cannot be assumed without proof {108} that the elimination of the descendants of delinquents would free us of all those who possess equal constitutional debility. Of these matters more anon.

It is an observed fact that the most diverse types of man may adapt themselves to the same forms of life and, unless the contrary can be proved, we must assume that all complex activities are socially determined, not hereditary; that a change in social conditions will change the whole character of social activities without influencing in the least the hereditary characteristics of the group of individuals concerned. Therefore, when the attempt is made to prove that defects or points of excellence are hereditary, it is essential that all possibility of a purely environmentally or socially determined repetition of ancestral traits be excluded.

If this rigidity of proof is insisted on it will appear that many of the data on which the theory of eugenics is based are unsatisfactory, and that much greater care must be exerted than finds favor with the enthusiastic adherents of eugenic theories.

All this does not contradict the hereditary transmission of individual physical and mental characteristics, or the possibility of segregating, by proper selection from among the large series of varying individual forms that occur among all types of people, strains that have admirable {109} qualities, and of suppressing others that are not so favored.

It is claimed that the practical application has become a necessity because among all civilized nations there is a decided tendency to general degeneration. I do not believe that this assertion has been adequately proved. In modern society the conditions of life have become markedly varied as compared with those of former periods. While some groups live under most favorable conditions, that require active use of body and mind; others live in abject poverty, and their activities have more than ever before been degraded to those of machines. At the same time, human activities are much more varied than formerly. It is, therefore, quite intelligible that the functional activities of each nation must show an increased degree of differentiation, a higher degree of variability. The general average of the mental and physical types of the people may remain the same, still there will be a larger number now than formerly who fall below a certain given low standard, while there will also be more who exceed a given high standard. The number of defectives can be counted by statistics of poor relief, delinquency and insanity, but there is no way of determining the increase of those individuals who are raised above the norm of a higher standard. Therefore they escape our notice. It may very well be that the number of {110} defectives increases, without, however, influencing the value of a population as a whole, because it is merely an expression of an increased degree of variability.

Furthermore, arbitrarily selected, absolute standards do not retain their significance. Even if no change in the absolute standard should be made, the degree of physical and mental energy required under modern conditions to keep one’s self above a certain minimum of achievement is higher than formerly. This is due to the greater complexity of our life and to the increasing number of competing individuals. When the general level of achievement is raised, greater capacity is required to attain a high degree of prominence than was needed in earlier periods of our history. A mentally defective person may be able to hold his own in a simple farming community and unable to do so in city life. The claim that we have to contend against national degeneracy must, therefore, be better substantiated than it is now.

This problem is further complicated by the advances of public hygiene, which have lowered infant mortality, and have changed the composition of the population, in so far as many who would have succumbed to deleterious conditions in early years enter into the adult population and have an influence upon the general distribution of vitality. {111}

There is still another important aspect of eugenics that should make us pause before we accept this new ambitious theory as a panacea for human ills. The radical eugenist treats the problem of procreation from a purely rationalistic point of view, and assumes that the ideal of human development lies in the complete rationalization of human life. As a matter of fact, the conclusions to be drawn from the study of the customs and habits of mankind show that such an ideal is unattainable, and more particularly that the emotions clustering about procreation belong to those that are most deeply seated, and that are ineradicable.

Here again the anthropologist and the biologist are at odds. The natural sciences do not recognize in their scheme a valuation of the phenomena of nature, nor do they count emotions as moving forces; they endeavor to reduce all happenings to the actions of physical causes. Reason alone reigns in their domain. Therefore the scientist likes to look at mental life from the same rational standpoint, and sees as the goal of human development an era of reason, as opposed to the former periods of unhealthy fantastic emotion.

The anthropologist, on the other hand, cannot acknowledge such a complete domination of emotion by reason. He rather sees the steady advance of the rational knowledge of mankind, which is a source of satisfaction to him no less than to the {112} biologist; but he sees also that mankind does not put this knowledge to purely reasonable use, but that its actions are swayed by emotions no less now than in former times, although in many respects, unless the passions are excited, the increase of knowledge limits the extreme forms of unreasonable emotional activities. Religion and political life, and our everyday habits, present endless proofs of the fact that our actions are the results of emotional preferences, that conform in a general way to our rational knowledge, but which are not determined by reason; that we rather try to justify our choice of action by reason than have our actions dictated by reason.

It is, therefore, exceedingly unlikely that a rational control of one of the strongest passions of man could ever succeed. If even in matters of minor importance evasion of the law is of common occurrence, this would be infinitely more common in questions that touch our inner life so deeply. The repugnance against eugenic legislation is based on this feeling.

It cannot be doubted that the enforcement of eugenic legislation would have a far-reaching effect upon social life, and that it would tend to raise the standard of certain selected hereditary strains. It is, however, an open question what would happen to the selected strains owing to the changed social ideals; and it is inexcusable to refuse to consider {113} those fundamental changes that would certainly be connected with eugenic practice, and to confine ourselves to the biological effect that may be wrought, for in the great mass of a healthy population the biological mechanism alone does not control social activities. They are rather subject to social stimuli.

Although we are ignorant of the results of a rigid application of eugenics, a few of its results may be foretold with great certainty.

The eugenist who tries to do more than to eliminate the unfit will first of all be called upon to answer the question what strains are the best to cultivate. If it is a question of breeding chickens or Indian corn, we know what we want. We desire many eggs of heavy weight, or a large yield of good corn. But what do we want in man? Is it physical excellence, mental ability, creative power, or artistic genius? We must select certain ideals that we want to raise. Considering then the fundamental differences in ideals of distinct types of civilization, have we a right to give to our modern ideals the stamp of finality, and suppress what does not fit into our life? There is little doubt that we, at the present time, give much less weight to beauty than to logic. Shall we then try to raise a generation of logical thinkers, suppress those whose emotional life is vigorous, and try to bring it about that reason shall reign supreme, and that human {114} activities shall be performed with clocklike precision? The precise cultural forms that would develop cannot be foretold, because they are culturally, not biologically, determined; but there is little doubt that within certain limits the intensity of emotional life,--regardless of its form,--and the vigor of logical thought,--regardless of its content,--could be increased or decreased by organic selection. Such a deliberate choice of qualities which would modify the character of nations implies an overestimation of the standards that we have reached, which to my mind appears intolerable. Personally the logical thinker may be most congenial to me, nevertheless I respect the sacred ideal of the dreamer who lives in a world of musical tones, and whose creative power is to me a marvel that surpasses understanding.

Without a selection of standards, eugenic practice is impossible; but if we read the history of mankind aright, we ought to hesitate before we try to set our standards for all time to come, for they are only one phase in the development of mankind.

This consideration applies only to our right to apply creative eugenic principles, not to the question whether practical results by eugenic selection can be attained. I have pointed out before how much in this respect is still hypothetical, or at least {115} of doubtful value, because the social factors outweigh the biological ones.

At the present time the idea of creating the best human types by selective mating is hardly a practical one. It dwells only as a desirable ideal in the minds of some enthusiasts.

The immediate application of eugenics is rather concerned in eliminating strains that are a burden to the nation or to themselves, and in raising the standard of humanity by the suppression of the progeny of the defective classes. I am doubtful whether eugenics alone will have material results in this direction, for, in view of the fundamental influence of environmental causes, that I set forth before, it is perfectly safe to say that no amount of eugenic selection will overcome those social conditions that have raised a poverty and disease-stricken proletariat,--which will be reborn from even the best stock, so long as the social conditions persist that remorselessly push human beings into helpless and hopeless misery. The effect would probably be to push new groups of individuals into the deadly environment where they would take the place of the eliminated defectives. Whether they would breed new generations of defectives may be an open question. The continued presence of defectives would be a certainty. Eugenics alone cannot solve the problem. It requires much more an amelioration of the social conditions of the poor {116} which would also raise many of the apparently defective to higher levels.

The present state of our knowledge of heredity permits us to say that certain pathological conditions are hereditary and that apparently healthy parents who belong to defective strains are very likely to have among their descendants defective individuals. We may even predict for a number of such cases how many among the descendants will be normal and how many defective. The eugenist must decide whether he wants to suppress all the normal individuals in these families in order to avoid the development of the defectives, or whether he is willing to carry the defectives along, perhaps as a burden to society, to their relatives and in many cases even to themselves, for the sake of the healthy children of such families. This question cannot be decided from a scientific point of view. The answer depends upon ethical and social standards. Many defective families have produced individuals who have given us the greatest treasures our civilization possesses. Eugenists might have prevented Beethoven’s father from having children. Would they willingly take the responsibility of having mankind deprived of the genius of Beethoven?

Another aspect of the problem is of much more vital importance to mankind. The object of eugenics is to raise a better race and to do away {117} with increasing suffering by eliminating those who are by heredity destined to suffer and to cause suffering. The humanitarian idea of the conquest of suffering, and the ideal of raising human efficiency to heights never before reached, make eugenics particularly attractive.

I believe that the human mind and body are so constituted that the attainment of these ends would lead to the destruction of society. The wish for the elimination of unnecessary suffering is divided by a narrow margin from the wish for the elimination of all suffering.

While, humanely speaking, this may be a beautiful ideal, it is unattainable. The performance of the labors of mankind and the conflict of duties will always be accompanied by suffering that must be borne, and that men must be willing to bear. Many of the works of sublime beauty are the precious fruit of mental agony; and we should be poor, indeed, if the willingness of man to suffer should disappear. However, if we cultivate this ideal, then that which was discomfort yesterday will be suffering to-day, and the elimination of discomforts will lead to an effeminacy that must be disastrous to the race.

This effect is further emphasized by the increasing demands for self-perfection. The more complex our civilization and the more extended our technical skill and our knowledge, the more energy {118} is demanded for reaching the highest efficiency, and the less is it admissible that the working capacity of the individual should be diminished by suffering. We are clearly drifting towards that danger-line where the individual will no longer bear discomfort or pain for the sake of the continuance of the race, and where our emotional life is so strongly repressed by the desire for self-perfection,--or by self-indulgence,--that the coming generation is sacrificed to the selfishness of the living. The phenomenon that characterized the end of antiquity, when no children were born to take the place of the passing generations, is being repeated in our times and in ever widening circles; and the more vigorously the eugenic ideals of the elimination of suffering and of self-development are held up the sooner shall we drift towards the destruction of the race.

Eugenics should, therefore, not be allowed to deceive us into the belief that we should try to raise a race of supermen, nor that it should be our aim to eliminate all suffering and pain. The attempt to suppress those defective classes whose deficiencies can be proved by rigid methods to be due to hereditary causes, and to prevent unions that will unavoidably lead to the birth of disease-stricken progeny, is the proper field of eugenics. How much can be and should be attempted in this field depends upon the results of careful studies of {119} the laws of heredity. Eugenics is not a panacea that will cure human ills; it is rather a dangerous sword that may turn its edge against those who rely on its strength.

Chapter VI {120}

Criminology

A whole science has developed based on the assumption of the existence of a biologically determined criminal type and upon the hereditary transmission of criminality. The Italian school of criminologists led by C. Lombroso has endeavored to define the type of the criminal and the physical characteristics of criminals addicted to various types of crimes. A number of stigmata have been established which, it was believed, characterized a person as a criminal. If this theory could be proved the treatment of criminals would have been much simplified, for it would have been possible to select all criminals before the commission of a crime and to protect society against them.

Unfortunately these extreme hopes have not been fulfilled. Our previous considerations make it plausible that they could not be fulfilled, because the interrelation between gross bodily form and mentality is not by any means close.

All that has been proved is that many criminals are defective, not only mentally but also physically. {121} It is, therefore, not surprising that anomalies that accompany various types of defectiveness should be found among them with greater frequency than among the socially normal; but it does not follow that the presence of any one of the stigmata described by the Italian school would prove that a person is a born criminal.

In many of the cases a careful statistical study has shown that the alleged stigmata, such as absence of the lobe of the ear and irregularities in the position of the teeth, are more frequent in local noncriminal groups than among the criminals, so that for this reason they cannot be considered as significant. Neither is there any clear physiological relation between the alleged stigmata and social or even physical defects.

A most careful examination of the criminal population has been made by C. Goring. His general results are worth quoting. He says: “For statistical evidence, one assertion can be dogmatically made: It is, that the criminal is differentiated by inferior stature, by defective intelligence and, to some extent, by his antisocial proclivities; but that, apart from these broad differences, there are no physical, mental or moral characteristics peculiar to the inmates of English prisons. The truths that have been overlooked are that these deviations, described as significant of criminality, are inevitable concomitants of inferior {122} stature and defective intelligence: both of which are the differentia of the types of persons who are selected for imprisonment.”

The conditions are the same as those previously described. As it is impossible to assign an individual according to his bodily form to a racial group, if the groups overlap, so it is impossible to recognize an individual by his bodily build as a criminal. We may say that it is more likely that a person physically and mentally defective will become a criminal than one who is normal, but we cannot say that he _must_ be a criminal.

The very definition of the term “crime” proves that no such intimate relation can exist. What was a crime in times past is no longer a crime now. Heresy was a crime punishable by death. Among heretics were included many who were mentally unbalanced and probably physically defective; but men like Huss