Skip to main content

Full text of "The character of races as influenced by physical environment : natural selection and historical development"

See other formats 


THE  LIBRARY  OF 

YORK 

UNIVERSITY 


mmmm  \ 

3  9007   0291    6504  0  y 


Date  Due 

-m^  

m  

York  Form  —  Cooper  Graphics 

Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2014 


https://archive.org/details/characterofracesOOhunt 


4 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


i 


THE 

/CHARACTER  OF  RACE^ 

AS  INFLUENCED  BY  PHYSICAL  ENVIRONMENT,  NATURAL 
SELECTION  AND  HISTORICAL  DEVELOPMENT 


ELLSWORTH  HUNTINGTON 

Research  Associate  in  Geography  in  Yale  University 


CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 
NEW  YORK  .  LONDON 
1924 


COPYMGHT.  1924,  BY 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


TO 

THE  ONE  TO  WHOM  I  OWE  MOST 
MY  MOTHER 


PREFACE 


Some  nine  years  ago,  in  a  book  called  Civilization  and  Climate, 
I  set  forth  the  thesis  that  the  general  distribution  of  civilization 
and  progress  depends  largely  upon  climate.  I  also  attempted  to 
show  that  the  influence  of  climate  is  strongly  modified  by  migra- 
tions of  peoples  and  cultures,  by  racial  mixture,  by  inventions 
and  discoveries  such  as  iron  tools  and  agriculture,  and  by  ideas 
such  as  religion.  After  reasonable  allowance  had  been  made  for 
all  these  factors,  I  still  felt  that  certain  highly  significant  features 
of  the  distribution  of  human  progress  remained  unexplained. 
Why  for  example  did  such  meteoric  intellectual  brilliancy  occur 
in  Greece?  Why  are  such  wonderful  Hindu  ruins  located  in 
Cambodia  in  Indo-China  ?  Why  has  a  high  type  of  culture  been 
able  to  persist  for  a  thousand  years  in  stormy  Iceland?  And 
why  do  we  see  in  China  the  curious  anomaly  of  a  progressive 
South  and  a  conservative  North  ?  After  years  of  search  I  believe 
that  at  least  a  partial  explanation  is  found  in  natural  selection 
arising  most  frequently  under  the  stress  of  over-population  and 
migration.  The  principle  involved  is  so  simple  and  obvious  that 
it  seems  almost  incredible  that  it  has  been  so  largely  ignored  by 
students  of  geography,  history,  and  sociology. 

A  study  of  famines  in  China  was  the  step  which  disclosed  the 
importance  of  this  principle.  Having  long  been  puzzled  over  the 
fact  that  north  China  does  not  show  the  degree  of  progress  that 
one  would  expect  on  the  basis  of  either  its  climate,  its  institu- 
tions, or  its  past  achievements,  I  was  stimulated  to  further  inves- 
tigation by  an  article  by  Doctor  Carl  W.  Bishop  in  The  Geograph- 
ical Review  (vol.  VII,  1922).  Doctor  Bishop  points  out  most 
clearly  the  nature  of  the  contrast  between  the  "staid  and  con- 
servative" North  of  China  and  the  "alert  and  progressive"  al- 
though semi-tropical  South.  It  occurred  to  me  that  famines 
might  have  something  to  do  with  this.  Accordingly,  I  wrote  to 
an  old  friend.  Reverend  Robert  E.  Chandler,  a  missionary  at 

vii 


viii 


PREFACE 


Tientsin,  China,  and  asked  his  opinion  as  to  the  effect  of  famines 
in  selecting  certain  physical  or  mental  types  for  destruction, 
preservation,  or  migration.  He  not  only  sent  his  own  answer, 
but  procured  a  series  of  most  interesting  letters  from  other  mis- 
sionaries, including  Doctor  Arthur  H.  Smith,  author  of  Chinese 
Characteristics  and  Village  Life  in  China;  Doctor  F.  F.  Tucker, 
head  of  the  American  Hospital  at  Tehchow;  Professor  Guy  W. 
Sarvis,  of  Nanking  University;  Reverend  George  D.  Wilder,  of 
Peking;  and  Reverend  Henry  Lieper,  of  Tientsin.  All  of  these 
men  have  had  personal  experience  of  famines  and  of  rehef  work. 
Later  I  visited  China  and  interviewed  still  other  missionaries, 
among  whom  I  must  mention  Doctor  William  E.  Souter,  of  the 
China  International  Famine  Relief  Commission;  Reverend  W.  E. 
Macklin,  of  Nanking;  Reverend  R.  A.  Torrey,  of  Tsinan,  who 
has  lived  among  the  famine-stricken  people  of  Shantung  and  has 
thought  deeply  on  the  significance  of  what  he  has  seen;  Doctor 
J.  H.  Ingraham,  of  Peking;  and  Mr.  E.  W.  Edwards,  of  the 
Peking  Y.  M.  C.  A.,  secretary  of  the  China  International  Famine 
Relief  Commission.  All  of  these  men,  as  well  as  others  too 
numerous  to  mention,  were  extremely  kind  in  giving  me  a  wealth 
of  information  which  seems  to  show  that  the  process  of  natural 
selection  through  over-population,  famine,  and  migration  is  tak- 
ing place  in  China  to-day  at  a  rapid  rate.  Historical  records 
prove  that  it  has  taken  place  with  equal  or  greater  rapidity  dur- 
ing a  large  part  of  the  last  two  thousand  years  or  more.  The 
case  is  so  clear  that  the  chapters  on  China  form  perhaps  the  most 
important  section  of  this  book. 

Iceland  furnishes  another  equally  clear-cut  case.  The  condi- 
tions there,  however,  are  quite  different  from  those  of  China,  for 
in  that  cool  northern  island  the  main  selection  of  the  inhabitants 
took  place  once  for  all;  the  noteworthy  fact  is  the  extraordinary 
persistence  of  a  high  inheritance  when  once  it  had  been  segre- 
gated. The  outward  contrast  between  China  and  Iceland  is  so 
pronounced,  while  the  similarity  of  the  principles  involved  is  so 
great,  that  in  spite  of  the  scanty  population  it  has  seemed  worth 
while  to  treat  Iceland  almost  as  fully  as  China.   The  rest  of  the 


PREFACE 


ix 


book  is  devoted  to  an  attempt  to  apply  the  biological  principle 
of  natural  selection  to  man's  early  history  and  distribution,  and 
then  more  fully  to  specific  historical  instances.  The  number  of 
such  instances  is  so  large  and  their  intrinsic  interest  so  great  that 
it  has  been  no  easy  matter  to  choose  among  them. 

Three  peculiarities  of  this  book  perhaps  need  explanation. 
First,  natural  selection  is  constantly  emphasized,  while  other 
equally  important  factors  are  made  subordinate,  although  great 
care  is  taken  to  mention  them;  second,  only  a  few  of  the  hundreds 
of  fine  examples  afforded  by  history  are  here  treated;  and  third, 
much  space  is  devoted  to  a  somewhat  speculative  account  of  man's 
early  evolution  and  migrations. 

The  reason  for  all  three  pecuHarities  is  the  same:  One  cannot 
do  everything  in  a  single  book.  This  book  is  the  logical  com- 
panion of  Civilization  and  Climate.  Each  illustrates  a  great  prin- 
ciple which  has  generally  been  overlooked  in  the  study  of  history. 
Neither  pretends  to  be  complete,  for  where  a  new  subject  is  first 
presented  the  mere  limitations  of  space,  as  well  as  the  dictates  of 
psychology,  make  it  necessary  to  concentrate  upon  a  single  theme. 
For  a  complete,  well-rounded  view  of  history  one  must  combine 
these  two  books  with  many  others  which  discuss  such  matters  as 
geographic  location  and  natural  resources;  human  inventions, 
discoveries,  and  ideas;  the  influence  of  men  of  genius;  the  eco- 
nomic forces  that  bind  mankind  so  closely;  the  growth  and  pres- 
sure of  population;  and  the  interplay  of  war,  religion,  intrigue, 
and  human  ambition.  Some  day  the  progress  of  science  will 
give  us  a  scientific  history  in  which  all  these  factors,  as  well  as 
the  factors  of  climate  and  natural  selection,  are  co-ordinated  and 
given  due  weight.  As  a  help  toward  such  a  sketch,  it  has  seemed 
to  me  wise  to  show  how  the  principles  of  climatic  change  and 
natural  selection  probably  apply  to  the  earliest  human  develop- 
ment, as  well  as  to  outstanding  examples  from  later  periods.  It 
has  also  seemed  wise  to  concentrate  on  natural  selection  through 
physical  causes,  and  to  devote  to  other  factors  only  enough  space 
to  convince  the  reader  that  I  appreciate  their  great  importance 
in  modifying  human  character. 


X 


PREFACE 


In  this  book,  as  in  every  other  that  I  have  written,  I  owe 
much  to  a  group  of  kind  friends,  to  all  of  whom  I  here  tender 
most  hearty  thanks.  The  manuscript  has  been  read  and  criti- 
cised in  whole  or  in  part  by  my  colleagues  Professors  Irving 
Fisher,  Richard  S.  Lull,  and  George  G.  McCurdy;  by  Professor 
Griffith  Taylor,  of  Australia;  and  also  by  my  wife  and  by  Mr. 
R.  V.  Coleman,  of  the  Yale  University  Press.  Had  it  not  been 
for  Mr.  Coleman's  insistence  I  doubt  whether  this  book  would 
have  been  written.  Five  years  ago  he  persuaded  me  to  write  on 
a  topic  which  at  first  was  tentatively  expressed  as  The  Influence 
of  Climate  upon  Mankind  and  later  as  The  Effect  of  Physical 
Environment  upon  the  Origin  and  Modification  of  Racial  Char- 
acter. Professor  Frederick  W.  Williams,  of  Yale  University,  and 
Professor  Stephen  S.  Visher,  of  Indiana  University,  have  not  only 
read  the  manuscript  but  have  devoted  much  time  to  providing 
material  which  has  been  the  basis  of  long  sections  of  the  book. 

I  also  wish  gratefully  to  acknowledge  my  indebtedness  to  the 
following  publishers  and  authors  for  permission  to  quote  from 
their  books :  to  Stanislaus  Novakovsky,  for  use  of  a  passage  from 
his  unpublished  manuscript  on  ^'Hysteria  Artica'';  to  E.  P. 
Dutton  &  Company  and  E.  H.  Parker,  for  the  use  of  passages 
from  "China,  Her  History,  Diplomacy,  and  Commerce:  From  the 
Earliest  Times  to  the  Present  Day";  to  Harper  &  Brothers  and  Sir 
Philip  Gibbs,  for  the  use  of  passages  from  "Now  It  Can  Be  Told" 
and  "Adventures  in  Journalism";  to  Hurst  &  Blackett,  Ltd., 
and  Havelock  Ellis  for  the  use  of  a  passage  from  "A  Study  of 
British  Genius  " ;  to  Oxford  University  Press  for  the  use  of  passages 
from  "Studies  in  History  and  Jurisprudence,"  by  James  Bryce; 
to  Roland  B.  Dixon,  for  the  use  of  passages  from  "The  Racial 
History  of  Man";  to  William  McDougall  for  the  use  of  passages 
from  "Is  America  Safe  for  Democracy?"  to  Macmillan  &  Co., 
Ltd.,  of  London,  and  The  Macmillan  Company  of  New  York, 
for  the  use  of  passages  from  "Homer  and  History,"  by  Walter 
Leaf;  to  Yale  University  Press  for  the  use  of  a  passage  from 
the  preface;  by  Charles  M.  Andrews,  to  "The  Colonizing  Acti\i- 
ties  of  the  English  Puritans";  to  Columbia  Studies  and  Edwin 


PREFACE 


L.  Clarke  for  the  use  of  passages  from  "American  Men  of  Letters: 
Their  Nature  and  Nurture";  to  Columbia  Studies  and  Mabel  P. 
Lee  for  the  use  of  passages  from  "The  Economic  History  of 
China,  with  Special  Reference  to  Agriculture'';  to  F.  W.  Williams, 
for  the  use  of  passages  from  a  manuscript  entitled,  "A  History 
of  China";  to  S.  S.  Visher,  for  the  use  of  "A  Study  of  the  Type 
of  Place  of  Birth  and  Occupations  of  Fathers  of  Persons  in  Who's 
Who  in  America."  ^  tt 

SL),  £1, 

Yale  University, 
New  Haven,  Conn., 
August,  1924. 


CONTENTS 

PACK 

Preface   vii 

CEAFTSK 

I.   Racial  Character  and  Natural  Selection     .    .  i 

II.   First  Steps  in  Human  Character   20 

III.  The  Earliest  Great  Migrations   33 

IV.  Glaciation  and  the  Supremacy  of  Europe     .    .  47 
V.   The  Suppression  of  America   61 

VI.   The  Classification  of  Races                           .  73 

VII.   The  Anomalies  of  Aboriginal  America  ....  88 

VIII.   The  Asiatics  Who  Dwell  in  Tents   112 

IX.   Jews,  Armenians,  and  Turks   129 

X.   Cycles  of  Chinese  History   148 

XI.   North  versus  South  in  China   158 

XII.   The  Scourge  of  Famine   170 

XIII.  The  Selection  of  the  Chinese   184 

XIV.  The  Three  Great  Races  of  Europe      ....  205 
XV.   The  Character  of  Modern  Europe   220 

XVI.   The  Contrast  between  Greeks  and  Irish  .    .    .  236 

XVII.   The  Dispersal  of  the  Northmen   252 

xiii 


xiv  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGl 

XVIII.   Warlike  Normans  and  Peaceful  Icelanders     .  264 

XIX.   The  Persistence  of  a  Selected  Inheritance     .  277 

XX.   The  Direct  Effect  of  Environment  on  Character  286 

XXI.   The  Selection  of  Modern  Americans  ....  301 

XXII.   The  Racial  Tendencies  of  Civilization   ,    .    .  332 

XXIIL   A  Racial  Test  of  Cities,  Democracy,  and  Feminism  346 

List  of  References   374 

Index   379 


.A 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

The  Pressure  Zone  between  Glaciation  and  Deserts    Facing  page  48 

Generalized  Zones  of  Primitive  Migrations  ...       "  "76 

Head-form  and  Routes  of  Migration  in  Europe  .    .       a  a 

Maps  Showing  the  Correlation  of  Cultural  Conditions  with  the 
Cephalic  Index  Facing  page  80 

Birthplaces  of  High  Officials  in  China     ....       "       "  162 

Percentage  of  Scientists  among  Eminent  Europeans 

Between  pages  222  and  223 

Percentage  of  Eminent  Europeans  Engaged  in  Religious,  Educa- 
tional, and  Philosophical  Work     .    .    Between  pages  222  and  223 

Percentage  of  Eminent  Europeans  Engaged  in  Art  and  Literature 

Between  pages  222  and  223 

Percentage  of  Historians  among  Eminent  Europeans 

Between  pages  222  and  223 

Percentage  of  Eminent  Europeans  Engaged  in  War  and  Politics 

Between  pages  230  and  231 

Distribution  of  Civilization  in  Europe    .        "        "  " 

Eminent  Europeans  Born  since  1600  A.  D.  per  10,000  of  Estimated 
Population  in  1800  A.  D  Between  pages  230  and  231 

Distribution  of  Health  in  Europe      .    .        "        "  " 

Distribution  of  Chmatic  Energy  in  Europe  .     .     .    Facing  page  232 

Approximate  Variations  of  Rainfall  in  California  during  the  Chris- 
tian Era  Facing  page  232 

Deaths  of  Men  Compared  with  Women  at  Various  Ages  in  Ice- 
land, Norway,  and  Switzerland,  1876-1915   .    ♦    Facing  page  314 


xvi 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


FIG. 

17.  Persons  in  Who^s  Who  (1922-1923)  Born  in  Each  State  per 

1,000,000  of  Mean  White  Population  1 850-1 880,  Giving 
Double  Weight  to  i860  and  1870  Facing  page  314 

18.  Residents  Included  in  Who's  Who  (1922-1923)  per  1,000,000 

Population  in  1923  Facing  page  316 

19.  Increase  (or  decrease)  (1912  to  1922)  in  Proportion  of  Eminent 

Persons  Born  per  100,000  of  Population  .    .    .    Facing  page  316 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


CHAPTER  I 
RACIAL  CHARACTER  AND  NATURAL  SELECTION 

A  CENTURY  or  two  ago  it  was  widely  held  that  all  races  and 
even  all  individuals  are  equally  endowed  by  nature.  Physically 
there  might  indeed  be  enormous  diversity,  but  differences  in 
character  and  mentality  were  supposed  to  be  due  entirely  to 
training.  Then  there  arose  a  school  of  thinkers  who  violently 
combated  this  idea.  They  wrote  books  like  The  Inequality  of 
Races,  by  Gobineau,*  in  order  to  convince  the  world  that  men- 
tally as  well  as  physically  one  race  actually  differs  from  another. 
The  theory  of  evolution  reinforced  their  conclusions;  according 
to  that  theory  it  is  almost  inevitable  not  only  that  different  races 
should  be  in  different  stages  of  mental  as  well  as  physical  devel- 
opment, but  that  they  should  develop  along  different  and  diver- 
gent lines.  Then  came  Mendel  with  his  explanation  of  the 
mechanism  by  which  individual  traits  are  passed  from  parent  to 
child,  and  Galton  with  his  insistence  on  the  importance  of  hered- 
ity. At  last  the  idea  of  racial  differences  became  so  firmly  estab- 
Hshed  that  a  leading  scientist  could  say:  "Race  has  played  a  far 
larger  part  than  either  language  or  nationality  in  moulding  the 
destinies  of  man."  (Osborn,  in  The  Passing  of  the  Great  Race,  by 
Madison  Grant.) 

Then  the  problem  of  race  left  the  realm  of  scientific  discussion 
and  flared  up  as  an  idea  belonging  to  the  people  as  a  whole.  In 
our  own  day  scores  of  writers  have  declared  or  implied  that  racial 
inheritance  is  the  most  potent  of  all  forces.  It,  and  it  alone,  we 
are  sometimes  told,  has  determined  the  rise  and  fall  of  nations. 
It  is  even  asserted  that  no  great  and  permanent  advance  in  civ- 

*  See  list  of  references  preceding  the  index. 
1 


2 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


ilization  has  ever  been  made  except  under  the  leadership  of  one 
limited  race,  the  Nordics.  To-day  the  world  is  vibrating  with 
racial  questions.  The  various  races,  or  at  least  the  people  who 
suppose  that  they  belong  to  various  races,  are  beginning  to  look 
askance  at  one  another  as  never  before.  There  is  a  fierce  cry  for 
the  rights  of  racial  minorities;  there  are  rumors  that  great  and 
devastating  racial  wars  are  brewing  for  the  next  generation.  If 
open  war  is  not  threatened,  there  is  even  greater  danger  that  the 
highest  racial  values  will  be  irrevocably  swamped  by  those  of 
lower  caliber. 

The  modernness  of  this  whole  idea  of  the  importance  of  race 
is  well  brought  out  by  Lord  Bryce  in  his  lecture  on  Race  Senti- 
ment as  a  Factor  in  History.  From  a  review  of  history  he  con- 
cludes that  the  mere  consciousness  of  racial  affinity  has  had  al- 
most no  effect  upon  the  contact  of  nation  with  nation.  The 
Greeks,  to  be  sure,  differentiated  sharply  between  themselves 
and  the  barbarians.  Their  cities  fought  side  by  side  in  an  effort 
to  stay  the  advance  of  the  Persians,  and  seem  to  have  done  this 
largely  because  the  enemy  was  of  an  alien  race.  But  the  Greeks 
also  fought  fiercely  against  one  another,  and  thereby  contributed 
greatly  to  their  own  decay.  The  Phoenicians  likewise  had  a 
strong  racial  feeling  which  caused  them  to  inform  the  Persian 
kings  that  while  they  were  willing  to  fight  their  maritime  rivals, 
the  Greeks,  they  would  not  serve  against  their  kinsmen  of  Car- 
thage. But  perhaps  it  was  mere  community  of  language,  or  the 
exigencies  of  commerce,  which  held  the  Phoenicians  and  their 
colonies  together.  In  the  same  way,  but  more  markedly,  the 
ancient  Jews  showed  an  almost  unequalled  racial  solidarity. 
Nevertheless,  the  Israelites  not  only  intermarried  with  neighbor- 
ing Egyptians,  Phihstines,  and  Hittites,  but  adopted  their  gods. 
The  various  tribes  of  ancient  Israel  never  thought  of  helping  one 
another  against  the  Syrian  invaders.  To-day  religion  is  prob- 
ably more  potent  than  race  in  preserving  Jewish  unity. 

Aside  from  the  Greeks,  Phoenicians,  and  Jews,  Bryce  finds  no 
case  previous  to  the  last  century  where  people  have  waged  war 
or  refrained  from  waging  war  because  of  racial  motives.    He  may 


RACIAL  CHARACTER  AND  NATURAL  SELECTION  3 


have  overlooked  an  agelong  antipathy  between  the  Iranian  Per- 
sians and  the  Turanian  Tartars,  and  likewise  between  Persians 
and  Semites,  and  Semites  and  Tartars.  These  aversions  appear 
in  both  ancient  and  modern  history  and  appear  to  be  neither 
religious  nor  geographic.  Nevertheless,  Bryce  is  not  greatly  in 
error  when  he  says  that  people  have  fought  for  plunder,  for  land, 
for  conquest,  for  religion,  for  commercial  supremacy,  but  practi- 
cally never  because  of  racial  unity  or  racial  antipathy.  Yet  in 
our  own  day  this  motive  is  appealed  to  again  and  again.  It  did 
not,  to  be  sure,  prevent  England  from  siding  against  the  Ger- 
mans in  1 9 14,  even  though  both  nations  suppose  that  they  are 
more  closely  akin  to  one  another  than  to  the  French.  Never- 
theless, the  consciousness  of  racial  kinships  is  abroad  in  the  earth. 
It  expresses  itself  in  the  so-called  principle  of  nationality.  In 
the  last  century  this  inspired  Greeks,  Italians,  Poles,  and  Mag- 
yars to  strive  for  political  independence.  Later  it  aroused  Serbs, 
Roumans,  Bulgars,  and  Armenians.  In  our  day  a  wave  of  racial 
feeling  has  swept  India,  Egypt,  and  many  other  lands.  As 
Bryce  puts  it,  '^Race  consciousness  sprang  into  life  and  became 
i  the  core  of  Nationality."  That  this  racial  consciousness  is  fast 
pervading  the  world  can  scarcely  be  questioned.  According  to 
Glutton-Brock's  illuminating  suggestion  in  The  Atlantic  Monthly ^ 
many  a  man  who  knows  that  in  his  own  self  he  has  no  special 
superiority  over  his  fellows  takes  refuge  in  the  thought  that  he 
belongs  to  a  superior  race.  Thus  the  most  incompetent  Anglo- 
Saxon  often  looks  down  upon  the  most  competent  ItaHan,  be- 
cause the  Italian  belongs  to  the  ''Dago''  race,  or  upon  the  great- 
est of  Chinese  savants  because  the  wise  man's  skin  is  yellow  and 
his  eyes  aslant. 

Whether  the  present  conception  of  racial  differences  is  right  or 
wrong,  it  seems  destined  to  play  a  great  part  in  the  history  of 
the  next  few  generations,  for  it  has  become  embedded  in  the 
world's  equipment  of  ideas.  If  once  a  certain  tenet  is  accepted 
by  the  mass  of  the  people  its  verity  or  falsity  makes  little  differ- 
ence in  its  potency,  as  Le  Bon  well  shows  in  his  Psychology  of 
Peoples.    The  mere  fact  that  an  idea  has  become  the  common 


4  THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 

property  of  the  masses  as  well  as  of  the  leaders  means  that  it 
cannot  be  eradicated  for  a  long  time.  A  new,  and  let  us  hope  a 
truer,  idea  must  first  grow  up  in  the  minds  of  original  thinkers, 
then  it  must  spread  among  serious  students.  Next  it  must  be 
popularized  among  the  intelligent  classes,  and  only  then  can  it 
replace  the  old  idea  as  the  heritage  of  the  whole  people  and  be  a 
main  determinant  of  history. 

If  racial  consciousness  is  playing  and  is  likely  to  play  so  great 
a  part  in  the  world's  progress,  it  is  of  the  first  importance  to 
understand  what  racial  character  is,  and  how  that  character  has 
come  into  existence.  Is  racial  character  something  inherent,  as 
Bryce  seems  to  imply  when  he  says,  After  all,  it  is  the  natural 
racial  divisions  rather  than  political  divisions  that  count  every- 
where outside  western  Europe"  ?  (Letter  in  Huntington's  Civili- 
zation and  Climate.)  Or  is  it  the  result  of  environment,  as  the 
same  author  suggests  when  he  says  in  his  lecture  on  Race  Sen- 
timent: "The  importance  of  what  may  be  called  the  racial 
constituent  in  national  character  has  been  much  exaggerated. 
Something  is  due  to  it,  but  much  more  is  due  to  the  conditions, 
physical  and  economic  and  social,  under  which  the  nation  has 
been  developed.  In  the  thought  and  imagination  of  every  civ- 
iHzed  people  there  is  an  unquestionable  racial  strain.  But  the 
habit  of  referring  to  this  cause,  practical  aptitudes,  such  as  the 
merits  or  defects  visible  in  a  nation's  political  life,  has  been 
pushed  much  too  far." 

But  what  is  a  race?  Almost  every  intelligent  person  has 
some  idea  of  five  major  races.  They  are  variously  described  as: 
(i)  white,  Caucasian,  or  European;  (2)  yellow,  MongoHan,  or 
Asiatic;  (3)  red,  Amerind,  or  American;  (4)  brown,  or  Malay;  (5) 
black,  Negro,  or  African.  A  glance  at  the  faces  of  the  people  in 
any  cosmopolitan  city  discloses  many  of  the  criteria  on  which 
this  grouping  of  races  is  based.  But  it  should  be  noted  that  in 
every  case  one  or  more  geographical  designations  accompany  the 
designation  based  on  complexion.  It  has  long  been  recognized, 
however,  that  other  means  of  classification  may  be  quite  as  im- 
portant as  those  based  on  complexion  and  geographical  location. 


RACIAL  CHARACTER  AND  NATURAL  SELECTION  5 


The  white  race  of  Europe  is  now  commonly  divided  into  three 
main  types  in  which  the  form  of  the  head,  the  stature,  and  the 
type  of  hair  as  well  as  the  complexion  are  important  criteria. 
The  Nordics,  as  is  now  generally  agreed,  are  a  long-headed,  tall, 
blue-eyed,  fair-haired  people,  generally  with  curly  or  wavy  hair. 
The  Alpines,  who  predominate  in  the  east  and  center  of  the  con- 
tinent, are  broad-headed,  of  medium  height,  and  more  stocky 
than  the  Nordics.  They  are  typically  brown-eyed  and  brown- 
haired,  and  generally  their  hair  is  either  straight  or  only  slightly 
wavy.  The  Mediterraneans,  who  dwell  largely  in  the  south  and 
southeast,  are  long-headed  like  the  Nordics,  but  short  of  stature, 
black-eyed,  and  with  straight  black  hair.  Each  of  the  three 
races  is  best  developed  in  certain  areas,  although  there  is  a 
vast  amount  of  overlapping  and  intermixture. 

Sometimes  the  division  of  mankind  into  races  goes  still  far- 
ther and  is  based  on  still  other  criteria.  Although  the  Aryan  or 
Indo-European  race  is  not  really  a  race  but  a  group  of  people 
speaking  kindred  languages,  it  occupies  an  extraordinarily  large 
place  in  history  and  literature.  Again,  we  often  ascribe  certain 
characteristics  to  the  French  as  a  whole  or  to  the  French  of  Pro- 
vence, for  example,  and  say  that  this  is  because  the  French  are 
Latins  by  race.  It  is  sometimes  said  that  the  people  of  the 
Faroe  Islands  are  a  race  of  hardy  fishermen.  The  Turks  are 
called  a  race  of  Turanian  invaders  despite  the  fact  that  Greek, 
Armenian,  and  other  blood  is  probably  as  abundant  among  them 
as  is  that  of  the  original  Turkish  stock,  the  Turkomans  of  central 
Asia.  Evidently  the  word  race  is  used  in  very  various  senses. 
It  would  be  better  to  use  the  word  stock  instead  of  race  if  only 
it  had  an  adjective  corresponding  to  "racial.''  In  the  preceding 
paragraphs  the  criteria  by  which  one  race  or  stock  is  separated 
from  another  fall  into  three  groups:  first,  inherited  bodily  char- 
acteristics, including  the  form  of  the  head,  stature,  complexion, 
and  the  character  of  the  hair;  second,  geographical  conditions, 
including  position  on  the  earth's  surface  and  occupation;  and 
third,  cultural  conditions,  such  as  language  in  the  case  of  the 
Indo-Aryans  and  Latins,  and  religion  in  the  case  of  the  Turks. 


6 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


Government  might  also  be  added,  because  there  is  a  tendency  to 
consider  the  people  who  live  under  a  single  government  as  alHed 
in  race.  Yet  after  all  is  not  mental  and  moral  character  more 
important  than  any  other  factor  in  differentiating  race  from 
race?  One  race  holds  aloof  from  another  largely  because  each 
one,  rightly  or  wrongly,  believes  that  the  other  is  somehow  in- 
ferior or  perhaps  superior;  and  these  terms  generally  mean  of 
less  or  greater  mental  ability  and  energy.  These  mental  differ- 
ences are  what  we  want  to  study. 

In  the  strictest  sense  of  the  word,  races  should  be  defined  only 
in  terms  of  heredity.  But  certain  geographical  factors,  such  as 
climate,  food,  and  occupations,  have  a  distinct  effect  in  changing 
racial  characteristics.  They  cause  people  to  grow  up  with  cer- 
tain habits;  they  also  select  certain  types  for  preservation  and 
eliminate  others.  Thus  the  fishing  industry  tends  to  eliminate 
people  of  a  timid  disposition.  Such  people  may  succeed  as  farm- 
ers, but  not  on  the  sea.  Hence,  in  course  of  time,  perhaps  a  very 
long  time,  each  environment  and  each  occupation  tends  to  make 
its  people  slightly  different  from  those  in  other  environments  and 
other  occupations.  Moreover,  social  conditions  such  as  religion, 
language,  government,  education,  and  local  customs  have  a  great 
deal  to  do  with  determining  a  people's  character.  They  play  a 
part  not  only  in  controlling  the  training  of  children  and  youth, 
but  in  determining  what  types  of  people  shall  intermarry,  what 
types  shall  have  large  famihes,  and  what  types  shall  die  out. 
Thus  physical  and  social  conditions  may  have  a  great  effect  upon 
human  character  both  directly  and  through  inheritance.  Hence 
the  character  of  specific  groups  of  mankind  depends  on  inheri- 
tance, physical  environment,  and  social  environment.  Our  task 
is  to  attempt  to  show  how  far  these  two  types  of  environment 
select  certain  kinds  of  character  for  preservation  or  destruction 
and  thus  cause  certain  mental  characteristics  to  become  a  per- 
manent part  of  the  racial  inheritance. 

From  the  biological  standpoint  we  are  quite  certain  that  the 
inherent  mental  and  physical  differences  between  one  race  or 
stock  and  another  are  largely  due  to  three  chief  causes:  first, 
sudden  mutations,  or  possibly  small  but  progressive  deviations 


RACIAL  CHARACTER  AND  NATURAL  SELECTION  7 


from  the  standard  type  in  a  definite  direction;  second,  racial 
mixture;  and  third,  natural  selection.  No  clear  understanding 
of  mutations  and  deviations  has  yet  been  attained.  We  merely 
know  that  they  occur.  Not  only  does  brother  differ  from  brother 
and  sister  from  sister  for  no  assignable  reason,  but  sometimes 
certain  groups  of  plants  and  animals,  and  presumably  of  men, 
show  persistent  new  traits  which  apparently  tend  in  a  definite 
direction.  As  to  how  or  why  such  mutations  or  deviations  occur 
we  have  as  yet  no  definite  knowledge.  On  the  other  hand,  we 
know  a  great  deal  about  natural  selection  and  racial  mixture,  for 
we  can  see  them  in  operation.  They  are  the  two  great  processes 
to  which  we  can  thus  far  appeal  for  an  explanation  of  the  innate 
differences  which  distinguish  species  from  species  and  race  from 
race.  Hence  this  book  is  an  attempt  to  investigate  the  inter- 
relations between  migration,  racial  mixture,  and  natural  selec- 
tion. The  purpose  is  to  discover,  if  possible,  how  these  three 
processes  co-operate  with  mutations  or  deviations  in  giving  rise 
to  the  character  of  races  or  of  racial  stocks.  A  parable  and  an 
example  will  make  the  matter  clear. 

Here  is  the  parable:  Now  it  came  to  pass  that  in  a  certain 
land  there  dwelt  a  farmer.  His  lands  were  narrow  and  his  chil- 
dren many.  When  his  sons  began  to  take  wives  unto  themselves, 
they  were  hard  pressed  to  obtain  food  and  raiment.  So  they 
consulted  together  and  said:  *^What  shall  we  do  that  we  may 
live  and  find  comfort?'^ 

Pioneer  was  the  eldest  son  and  he  was  the  first  to  speak.  "  I 
love  to  travel,''  quoth  he,  "and  fain  would  have  adventures  in 
those  far  lands  which  God  has  made  in  such  strange  fashion. 
Men  say  that  twenty  days'  hard  journey  beyond  the  mountains 
there  is  much  good  land.  No  people  dwell  there,  or  if  there  be 
any  they  are  monstrous  strange  and  wild.  Thither  will  I  go  and 
have  adventures  and  make  a  home  for  myself." 

And  his  wife  said:  "Yea,  that  is  good,  I  will  go  with  you, 
even  though  my  woman's  heart  misgiveth  me.  But  I  am  strong 
of  body,  and  we  are  set  on  high  adventure.  Our  children  shall 
not  be  slaves  of  poverty  as  we  have  been." 

Then  Cityman,  the  second  son,  began  to  speak.    "Why  play 


8 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


the  fool  and  stick  your  neck  within  the  noose  of  a  land  where  all 
is  uncertainty  and  danger?  Is  not  the  city  a  better  place  for 
him  that  would  get  much  from  life  ?  Thither  will  I  go  and  amass 
great  wealth,  and  there  shall  I  live  in  luxury.  Always  m}^  wife 
demandeth  silks,  satins,  fine  jewels,  and  costly  furniture.  She 
would  see  theaters  and  great  people,  and  she  wearieth  my  ears 
with  her  cackle  of  princes  and  great  dames,  and  dances  and  din- 
ners. To  the  city  will  I  go  and  fill  her  with  that  for  which  her 
soul  doth  crave." 

Now  the  third  son  was  slow  and  timid,  and  was  espoused  to 
a  maid  who  loved  the  kine  and  the  pigs  and  the  making  of  golden 
butter.  To  him  and  to  her  there  was  no  sound  so  sweet  as  the 
clucking  of  a  hen  who  findeth  a  paltry  worm  for  her  chicks. 
When  Plowman,  for  that  was  his  name,  had  talked  well  with  his 
betrothed,  he  came  to  his  father  and  said:  "The  maid  and  I  have 
no  love  for  new  lands,  nor  yet  for  cities.  It  is  enough  for  us  that 
we  go  once  a  month  to  market.  We  would  stay  here  with  you, 
and  keep  this  good  old  home  of  ours.  Let  my  brothers  go,  and 
I  will  buy  their  inheritance." 

There  was  still  a  fourth  son  of  that  father,  and  Seeker-for- 
Truth  was  his  name.  He  was  a  quiet,  studious  lad,  brave  yet 
shy.  His  mother  cherished  him  because  he  understood  more 
quickly  than  his  brothers  and  could  be  trusted  farther.  "Stay 
here,  my  son,"  she  said.  "Our  hearts  have  need  of  you."  But 
sadly  he  answered:  "Nay,  I  have  read  all  books  that  here  are 
found,  and  have  become  the  School  Master's  master.  Yet  have 
I  only  set  lip  to  the  goblet  of  knowledge.  Deep  must  I  drink. 
Then  must  I  find  the  fountain  whence  my  draft  was  drawn;  from 
its  depths  I  must  raise  new  truth  to  fill  the  goblet  for  them  that 
follow  me  athirst.  I  must  fare  forth  alone,  to  farther,  stranger 
realms  than  any  that  men  yet  have  seen  save  in  their  dreams." 

And  it  came  to  pass  as  each  one  had  said.  Beyond  the 
mountains  in  a  land  of  plenty  lay  the  new-made  home  of  Pioneer. 
And  other  pioneers  settled  around  him,  and  they  had  many  sons 
and  daughters.  Some  of  the  sons  and  daughters  inherited  a 
richer  dower  than  others,  for  they  had  double  measure  of  that 


RACIAL  CHARACTER  AND  NATURAL  SELECTION  9 


high  spirit  which  brought  their  brave  fathers  and  braver  mothers 
out  to  the  wilderness.  These  in  their  turn  pressed  onward  to 
new  lands,  and  when  their  children  were  of  age,  the  pioneers 
among  a  race  of  pioneers  moved  on  once  more.  Thus  the  far- 
thest of  the  good  lands  beyond  the  mountains  were  peopled  by  a 
new  race — a  race  in  which  the  spirit  of  achievement  was  bred  in 
the  bone.  In  their  very  blood  ran  the  thirst  for  adventure  and 
progress,  and  they  became  the  greatest  nation  of  their  time. 

With  Cityman  it  fared  far  differently.  He  helped  to  build  a 
city  full  of  wonderment,  but  "Eat,  drink,  and  be  merry''  was 
the  watchword  of  his  house.  Few  were  his  children:  they  were 
trained  in  luxury;  and  they  espoused  the  sons  and  daughters  of 
other  city  m^en  brought  up  in  equal  selfishness.  Had  they  and 
their  children  and  their  children's  children  been  left  alone  for  a 
score  of  generations  that  city  would  have  perished  from  the  face 
of  the  earth,  for  the  vigor  of  its  sons  and  daughters  faded  away. 
The  city  lived  only  because  new  people  came  from  the  old  homes 
on  the  farms. 

But  Plowman's  life  was  of  another  kind.  Poor  he  was,  in- 
deed, and  ignorant.  Not  even  that  which  would  have  brought 
him  wealth  seemed  in  his  eyes  desirable  if  it  demanded  aught  that 
was  new  in  thought  or  deed.  "Nay,"  said  his  wife  who  loved 
the  clucking  hens,  "why  change?  We  know  the  old  and  we  can 
meet  it,  but  we  neither  know  nor  want  that  which  is  new."  For 
"Nay"  was  ever  the  word  that  she  loved.  Now  Plowman  and 
his  wife  had  sons  and  daughters.  So  too  did  the  neighboring 
plowmen  and  their  wives.  And  if  by  chance  among  their  chil- 
dren or  grandchildren  unto  the  twentieth  generation  there  arose 
a  pioneer,  a  city  man,  or  a  seeker  for  truth,  that  son  or  daugh- 
ter fared  forth  to  other  lands,  until  at  last  the  plowmen  were  all 
plowmen. 

Worst  was  the  fate  of  Seeker-for-Truth.  A  score  of  years  he 
wandered  with  never  a  thought  of  home.  At  length  he  found 
another  seeker  and  her  he  wed,  but  she  had  long  been  wandering 
and  her  youth  was  gone.  Two  sons  she  bore  him,  but  there 
were  no  other  seekers  in  those  parts.    So  one  of  those  two  sons 


10 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


went  to  his  death  unmated.  The  other  wed  a  pioneer,  but  with 
their  son  that  race  of  seekers  ended,  and  its  genius  was  forever 
lost. 

This  is  the  parable  of  the  farmer  and  his  sons.  It  is  also  the 
parable  of  history — the  parable  of  races.  Let  us  put  the  parable 
into  the  language  of  history  and  see  its  interpretation.  We  shall 
begin  with  an  example  which  illustrates  the  main  principles  as 
they  apply  to  pioneers.  Examples  of  the  other  types  will  come 
later.  The  details  of  the  present  example  are  only  dimly  known, 
but  the  general  outlines  are  unmistakable.  I  insert  it  here  not 
as  something  well  proved,  but  as  an  interesting  example  which 
follows  out  the  spirit  of  our  parable — some  day  this  same  example 
may  be  rewritten  with  far  more  detail  and  exactness.  In  later 
chapters  we  shall  cite  many  other  examples  less  picturesque, 
perhaps,  but  well-known  even  in  their  minute  details. 

One  of  the  world's  most  famous  ruins  is  Angkor  Wat.  In  the 
dense  forests  of  Cambodia  in  French  Indo-China,  some  two  hun- 
dred miles  northwest  of  Saigon,  scores  of  wonderful  ruins  stand 
near  a  desolate  lake  embowered  in  tropical  vegetation.  Once 
Angkor  Wat  and  its  neighbors  must  have  been  great  cities  of 
marvelous  beauty.  To-day  the  ruined  temples  excite  the  pro- 
found admiration  of  every  thoughtful  visitor.  The  numerous 
huge  structures  with  their  lofty  walls,  carefully  carved  statues, 
and  vast  size  indicate  that  they  were  built  by  a  people  not  only 
of  great  patience  and  industry,  but  of  high  artistic  capacity  and 
real  originality.  No  ordinary  minds  could  plan  such  great  and 
compHcated  buildings.  Nor  could  any  one  man  have  designed 
all  parts  of  each  of  the  greater  structures,  with  their  innumer- 
able groups  of  figures  carved  in  high  relief.  One  scene  alone 
contains  a  thousand  figures  of  warriors,  charioteers,  and  all  the 
actors  in  a  mighty  battle.  The  builders  must  have  had  in  their 
midst  many  men  of  high  artistic  genius.  They  must  have  been 
assisted  by  many  others  who  were  skilled  in  the  arts  of  quarry- 
ing and  transporting  stone,  of  carving  it  true  to  the  line,  and  of 
planning  the  work  of  thousands  of  laborers.  Likewise  they  must 
have  had  at  their  command  large  numbers  of  people  who  could 


RACIAL  CHARACTER  AND  NATURAL  SELECTION  11 


be  supported  by  the  work  of  others  while  they  labored  year  after 
year  on  the  temples  and  palaces.  In  other  words,  the  builders 
of  Angkor  Wat,  Angkor  Tom,  and  the  other  ancient  temples  must 
have  been  a  people  among  whom  there  were  at  least  a  few  great 
geniuses  and  many  men  of  much  more  than  the  average  ability 
and  energy. 

One  of  the  strange  facts  about  the  art  of  Cambodia  is  that  it 
begins  suddenly  without  precursors  and  comes  to  an  end  with 
almost  equal  suddenness.  In  Central  America,  where  the  ruins 
left  by  the  Mayas  have  many  qualities  like  those  of  the  Cambo- 
dian ruins,  one  finds  a  long  series  of  earlier  structures  gradually 
leading  up  to  the  most  beautiful  of  those  that  now  persist.  In 
Cambodia  the  most  beautiful  ruin  is  the  oldest.  It  is  a  small 
temple  of  surpassing  deHcacy  and  great  originality,  and  was 
probably  built  in  the  seventh  or  eighth  century  after  Christ. 
Older  ruins  may  perhaps  be  discovered  when  the  damp  recesses 
of  the  dense  forest  are  finally  explored,  but  at  present  one  must 
go  fifteen  hundred  miles  to  India  to  find  a  type  of  art  like  that 
of  Cambodia.  But  even  there  one  does  not  find  the  direct  pred- 
ecessors of  the  Cambodian  ruins,  for  Angkor  and  its  neighbors 
are  unique  in  many  respects.  The  builders  evidently  derived  the 
foundations  of  their  knowledge  from  India,  but  they  evolved  new 
ideas  and  a  new  type  of  art  which  are  distinctly  their  own. 

For  four  centuries  or  more  they  built  according  to  this  new 
style.  Generation  by  generation  the  size  of  the  buildings  in- 
creased, but  true  beauty  and  dehcacy  declined  and  originality 
diminished.  In  Cambodia,  as  in  modern  China,  the  later  ruins 
tend  toward  a  grandiose  and  highly  ornate  style  less  beautiful 
than  the  original  delicate  simplicity.  Yet  even  the  latest  ruins 
inspire  profound  admiration  not  only  by  their  size  but  by  their 
genuine  beauty.  Only  men  of  high  ability  could  have  planned 
and  executed  them. 

Before  the  last  temple  was  finished  some  catastrophe,  or  per- 
chance merely  a  little  revolution  or  the  death  of  a  great  leader  or 
architect,  put  an  end  to  the  work  at  Angkor  Wat,  so  that  the  last 
of  the  main  temples  was  left  unfinished.    Thus  the  great  artistic 


12 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


age  of  Cambodia  came  to  an  end  after  enduring  about  four  hun- 
dred years.  Only  in  a  few  rare  instances  does  one  find  so  sud- 
den an  outburst  of  art,  or  one  which  rises  so  promptly  to  such 
brilliancy  and  ends  so  abruptly  without  leaving  any  real  succes- 
sors either  in  its  own  region  or  elsewhere,  so  far  as  we  are  aware. 

Little  by  little  the  outlines  of  the  history  of  Cambodia  are 
taking  form.  Its  builders  were  the  Khmers,  a  part  of  the  Brah- 
man race,  those  Children  of  the  Sun  who  appear  to  have  been 
the  last  main  body  of  invaders  to  pour  into  India  before  the 
Christian  era.  According  to  an  unverified  tradition,  during  the 
fourth  century  before  Christ  a  certain  prince  of  Delhi  strove  to 
make  his  father  divide  the  kingdom  with  him.  Failing  that,  he 
moved  eastward  with  a  great  band  of  followers.  This  band,  it  is 
said,  became  the  ancestors  of  the  Khmers,  who  finally  reached 
Cambodia.  How  true  this  story  is  we  do  not  know,  but  this 
much  we  may  accept  with  considerable  certainty:  The  Brahmans 
came  from  somewhere  in  central  Asia,  migrating  down  into 
India  across  the  western  end  of  the  great  mass  of  central  moun- 
tains or  through  the  deserts  of  Afghanistan  and  its  neighbors. 
Such  a  migration,  as  we  shall  presently  see,  is  a  strenuous  process 
and  involves  great  natural  selection.  If  the  men  migrate  alone 
there  is  almost  invariably  much  fighting  as  they  press  into  new 
regions.  The  most  inefficient,  cowardly,  and  dull  are  left  at 
home  or  soon  fall  by  the  way.  As  the  migrants  press  farther 
into  new  lands,  the  ones  who  are  less  brave,  less  resourceful,  and 
less  vigorous  are  killed  in  battle  or  die  of  disease.  Thus  such  a 
migration  weakens  the  community  from  which  it  starts,  but  pro- 
duces at  the  end  a  small  body  of  highly  picked  and  very  compe- 
tent people,  the  cream  of  the  group  from  which  it  fared  forth. 

If  the  whole  community  migrates — men,  women,  and  children 
— as  appears  to  have  happened  in  most  of  the  ancient  migrations 
and  presumably  in  the  case  of  the  Brahmans,  the  process  of  selec- 
tion takes  place  even  more  intensely.  Imagine  what  it  is  like 
for  women  with  little  children  to  move  with  their  husbands  into 
new  and  perhaps  hostile  lands  across  mountains,  rivers,  and  des- 
erts; in  summer  or  winter;  in  storm  and  flood;  and  at  any  and 


RACIAL  CHARACTER  AND  NATURAL  SELECTION  13 


every  period  of  their  lives  regardless  of  whether  they  are  fit  or 
not.  Under  such  circumstances  the  death-rate  almost  invari- 
ably becomes  enormous:  only  the  most  vigorous  and  intelligent 
mothers  can  survive,  only  those  who  have  the  most  endurance, 
initiative,  and  spirit  of  adventure;  and  among  the  children  only 
those  who  are  exceptionally  bright,  vigorous,  and  attractive.  As 
a  rule  the  personal  attractiveness  of  the  child,  which  is  merely 
another  name  for  its  degree  of  mental  alertness  and  physical  per- 
fection, counts  greatly;  for  the  attractive  child  is  carried  by  the 
adults  when  it  is  tired,  fed  when  it  is  hungry,  given  the  best  place 
to  sleep,  and  in  almost  every  way  given  advantages  and  chances 
for  preservation  which  are  denied  to  the  stupid,  crying,  unattrac- 
tive child.  And  the  same  is  true  of  the  women,  for  those  who 
are  most  attractive,  which  in  general  means  those  who  are  not 
only  most  perfect  physically  but  most  alert  mentally,  are  the 
ones  whom  the  men  are  most  willing  to  help;  and  they  are  like- 
wise the  ones  who  do  not  give  up  and  die  or  fall  by  the  wayside 
and  allow  themselves  to  become  the  captives  of  the  enemy. 
Thus  a  hard  migration  of  a  whole  community  means  that  the 
process  of  natural  selection  is  at  work  with  great  vigor  to  weed 
out  all  who  are  weak  and  to  preserve  a  remnant  who  are  espe- 
cially capable.  Among  the  Brahmans  we  have  no  record  of  this, 
but  in  later  periods  we  shall  see  the  intimate  details  of  the  selec- 
tion which  is  even  now  altering  the  character  of  races. 

It  was  presumably  due  in  considerable  measure  to  this  strin- 
gent process  of  natural  selection  that  the  Brahmans  who  reached 
India  were  able  to  conquer  the  earlier  inhabitants  and  impose 
themselves  as  a  ruling  class  which  later  became  a  caste.  To 
this  may  also  have  been  due  much  of  the  unusual  genius  which 
enabled  the  people  of  India  to  evolve  two  new  religions.  Bud- 
dhism and  Hinduism,  to  frame  a  new  social  system,  to  devise 
a  noteworthy  type  of  art  and  architecture,  and  to  write  a  series 
of  great  poems  which  cause  Sanskrit  literature  to  rank  among 
the  greatest  of  those  developed  among  primitive  people. 

The  Khmers  appear  to  have  been  an  offshoot  of  these  compe- 
tent Brahmans  in  the  days  when  the  original  ability  of  that  peo- 


14 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


pie  was  still  active.  By  what  route  the  Khmers  travelled,  just 
when  they  left  the  old  home  in  northern  India,  how  many  differ- 
ent waves  of  migration  there  were,  and  how  many  generations 
or  centuries  each  set  of  migrants  spent  upon  the  road  we  do  not 
know.  Nor  do  we  know  the  causes  of  the  migration,  the  peoples 
with  whom  the  migrants  fought,  and  the  number  of  migrants 
who  were  killed  by  the  hard  conditions  of  their  journeyings. 
But  we  do  know  that  they  must  have  travelled  at  least  two 
thousand  five  hundred  miles,  and  that  in  their  journey  they 
must  have  encountered  enormous  physical  difficulties.  More- 
over, unless  they  came  by  sea,  which  is  highly  improbable  in 
view  of  the  inland  location  of  the  ruins,  they  must  have  passed 
through  many  regions  that  seem  to  our  eyes  more  favorable  for 
settlement  than  the  place  where  they  finally  came  to  rest.  First 
their  way  led  across  the  fertile  plains  of  the  Ganges  for  eight 
hundred  or  perhaps  a  thousand  miles.  On  their  way  they  must 
have  encountered  many  inhabitants,  for  India  then  appears  to 
have  been  fairly  well  peopled.  And  almost  certainly  they  had 
to  fight  again  and  again.  And  it  is  almost  equally  certain  that 
many  men,  women,  and  children — the  weaker  ones — ^must  have 
died  of  disease  and  hardship,  or  been  taken  prisoners  or  killed  by 
enemies  in  that  first  stage  of  the  journey.  Perhaps  the  migrants 
tried  to  settle,  just  as  modern  migrants  in  western  China  have 
tried  again  and  again,  but  each  time  were  forced  to  move  on, 
either  because  they  chose  a  poor  place,  or  because  of  the  hostility 
of  their  neighbors. 

Beyond  the  Ganges  plain  a  more  difiicult  country  faced  the 
migrants.  The  great  Brahmaputra  River  had  to  be  crossed,  and 
one  may  well  imagine  that  it  delayed  the  wanderers  many  years, 
and  cost  them  many  lives,  because  that  same  delay  presumably 
exposed  them  to  the  prolonged  enmity  of  hostile  tribes  along  the 
river's  bank.  Beyond  the  Brahmaputra  the  wet  plains  with 
their  floods  and  fevers  give  place  to  a  maze  of  great  mountains, 
an  extremely  difficult  tract  in  which  to  wander,  especially  among 
unfriendly  people.  That  the  people  of  the  mountains  were  un- 
friendly can  scarcely  be  doubted,  for  that  is  practically  always 


RACIAL  CHARACTER  AND  NATURAL  SELECTION  15 


the  case  under  such  conditions.  Beyond  the  mountains  lies  the 
fertile  and  pleasant  plain  of  Upper  Burmah.  There,  if  anywhere, 
one  would  expect  a  migrant  people  to  settle.  Perhaps  they  did 
settle  there  for  generations,  although  as  to  this  we  have  no  evi- 
dence, but  ultimately  something  drove  them  on.  It  may  have 
been  their  own  restlessness,  curiosity,  and  desire  for  a  better  land, 
or  the  advent  of  hard  times  and  famine,  or  the  push  of  new  in- 
vaders, or  a  revolution  among  the  former  plains-dwellers  whom 
they  had  perhaps  conquered.  Or  possibly  the  Khmers  were 
never  able  to  conquer  the  Burman  plain,  and  had  to  keep  to  the 
rough  mountains  that  surround  it. 

At  any  rate  the  Khmers  moved  on,  and  thereby  inevitably 
doomed  themselves  to  new  hardships,  more  deaths,  and  a  still 
more  stringent  process  of  natural  selection.  Thus  they  crossed 
the  great  Irrawadi  River  and  the  Salwin  in  its  enormous  gorge 
amid  a  maze  of  the  wildest  mountains.  Then  they  either  came 
down  into  the  fertile  plain  of  the  Menam  River  in  the  best  part 
of  Siam,  or  kept  near  the  headwaters  of  that  river  among  diffi- 
cult mountain  ranges.  But  even  if  they  reached  the  plain,  some- 
thing still  drove  them  on.  So  they  traversed  vast  somber  tropical 
forests,  pushed  their  way  through  the  jungle,  climbed  the  tree- 
clad  hills,  endured  the  fevers  of  the  swampy  lowlands,  and  finally 
reached  Cambodia.  A  hazardous  journey  of  two  thousand  five 
hundred  miles  or  more  lay  behind  them;  decades,  generations,  or 
even  centuries  had  been  spent  among  all  sorts  of  hardships  and 
dangers,  and  an  enormous  percentage  of  all  who  had  been  born 
on  that  long  hard  journey  had  almost  certainly  died  before  they 
became  old  enough  to  be  the  parents  of  the  next  generation. 
Natural  selection,  then,  had  presumably  had  an  opportunity  to 
do  its  utmost.  At  the  beginning  the  IChmers  appear  to  have  been 
an  especially  adventurous  and  active  portion  of  the  Brahman 
race  which  had  already  been  highly  selected,  and  which  had 
been  making  notable  contributions  to  human  progress.  At  the 
end  the  selected  Brahmans  had  presumably  been  still  more 
highly  selected.  Is  it  then  surprising  that  they  achieved  great 
things? 


16 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


Just  why  the  Khmers  finally  settled  in  Cambodia  we  can  only 
conjecture,  but  probably  it  was  because  there  they  finally  mas- 
tered the  original  population  to  such  an  extent  that  though  few 
in  numbers  they  could  impose  their  will  upon  their  subjects. 
From  time  to  time  new  bodies  of  migrants  reached  Cambodia, 
the  most  noticeable  migration  being  in  the  fifth  century  A.  D., 
when  the  Khmers  as  a  nation  rose  into  prominence  under  S'ruta- 
varman.  When  their  wanderings  came  to  an  end,  the  energy  and 
ability  which  had  hitherto  been  devoted  to  the  task  of  preserving 
life  and  migrating  into  fresh  fields  were  presumably  turned  to 
governing  a  relatively  inert  tropical  people,  subduing  the  tropi- 
cal forest,  and  building  up  the  framework  of  civilization.  Then 
came  an  era  of  architecture,  and  ultimately  a  period  when  the 
rulers  established  the  briUiant  court  which  at  a  much  later  date 
is  vividly  described  by  a  member  of  a  Chinese  embassy.  But 
that  was  near  the  end  of  the  thirteenth  century,  long  after  the 
period  of  constructive  progress  had  come  to  an  end.  In  the 
work  of  building  up  their  own  peculiar  type  of  civilization  the 
genius  of  these  highly  selected  EJimers  turned  especially  to 
architecture.  For  their  main  ideas  they  naturally  looked  back 
to  India,  with  which  they  may  then  have  communicated  by 
sea  rather  than  by  land.  But  they  were  by  no  means  mere  copy- 
ists: the  process  of  natural  selection  had  apparently  compelled 
the  mating  of  pioneer  with  pioneer  for  generations— unusually 
competent  men  with  unusually  competent  women— and  had  left 
little  opportunity  for  degeneration  through  the  mating  of  the 
competent  with  the  incompetent.  This  may  be  the  main  reason 
why  the  small  body  of  Khmers  who  dominated  the  native  Cam- 
bodians were  exceptionally  gifted.  Their  gifts  expressed  them- 
selves in  a  sudden  and  briUiant  burst  of  architecture  and  sculp- 
ture, and,  by  inference,  in  a  form  of  government  which  was 
able  to  utilize  vast  numbers  of  the  natives  as  workmen  and  yet 
keep  the  remainder  employed  on  the  land  in  such  a  way  that 
there  was  wealth  enough  to  maintain  both  the  common  people 
and  the  luxurious  rulers  for  several  hundred  years. 

Just  why  the  Khmers  fell  from  their  high  position  we  do  not 


RACIAL  CHARACTER  AND  NATURAL  SELECTION  17 


know.  The  immediate  occasion  of  their  faU  seems  to  have  been 
an  incursion  of  a  Siamese  people  into  Cambodia  from  the  north- 
west in  the  latter  part  of  the  twelfth  century.  At  about  the  same 
time  the  Khmers  were  at  war  with  the  people  to  the  east  of  them. 
A  period  of  dechne  then  set  in  and  culminated  in  an  uprising 
whereby  the  common  people  of  Siam,  the  Thais,  were  freed  from 
the  yoke  of  the  Khmers  to  whom  they  had  long  been  subject. 
The  royal  race  was  thus  expelled  from  Siam,  probably  at  the 
very  end  of  the  thirteenth  century.  This  general  period,  it 
should  be  noted,  was  a  time  of  world-wide  physical  disasters, 
such  as  floods,  droughts,  famine,  and  pestilence.  For  this  reason, 
presumably,  it  was  also  a  time  of  almost  innumerable  migrations, 
rebeUions,  and  wars.  At  the  end  of  the  disturbed  period  the 
Khmers  were  finally  ousted  even  from  their  Cambodian  capital, 
Angkor  Tom,  and  disappear  from  history  in  the  fifteenth  cen- 
tury. 

The  vigor  of  the  Khmers  had  presumably  been  sapped  by 
centuries  of  life  in  Cambodia.  The  climate  with  its  malaria  and 
other  diseases  may  have  been  one  factor  in  weakening  them; 
luxury  and  idleness  may  have  been  another;  it  is  also  highly 
probable  that  little  by  little,  in  spite  of  strict  prohibitions,  there 
had  been  more  or  less  intermarriage  with  the  native  population. 
Thus  the  original  high  inheritance  may  have  become  diluted, 
and  perhaps  at  last  was  so  weak  that  even  if  the  climate  had 
been  good,  and  diseases  and  luxury  had  been  absent,  the  ruling 
Khmers  might  not  have  maintained  the  innate  ability,  energy, 
and  originahty  which  their  great  temples  prove  beyond  ques- 
tion that  they  possessed  in  earlier  times. 

We  have  traced  the  story  of  the  flowering,  fruiting,  and 
decay  of  civilization  and  of  racial  character  among  these  old 
Khmers  because  it  is  typical  of  what  has  happened  hundreds  of 
times.  Later  we  shall  see  the  same  thing  illustrated  in  Greece 
and  in  the  barbarian  invasions  of  Europe.  We  shall  see  that 
China,  Norway,  Iceland,  New  England,  and  California,  in  one 
way  or  another,  are  repeating  the  story  of  Cambodia.  In  west- 
em  Europe  during  and  after  the  barbarian  invasions,  in  Egypt 


18 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


and  Mesopotamia  time  after  time,  in  India,  Java,  and  many 
other  regions  a  similar  history  can  be  traced.  Always  the  essen- 
tial elements  seem  to  be  the  same.  First,  in  any  given  race  there 
are  sure  to  be  differences  of  physique  and  of  character.  Second, 
some  cause,  perhaps  war  or  famine,  starts  a  migration.  Third, 
practically  every  migration  is  more  or  less  selective.  All  types 
of  people  are  not  equally  likely  to  migrate;  the  pioneer  type 
migrates  farther  than  others.  In  general,  the  longer  and  harder 
the  migration  the  more  highly  selected  are  the  survivors  and 
the  more  likely  are  they  to  give  rise  to  a  race  which  more  or 
less  permanently  inherits  the  characteristics  which  have  been 
most  important  in  causing  survival.  The  survivors  are  usually 
of  a  high  type,  because  mental  as  well  as  physical  strength  seems 
to  be  a  potent  selective  factor. 

Perhaps  the  most  striking  element  in  the  problem  becomes 
evident  when  the  migration  reaches  its  end,  and  the  migrants 
at  length  become  so  well  established  that  they  are  free  from  the 
stress  involved  in  mastering  the  new  environment.  Then  the 
energies  and  abilities  which  have  hitherto  been  devoted  to  the 
struggle  for  existence  are  released.  At  once  there  seems  to  be  a 
sudden  impulse  toward  creative  effort.  The  thing  that  is  created 
may  be  a  new  form  of  government,  a  new  social  system,  a  re- 
vival of  science.  Often  the  creative  spirit  expresses  itself  in  archi- 
tecture. Or  perhaps  we  should  say  that  almost  always  architec- 
ture is  one  of  the  forms  which  it  ultimately  assumes,  and  archi- 
tectural structures  are  more  likely  than  any  others  to  survive 
to  tell  the  story  to  future  generations. 

Now  comes  the  last  and  saddest  part  of  the  story.  For  some 
reason  every  selected  race  seems  to  degenerate.  Ordinarily  the 
growth  of  luxury  and  idleness  are  given  as  the  causes.  Sometimes 
the  cause  may  be  the  poor  climate  into  which  the  migrants  have 
penetrated.  But  back  of  these  the  laws  of  biology  indicate  that 
almost  invariably  there  may  be  other,  deeper  causes.  One  of 
those  causes  is  the  deterioration  which  is  sure  to  take  place  in 
any  selected  stock  if  active  selection  ceases  to  be  effective.  In 
a  herd  of  horses  the  ability  to  rim  invariably  declines  from  gen- 


RACIAL  CHARACTER  AND  NATURAL  SELECTION  19 

eration  to  generation,  unless  the  slower  colts  are  removed  and 
only  the  best  runners  are  allowed  to  breed.  Every  animal  which 
is  not  of  a  pure  strain  has  so  mixed  an  inheritance  that  bad  com- 
binations of  qualities  as  well  as  good  are  sure  to  be  produced. 
The  same  is  true  of  man.  Another  important  cause  of  racial 
deterioration  is  the  restriction  of  the  birth-rate  which  almost 
invariably  becomes  active  among  the  upper  classes  when  over- 
population begins  to  create  a  condition  of  economic  stress.  A 
third  cause  is  the  mixture  of  the  competent  selected  stocks  with 
the  incompetent,  unselected  stocks.  Such  intermingling  may 
occur  through  mixture  with  a  conquered  race,  through  the  in- 
troduction of  slaves,  through  unrestricted  immigration,  through 
the  breaking  down  of  the  barriers  between  different  classes  or 
castes,  or  in  various  other  ways.  If  man  is  subject  to  the  same 
laws  of  inheritance  as  animals— and  we  are  practically  certain 
that  this  is  the  case  both  physically  and  mentally— each  step  in 
such  dilution  means  a  decrease  in  ability.  If  the  pioneers  among 
pioneers,  to  return  to  our  parable,  are  selected  in  each  genera- 
tion, it  may  perhaps  be  possible  to  build  up  a  pure  strain  which 
will  ultimately  breed  true  for  generation  after  generation.  In 
Iceland,  as  we  shaU  see,  this  seems  almost  to  have  happened,  but 
certainly  it  is  very  rare.  If  the  pioneers  are  selected  only  in  a 
single  generation,  and  still  more,  if  the  selected  pioneers  inter- 
marry with  people  who  are  not  selected,  deterioration  is  inevi- 
table. The  processes  of  selection  and  degeneration,  and  their 
relation  to  other  great  processes  in  the  development  of  racial 
character  form  the  principal  theme  of  this  book. 


CHAPTER  II 


FIRST  STEPS  IN  HUMAN  CHARACTER 

In  the  preceding  chapter  we  seem  to  have  been  dealing  with 
one  of  the  great  generalizations  of  history.  Migrations,  or  changes 
of  environment  even  without  migration,  seem  to  cause  natural 
selection.  The  character  of  races  is  thereby  altered.  Migration 
also  causes  the  mixture  of  races,  and  thus  changes  racial  char- 
acter still  further.  Any  other  cause,  such  as  overpopulation  or 
famine,  which  kills  off  a  part  of  the  population  at  an  unusually 
rapid  rate,  may  act  in  the  same  way.  In  other  words,  the  bio- 
logical laws  which  apply  to  animals  also  apply  to  man.  The 
races  of  mankind  are  plastic.  They  are  varying  on  a  small  scale 
before  our  eyes.  They  appear  to  have  varied  on  a  much  larger 
scale  in  the  past.  Let  us  apply  the  principles  of  variation  and 
selection  to  man's  history  from  the  earliest  times  and  see  what 
we  can  learn. 

In  thus  applying  the  principles  of  biology  to  human  races  we 
shall  begin  in  the  dim  past  with  the  origin  of  man.  There  we 
shall  avowedly  deal  with  theories  rather  than  facts.  We  shall 
build  up  a  theoretical  history  of  the  evolution  of  the  human 
species.  Here  and  there  we  have  bits  of  solid  fact  on  which  to 
base  our  conclusions,  but  they  do  not  give  certainty.  Neverthe- 
less it  is  worth  while  to  begin  at  the  beginning.  When  we  get  to 
the  period  where  written  records  are  available  we  shall  find  that 
the  actual  facts  as  to  the  evolution  of  character  among  races 
which  are  now  playing  their  part  in  the  world  are  almost  in- 
numerable—far more  abundant  than  we  can  use  in  this  book. 

It  is  generally  agreed  that  early  man  originated  somewhere 
in  Asia.  Formerly  it  was  supposed  that  he  came  from  the  warm, 
tropical  parts  of  the  continent.  Little  by  little  this  view  has 
given  place  to  the  idea  that  man's  early  home  was  in  what  are 
now  the  central  deserts  and  plateaus,  the  vast  region  between 
Mesopotamia  and  the  Caspian  Sea  on  the  west,  and  eastern 

20 


FIRST  STEPS  IN  HUMAN  CHARACTER  21 


Tibet  and  Mongolia  on  the  east.  There  is  abundant  evidence  in 
archaeology  and  history  that  the  greatest  of  all  human  move- 
ments have  been  from  the  central  parts  of  Asia  outward.  One 
great  stream  of  migrants  presumably  went  by  devious  routes 
southwest  into  Africa;  others  went  west  to  Europe;  India  has 
almost  always  been  entered  from  the  northwest,  though  some 
minor  streams  came  from  the  northeast.  Australia  appears  to 
have  been  peopled  by  primitive  men  who  went  down  the  Malay 
peninsula  and  across  the  islands.  China  has  again  and  again 
been  overwhelmed  by  people  invading  from  the  north  and 
northwest,  while  the  original  inhabitants  of  North  America  are 
now  almost  universally  agreed  to  have  come  in  one  or  more 
streams  from  Asia  by  way  of  Alaska,  and  thence  to  have  pene- 
trated to  South  America.  Moreover,  man's  chief  domestic  plants 
and  animals  came  from  this  same  general  region  and  its  borders. 
The  horse  is  a  noteworthy  example.  What  is  true  of  him  appears 
to  be  equally  true  of  the  sheep,  camel,  ox,  yak,  dog,  goat,  hen, 
duck,  and  other  animals.  It  is  likewise  true  of  wheat,  rice,  bar- 
ley, and  many  other  highly  valuable  plants.  Although  America 
has  supplied  a  few  things  like  corn,  potatoes,  and  tobacco,  and 
Europe  may  be  the  original  source  of  some  others  such  as  oats 
and  rye,  the  contributions  of  all  the  other  continents  to  man's 
domestic  plants  and  animals  are  only  a  fraction  of  those  which 
presumably  came  from  the  central  parts  of  Asia.  Thus  the  evi- 
dence that  man  originated  somewhere  in  what  is  now  the  plateau 
region  extending  from  Mesopotamia  and  Persia  to  west  China 
is  strong. 

This  conclusion  as  to  where  man  originated  is  supported  by 
another  line  of  evidence  in  the  form  of  man's  relation  to  climate. 
Matthew,  of  the  American  Museum  of  Natural  History,  in  his 
book  on  Evolution  and  Climate^  seems  to  be  right  in  saying  that 
man  is  not  of  tropical  origin.  This  common  assumption,  he 
thinks,  is  only  partly  true. 

Its  general  acceptance  is  perhaps  due,  among  other  reasons,  to  the  sup- 
posed relation  between  loss  of  hair  on  the  body  and  the  wearing  of  clothes, 
the  first  being  regarded  as  an  earlier  specialization  in  an  environment  of 


22 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


tropical  forests,  the  second  as  a  secondary  adaptation  resulting  from  mi- 
gration to  a  cold  climate.  But  here,  it  seems  to  me,  we  are  putting  the 
cart  before  the  horse.  We  may  more  reasonably  regard  the  loss  of  hair  in 
the  human  species  as  a  result  of  wearing  clothes  and  conditioned  by  this 
habit,  rather  than  attribute  it  to  any  climatic  conditions.  This  view  is 
supported  by  several  points  in  which  the  loss  of  hair  in  man  is  differentiated 
from  the  partial  or  complete  loss  of  hair  common  in  tropical  animals,  the 
following  two  being  most  clearly  significant. 

(1)  It  is  accompanied  by  an  exceptional  and  progressive  delicacy  of 
skin,  quite  unsuited  to  travel  in  tropical  forests.  I  do  not  know  of  any 
thin-haired  or  hairless  tropical  animal  whose  skin  is  not  more  or  less  thick- 
ened for  protection  against  chafing,  the  attacks  of  insects,  etc. 

(2)  The  loss  is  most  complete  on  the  back  and  abdomen.  The  arms  and 
the  legs  and,  in  the  male,  the  chest,  retain  hair  much  more  persistently. 
This  is  just  what  would  naturally  happen  if  the  loss  of  hair  were  due  to 
the  wearing  of  clothes, — at  first  and  for  a  long,  time,  a  skin  thrown  over 
the  shoulders  and  tied  around  the  waist.  But  if  the  loss  of  hair  were  con- 
ditioned by  climate  it  should,  as  it  invariably  does  among  animals,  dis- 
appear first  on  the  under  side  of  the  body  and  the  limbs  and  be  retained 
longest  on  the  back  and  shoulders. 

According  to  this  view  the  comparative  absence  of  hair  even 
among  tropical  savages,  who  wear  Httle  or  no  clothing,  means 
that  the  hair  on  man's  body  was  lost  in  the  earliest  human  times. 
It  must  have  disappeared  while  man  was  still  near  his  original 
habitat,  and  before  the  ancestors  of  the  present  tropical  races 
branched  off  from  the  other  races. 

This  conclusion  as  to  the  origin  of  man  in  a  mildly  warm 
rather  than  a  tropical  climate  is  supported  to  a  considerable 
degree  by  recent  studies  of  the  climates  to  which  various  races 
are  best  adapted.  Numerous  studies  in  the  United  States,  Eng- 
land, France,  Italy,  and  elsewhere  indicate  that  for  all  European 
races  the  optimum  or  most  favorable  conditions  of  climate  are 
essentially  the  same.  The  best  conditions  are  a  temperature 
which  on  the  average  for  day  and  night  does  not  rise  above 
70°  F.  in  summer,  or  fall  below  40°  F.  in  winter.  The  extremes 
may  of  course  be  greater.  Physical  health  and  activity  are  at 
their  highest  when  the  outdoor  temperature  for  day  and  night 
averages  about  64°  F.,  while  mental  activity  seems  to  be  great- 
est at  a  lower  temperature,  possibly  as  low  as  40°  F.  among 


FIRST  STEPS  IN  HUMAN  CHARACTER 


23 


people  who  heat  their  houses.  A  fairly  high  degree  of  humidity 
appears  also  to  be  favorable  at  moderately  low  temperatures, 
but  not  at  high  temperatures.  Variability  and  storminess  seem 
also  to  be  important.  It  is  significant  that  not  only  do  fair,  broad- 
headed  Mongoloid  Finns  and  dark  long-headed  Mediterranean 
Sicilians  have  the  best  health  at  the  seasons  when  their  respec- 
tive countries  approach  most  nearly  to  this  ideal  climate,  but 
the  same  is  true  of  the  Japanese.  Even  the  negroes  of  the 
southern  United  States  show  approximately  the  same  response 
to  climate.  Their  optimum  temperature  on  the  basis  of  the 
death-rate,  and  of  the  degree  of  activity  with  which  they  work 
does  not  appear  to  average  above  70°  F.  In  other  words,  while 
it  is  higher  than  the  optimum  for  the  white  race,  it  is  distinctly 
lower  than  the  mean  temperature  of  80°  F.,  or  more  in  which 
their  ancestors  lived  for  thousands  or  tens  of  thousands  of  years, 
and  in  which  they  themselves  still  live  for  much  of  the  year. 
While  all  races  have  not  yet  been  investigated  in  this  respect, 
many  facts  suggest  that  for  practically  the  whole  human  race  a 
temperature  that  averages  between  60°  F.  and  70°  F.  is  better 
than  one  which  averages  above  70°.  This  adaptation  to  moderate 
rather  than  great  warmth  seems  to  be  so  universal  that  it  may 
be  a  primitive  trait  belonging  to  the  whole  human  race.  If  this 
is  so,  it  would  suggest  that  man  did  not  take  the  greatest  steps 
in  his  evolution  in  a  tropical  climate  such  as  that  of  the  penin- 
sula of  India  or  Africa  south  of  the  Sahara,  but  in  a  somewhat 
cooler  climate.  Hence  our  final  conclusion  agrees  with  the  fol- 
lowing statement  of  Matthew,  except  that  in  pointing  out  the 
exact  place  of  man's  origin  he  has  perhaps  been  a  little  more 
definite  than  the  facts  yet  warrant. 

It  will  not  be  questioned  that  the  higher  races  of  man  are  adapted  to 
a  cool  temperate  climate,  and  to  an  environment  rather  of  open  grassy 
plains  than  of  dense  moist  forests.  In  such  conditions  they  reached  their 
highest  physical,  mental,  and  social  attainments.  In  the  tropical  and  es- 
pecially in  the  moist  tropical  environment,  the  physique  is  poor,  the  death 
rate  is  high,  it  is  difficult  to  work  vigorously  or  continuously,  and  especial 
and  unusual  precautions  are  necessary  for  protection  from  diseases  and 


24 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


enemies  against  which  no  natural  immunity  exists,  and  which  are  absent 
from  the  colder  and  drier  environment. 

This  lack  of  adaptation  to  tropical  climate  is  also  true,  although  to  a 
less  degree,  of  the  lower  races  of  man.  Although  from  prolonged  residence 
in  tropical  climates  they  have  acquired  a  partial  immunity  from  the  en- 
vironment so  unfavorable  to  the  newcomer,  yet  it  is  by  no  means  com- 
plete. The  most  thoroughly  acclimated  race — the  negro — reaches  his 
highest  physical  development  not  in  the  great  equatorial  forests  but  in 
the  drier  and  cooler  highlands  of  eastern  Africa;  and  when  transported  to 
the  temperate  United  States,  the  West  Coast  negro  yet  finds  the  environ- 
ment a  more  favorable  one  than  that  to  which  his  ancestors  have  been 
endeavoring  for  thousands  of  years  to  accustom  themselves.  In  tropical 
South  America,  the  Indians,  as  Bates  long  ago  remarked,  seem  very  im- 
perfectly acclimatized  and  suffer  severely  from  the  hot  moist  weather; 
much  more  than  the  negroes,  whose  adaptation  to  tropical  climate  has 
been  a  much  longer  one. 

In  view  of  the  data  obtainable  from  historical  record,  from  tradition, 
from  the  present  geographical  distribution  of  higher  and  lower  races  of 
men,  from  the  physical  and  physiological  adaptation  of  all  and  especially 
of  the  higher  races,  it  seems  fair  to  conclude  that  the  center  of  dispersal 
of  mankind  in  prehistoric  times  was  central  Asia  north  of  the  great  Hima- 
layan ranges,  and  that  when  by  progressive  aridity  that  region  became 
desert  it  was  transferred  to  the  regions  bordering  it  to  the  east,  south,  and 
west.  We  may  further  assume  that  the  environment  in  which  man  pri- 
marily evolved  was  not  a  moist  or  tropical  climate,  but  a  temperate  and 
more  or  less  arid  one,  progressively  cold  and  dry  during  the  course  of  his 
evolution.  In  this  region  and  under  these  conditions,  the  race  first  attained 
a  dominance  which  enabled  it  to  spread  out  in  successive  waves  or  migra- 
tion to  the  most  remote  parts  of  the  earth. 

Having  come  to  a  tentative  conclusion  as  to  the  place  where 
early  man  evolved  and  the  climatic  conditions  of  that  evolu- 
tion, let  us  now  apply  these  conclusions  to  the  problem  of  how 
and  why  man's  anthropoid  ancestors  became  human.  The  change 
from  beast  to  man  is  generally  supposed  to  be  connected  with 
man's  descent  from  the  trees.  That  descent  was  presumably 
accompanied  by  a  change  from  a  stooping,  four-handed  gait  to 
one  adapted  to  the  erect  position.  Such  a  change  involves  many 
alterations  in  physical  structure  and  in  character.  Modern  re- 
search indicates  that  the  most  primitive  human  types  such  as 
the  ape-man  of  Java,  go  back  to  the  Pliocene  period  of  geology, 
while  his  semi-human  ape-Hke  precursors  presumably  Hved  dur- 


FffiST  STEPS  IN  HUMAN  CHARACTER  25 


ing  the  preceding  Miocene.  Therefore  we  must  examine  these 
geological  ages  perhaps  one  or  two  miUion  years  ago,  and  see 
what  kind  of  environment  surrounded  our  primeval  prehuman 
ancestors. 

During  the  Miocene  period  the  climate  of  the  earth  seems  to 
have  been  distinctly  warmer  and  milder  than  at  present.  At 
that  time,  to  judge  from  the  fossils,  the  great  deserts  which  now 
extend  from  the  Sahara  to  Mongolia  did  not  exist,  or  at  least 
were  small  and  were  not  located  as  at  present.  In  place  of  most 
of  them  there  was  presumably  a  country  covered  with  a  fairly 
dense  forest,  not  positively  tropical  but  fairly  warm  and  moist, 
and  without  such  severe  winters  as  now  characterize  large  parts 
of  the  desert  area.  Moreover,  many  of  the  greatest  mountain 
ranges  had  not  yet  been  formed,  and  moisture-laden  winds  were 
therefore  able  to  blow  in  freely  from  the  oceans.  A  great  inland 
sea  extended  from  the  Mediterranean  eastward  to  Persia,  and 
possibly  to  China,  with  a  branch  running  northward  from  the 
Caspian  and  Ural  region  to  the  Arctic  Ocean.  This  in  itself 
doubtless  had  much  to  do  with  keeping  the  climate  mild,  but  its 
effect  may  have  been  increased  by  other  conditions  such  as  an 
abundance  of  carbon  dioxide  in  the  air  and  a  scarcity  of  the 
cyclonic  type  of  storms. 

The  relief  of  the  land  throughout  most  of  central  Asia  in 
those  early  Miocene  days  was  probably  gentle  almost  every- 
where. Where  now  the  Himalayas  raise  their  great  crests  20,000 
feet  into  the  air,  there  was  an  ocean  in  which  were  deposited  lime- 
stones that  are  now  found  on  the  mountain- tops.  Elsewhere 
there  were  either  rolling  plains  or  gently  sloping,  low  mountains 
such  as  those  whose  remnants  are  now  seen  on  the  plateaus  of 
Tibet  and  Tian  Shan.  As  one  climbs  toward  the  plateaus  one 
sees  to-day  a  curious  topography.  The  precarious  track  follows 
tortuous  steep-sided  gorges,  very  young,  as  the  physiographer 
counts  age.  This  indicates  that  the  streams  which  cut  them 
have  been  at  work  only  a  little  while.  Many  canyons  are  so 
narrow  as  to  be  impassable,  and  one  cannot  float  down  the  rivers 
because  they  are  so  young  that  they  have  not  yet  had  time  to 


26 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


smooth  out  their  falls  and  rapids.  That  is  why  the  Brahmaputra 
has  never  been  followed  from  source  to  mouth.  Even  on  the 
Indus,  although  the  river's  whole  course  has  been  mapped,  there 
are  many  places  where  the  gorge  is  so  narrow  that  one  cannot 
follow  the  stream,  but  must  clamber  over  diflScult  mountains. 
At  the  heads  of  these  streams,  however,  one  comes  upon  a  coun- 
try of  a  wholly  different  aspect,  a  country  of  old  hills  smoothly 
rounded.  In  Tian  Shan  a  gently  rolling  old  upland  plain,  diver- 
sified with  beautiful  green  hills,  sometimes  forms  a  lofty  plateau 
almost  surrounded  by  the  well-nigh  vertical  cliffs  of  young 
gorges. 

In  India  I  once  ascended  the  splendid  canyon  of  the  Shyok 
River,  a  tributary  of  the  Indus.  For  many  days  we  were  hemmed 
in  by  steep  cliffs  on  either  side  of  a  broad,  rocky  flood-plain. 
We  longed  in  vain  to  see  what  lay  on  either  side.  Then  one  day 
a  final  ascent  of  a  minor  valley  brought  us  out  into  a  different 
world.  We  had  reached  the  great  plateau  and  soon  were  travers- 
ing its  gentle  slopes  and  broad  plains.  Low  rounded  mountains 
replaced  the  steep  cliffs  and  sharply  serrated  peaks  of  the  plateau 
border.  It  was  easy  to  travel  anywhere.  One  night  we  made 
camp  at  an  altitude  of  over  16,000  feet.  Next  day  we  expected 
to  cross  the  Karakorum  Pass,  which  is  about  18,300  feet  high,  and 
marks  the  divide  between  India  and  China.  That  night  the 
cook  gave  us  a  warning: 

"To-morrow  we  are  going  to  cross  a  pass  where  the  air  is 
very  poisonous.  I  advise  you  not  to  eat  much,  and  especially 
not  to  eat  any  meat." 

"Oh,  nothing  is  the  matter  with  the  air,''  I  answered.  "It 
is  merely  because  the  pass  is  high." 

"No,"  said  the  cook,  "it's  not  high.  You  wait  and  see." 

I  insisted  that  it  was  as  high  as  Chang  La,  an  equally  lofty 
pass  with  a  long,  steep,  toilsome  ascent  of  about  6,000  feet  on 
each  side,  which  we  had  crossed  two  weeks  before.  He  was  un- 
persuaded  and  clinched  his  argument  by  saying: 

"When  we  crossed  Chang  La  we  climbed  steeply  and  with 
great  difficulty.  Here  we  scarcely  climb  at  all.  We  call  a  thing 


FIRST  STEPS  IN  HUMAN  CHARACTER  27 


high  when  you  have  to  climb  to  it.  We  don't  cHmb  here,  and  so 
we  think  the  air  is  poison." 

The  old  plateau  whose  gentle  relief  made  the  cook  think  it 
was  low  represents  approximately  the  sort  of  topography,  al- 
though not  necessarily  the  place,  in  which  primitive  man  is 
supposed  to  have  originated.  But  in  those  remote  times  the 
plateaus  presumably  stood  far  lower  than  now.  Nor  were  there 
any  such  young,  high  mountain  ranges  as  those  of  the  Hima- 
layas, Kwen  Lun,  Tian  Shan,  and  Hindu  Kush.  The  climate 
was  probably  moist  and  mild,  and  vast  regions  that  are  now 
high  plateaus  or  low  desert  basins  were  presumably  covered  with 
forests  whose  remnants  are  found  as  fossils.  It  was  probably  in 
these  forests  that  the  anthropoid  ancestors  of  man  had  been 
gradually,  but  probably  very  slowly,  evolving  more  and  more 
power  of  brain.  There  or  somewhere  else  they  had  taken  the 
fullest  advantage  of  the  fact  that  their  feet  can  be  used  as  hands. 
Perhaps  they  had  gone  so  far  as  to  use  sticks  or  even  stones  as 
missiles,  although  stones  may  have  been  relatively  inaccessible, 
and  hence  unimportant,  since  most  of  the  earth's  surface  was 
presimaably  deeply  covered  with  soil  and  vegetation. 

At  this  stage  of  geological  history  there  began  a  series  of 
slow  changes  in  the  earth's  crust.  First  there  was  a  general  up- 
lifting of  the  whole  region  of  central  Asia  so  that  the  ^inland  sea 
finally  disappeared,  while  the  shores  of  the  Indian  and  Pacific 
Oceans  receded.  At  the  same  time  mountain  ranges  began  to 
be  slowly  upheaved,  thus  shutting  out  the  moist  winds  from  the 
surrounding  oceans.  These  conditions  and  perhaps  others  grad- 
ually led  to  the  aridity  which  is  now  so  extreme  in  central  Asia. 

Thus  far  we  have  been  rehearsing  either  actual  facts  or  con- 
clusions which  are  widely  if  not  almost  universally  accepted. 
Now,  in  attempting  to  show  the  effect  of  these  facts  on  human 
development,  we  must  venture  into  more  speculative  ground. 
Long  before  there  was  anything  which  could  be  called  real  arid- 
ity in  those  old  Miocene  days,  the  climate  probably  became  dry 
enough,  and  the  dry  season  long  enough  to  have  a  pronounced 
effect  on  early  man.  As  Elliot,  Barrell,  and  others  have  shown, 


28 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


one  of  the  first  results  of  the  incipient  dryness  must  have  been 
to  make  the  forests  thinner  so  that  the  trees  were  more  or  less 
isolated  instead  of  forming  a  dense,  close  cover.  Such  conditions 
would  obHge  the  anthropoid  apes  to  come  down  to  the  ground 
in  order  to  pass  from  tree  to  tree.  As  the  forests  grew  thinner, 
patches  of  grassland  or  savanna  must  have  appeared  with  only 
a  few  trees  scattered  here  and  there  and  with  what  are  known 
as  gallery  forests  in  strips  along  the  streams.  Then  the  anthro- 
poids must  have  been  put  to  still  more  stress.  Formerly  the  for- 
ests had  been  their  refuge.  Carnivora  larger  and  fiercer  than  those 
of  to-day  prowled  about,  but  the  apes  could  take  refuge  in  the 
trees.  There,  too,  they  found  a  large  part  of  their  food.  But 
now  it  was  not  possible  to  swing  from  tree  to  tree  except  in  the 
gallery  forests.  There  the  more  timid  or  less  brainy  types,  or 
those  less  able  to  walk,  were  forced  to  remain,  but  found  their 
habitat  constantly  diminishing.  Those  with  quicker  wits  and 
more  adventurous  dispositions  and  with  the  greatest  ability  to 
stand  upright  presumably  ventured  to  walk  from  tree  to  tree. 
But  at  such  times  they  were  relatively  defenceless  against  the 
carnivora  unless  they  took  tools  in  their  hands  in  the  form  of 
sticks  that  could  be  used  as  clubs,  or  stones  that  could  be  hurled. 
In  such  a  critical  period  mental  activity  along  almost  every  fine 
must  have  been  peculiarly  helpful. 

As  time  went  on  and  the  aridity  became  greater,  the  trees 
in  the  open  savannas  must  have  disappeared  almost  entirely, 
giving  place  to  broad  grasslands,  the  home  of  numerous  animals 
such  as  the  horse,  sheep,  and  ox.  These,  together  with  wild 
grain  growing  among  the  grass,  would  furnish  food  to  man  in 
place  of  the  fruits  and  nuts  of  his  former  forest  home.  Thus  when 
primitive  man  left  the  trees  he  would  tend  to  become  an  eater 
of  cereals  and  meat  instead  of  fruits  and  nuts. 

As  the  mountains  gradually  rose  higher,  and  the  sea  receded 
farther,  the  increasing  dryness  of  the  climate  must  ultimately 
have  almost  destroyed  even  the  gallery  forests  along  the  water- 
courses, for  these  are  now  rare.  This  would  mean  the  final  ex- 
tinction of  the  apes  which  for  generation  after  generation  may 


FIRST  STEPS  IN  HUMAN  CHARACTER  29 


have  persisted  where  trees  were  still  abundant.  It  is  not  im- 
possible that  the  anthropoids  which  were  not  brainy  enough  to 
take  to  the  ground,  or  were  not  physically  capable  of  doing  so, 
may  have  survived  for  hundreds  of  thousands  of  years  after 
their  line  of  descent  separated  from  that  of  the  progenitors  of 
man.  But  ultimately  all  perished  except  possibly  certain  groups 
which  more  or  less  unconsciously  migrated  southward  and  sea- 
ward in  the  early  stages  of  the  great  change,  and  hence  remained 
in  the  forests.  Although  the  process  of  separating  the  erect, 
small-jawed,  two-handed,  big-headed,  brainy  human  type  from 
its  bent,  heavy-jawed,  four-handed,  small-headed,  and  unintelli- 
gent relatives  was  slow,  it  was  inexorable  and  irrevocable.  As 
the  environment  gradually  killed  off  the  animals  which  could 
not  walk  erect,  which  did  not  know  how  to  use  their  hands  for 
holding  tools,  and  which  were  not  able  to  take  refuge  in  caves, 
make  themselves  shelters,  or  protect  themselves  by  fire  or  other- 
wise, the  human  race  may  be  supposed  to  have  grown  up,  and 
at  some  indefinite  stage  to  have  become  man  instead  of  beast. 

Although  man's  descent  from  the  trees  probably  depended 
mainly  upon  mental  ability  there  are  other  phases  to  be  con- 
sidered. When  the  anthropoids  began  to  leave  the  trees  and 
walk  upright,  as  Barrell  points  out,  there  took  place  during  many 
generations  "a  physical  transformation  shown  in  changed  foot 
structure,  changed  ratios  of  the  limb-lengths,  a  changed  profile 
of  the  backbone,  a  shortening  of  the  jaw  and  a  changed  denti- 
tion." 

As  man  stood  more  and  more  erect,  he  probably  reaped  cer- 
tain great  advantages  in  the  freedom  of  his  hands  and  head.  As 
long  as  he  had  to  help  support  himself  by  touching  his  hands 
or  his  knuckles  on  the  ground,  and  still  more  while  he  used  his 
hands  as  well  as  his  feet  to  help  him  among  the  trees,  his  hands 
were  useless  for  the  purpose  of  carrying  things  any  great  distance. 
Even  though  he  found  and  shaped  a  good  club,  he  could  not 
carry  it  with  him.  At  almost  the  first  hint  of  danger  he  had  to 
drop  it  and  use  his  hands  in  climbing.  Nor  could  he  pick  up 
a  handful  of  good  round  stones  and  have  them  ready  to  throw 


30 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


at  the  enemy.  Until  his  hands  were  free,  the  kind  of  brain  that 
could  devise  and  fashion  a  rude  bag  of  vines,  such  as  EUiot 
loves  to  imagine,  would  be  terribly  handicapped  in  finding  means 
of  expressing  itself.  But  once  the  hands  were  permanently  free, 
the  clever  brain  would  enable  its  owner  to  make  a  bag,  fill  it 
with  stones,  and  hang  it  aroimd  his  neck.  Moreover,  so  long  as 
his  hands  were  essential  as  organs  of  locomotion,  they  could  ac- 
quire only  a  moderate  degree  of  the  delicacy  of  touch  and  the 
ability  to  pick  up  and  manipulate  small  objects  which  is  one  of 
man's  strongest  characteristics.  In  other  words,  although  cer- 
tain types  among  the  anthropoids  may  have  had  the  mental 
capacity  to  use  tools,  this  apparently  gave  them  relatively  little 
special  advantage  and  hence  was  only  a  minor  factor  in  self- 
preservation  and  in  the  preservation  of  the  species  until  the  front 
limbs  ceased  to  be  needed  for  locomotion. 

Another  point  which  is  well  made  by  Wetzel  and  Elliot  is 
that  up  to  the  time  when  man  walked  erect  the  development  of 
his  skull  and  brain  was  hampered  by  the  heavy  muscles  of  his 
jaws  and  neck.  Until  his  hands  came  freely  into  use  and  were 
aided  by  tools,  the  teeth  were  the  main  means  of  rending,  tear- 
ing, and  even  carrying  food.  Hence  the  jaw  had  to  be  very 
strong  and  large,  and  required  powerful  muscles.  Moreover, 
such  a  jaw  and  its  use  for  heavy  and  violent  work  involve  a 
great  strain  on  the  neck,  and  the  muscles  that  support  the  head 
must  be  correspondingly  large.  This  is  still  more  the  case  when 
the  head  hangs  forward  as  it  does  in  the  apes,  instead  of  resting 
on  the  top  of  a  bony  column  as  it  does  in  men  so  long  as  they 
keep  away  from  desks.  It  requires  far  less  exertion  to  hold  one's 
head  erect  than  to  hold  it  bent  forward.  Because  of  the  strain 
of  the  muscles  of  jaw  and  neck,  the  sutures  in  the  upper  parts 
of  the  skull  of  the  anthropoid  close  early  in  life,  whereas  in  man 
they  do  not  close  for  many  years,  not  till  about  the  age  of  forty. 
Moreover,  since  the  sides  of  the  skull  are  not  clamped  by  strong 
muscles,  the  human  skull  can  expand  backward,  forward,  and 
sidewise,  as  well  as  upward,  which  is  the  only  free  direction  in 
lower  forms.   Perhaps  some  reflection  of  this  plasticity  of  the 


FIRST  STEPS  IN  HUMAN  CHARACTER  SI 


human  skull  is  found  in  the  observation  of  Vern  that  at  Cam- 
bridge, England,  the  students  whom  he  measured  showed  an 
increase  in  breadth  of  skull  during  their  university  course.  Be- 
tween the  ages  of  nineteen  and  twenty-three  their  cephalic  index 
rose  from  77.9  to  79.2.  Of  course  mere  size  does  not  mean  that 
a  brain  is  necessarily  of  high  caliber,  for  the  largest  brain  ever 
measured  was  that  of  an  idiot.  Nevertheless,  it  is  a  fact  that  as 
we  go  upward  in  the  scale  of  evolution,  both  in  men  and  animals, 
the  size  of  the  brain  in  proportion  to  the  body  is  on  the  whole 
closely  correlated  with  the  degree  of  intelligence. 

As  to  the  mentality  of  the  ape-man  who  came  down  out  of 
the  trees,  it  is  hard  to  form  any  definite  estimate.  We  have  al- 
ready indicated  some  of  his  qualities,  and  we  may  well  conclude 
this  chapter  with  a  quotation  from  Elliot  which  suggests  cer- 
tain higher  attributes: 

Most  anthropologists  recognize  that  a  strictly  scientific  treatment  must 
not  omit  reference  to  those  moral  and  spiritual  instincts  which  are  beyond 
and  above,  though  inextricably  connected  with,  the  brain.  It  seems  to  us 
that  especially  at  this  critical  period  the  Pliocene  precursor  of  man  must 
have  been  exceedingly  inquisitive.  He  was  more  or  less  in  safety  so  long 
as  he  remained  an  arboreal  animal;  but  when  he  left  the  trees  or  only  re- 
sorted to  them  for  safety  and  shelter  at  night,  this  involved  all  sorts  of 
moral  qualities.  He  had  to  be  excessively  wary,  and  yet  bold  and  cou- 
rageous; enterprising,  and  yet  patient;  the  maintenance  of  his  young  must 
have  required  of  him  very  hard  work  and  an  extraordinary  amount  of 
affection. 

All  these  qualities  involve  an  unusual  character.  The  moral  quality  of 
the  Pliocene  ancestor  was  surely  beyond  that  of  the  best  of  the  animals, 
even  though  these  do  possess  embryonic  states  of  both  virtues  and  vices. 
It  will  be  seen,  therefore,  that  at  the  critical  moment,  three  lines  of  devel- 
opment happened  to  coincide.  For  a  whole  geological  period,  perhaps,  the 
I  power  of  standing,  of  running,  of  using  hands  and  fingers  had  been  slowly 
j  perfected,  involving,  as  we  tried  to  show,  a  thorough-going  modification  in 
I  the  ground-plan  of  the  body.  At  the  same  time,  increase  of  brain  had  been 
I  accompanied  by  a  development  of  intelligence;  eye,  ears,  finger  and  thumb 
j  were  being  more  and  more  directly  controlled  by  the  mind.   Then,  also, 
j  frequent  crises  required  of  the  male  heroism  and  self-sacrifice,  and  of  the 
i  mother  incessant  daily  devotion. 

But  at  some  particular  moment  the  accumulated  knowledge  that  he 
had  gathered  of  all  the  evil  things  in  a  very  dangerous  world,  and  his  power 
of  enjoyment  of  what  was  good  in  it,  suddenly  changed  into  a  knowledge 


82 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


of  Good  and  Evil.  The  change  was  not  more  sudden  than  the  first  stroke 
of  a  complicated  piece  of  machinery  set  going  for  the  first  time,  nor  of  the 
first  abrupt  explosion  of  a  volcano  which  has  been  extinct  for  centuries. 
But  so  far  as  man  was  concerned,  it  transformed  everything;  from  being 
one  of  the  other  animals,  he  became  in  posse  master  of  all. 


CHAPTER  III 


THE  EARLIEST  GREAT  MIGRATIONS 

It  is  not  by  accident  that  the  chief  early  development  of 
mankind  took  place  in  Eurasia,  and  that  it  occurred  during  a 
glacial  period.  These  facts  are  in  accord  with  two  great  principles 
which  are  rapidly  assuming  a  fundamental  place  in  geology.  One 
principle  is  that  the  world  contains  a  few  great  centers  of  evolu- 
tion. These  are  located  in  the  interiors  of  the  continents  in  me- 
dium or  high  latitudes.  The  Asiatic  center  far  overshadows  all 
the  others  combined,  while  that  of  North  America  comes  next. 
Central  Asia,  as  has  been  weU  shown  by  Osborn  and  Matthew, 
and  more  recently  by  Andrews's  expedition  for  the  American 
Museum  at  New  York,  was  the  original  home  of  many  great 
families  of  mammals  such  as  the  horse,  tapir,  rhinoceros,  deer, 
dog,  sheep,  pig,  and  giraffe.  A  few  like  the  camel  apparently 
originated  in  North  America. 

The  main  reason  why  evolution  is  so  rapid  in  the  interior  of 
large  continents  is  that  those  are  the  places  where  the  physical 
environment  is  most  variable.  In  a  warm,  moist  plain  in  low 
latitudes  an  animal  never  experiences  any  great  extremes  of 
either  heat  or  cold.  Very  rarely  does  it  suffer  from  severe  drought, 
and  its  food-supply  is  relatively  abundant  and  constant.  In  such 
an  environment  the  animals  are  not  likely  to  acquire  any  great 
specialization.  Even  if  they  are  not  sluggish,  they  are  usually 
primitive.  A  dry  rugged  interior  in  middle  latitudes  produces 
quite  the  contrary  effect.  The  extremes  of  heat  and  cold  cause 
weak  non-resistant  animals  to  perish.  The  variations  in  rainfall 
from  one  year  to  another  are  relatively  great.  Since  the  number 
of  animals  increases  rapidly  when  several  good  years  come  in 
succession,  the  excess  of  population  leads  to  an  unusually  fierce 
struggle  to  get  food  or  avoid  being  eaten.  Hence  among  certain 
species  only  those  animals  survive  that  are  especially  fleet  of  foot, 

S3 


84 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


keen  of  sense,  quick  to  take  alarm,  or  able  to  hide  and  thus  avoid 
their  enemies.  So  too  in  other  species  the  animals  which  are  able 
to  go  unusually  long  distances  in  search  of  food  and  water,  to  en- 
dure long  periods  of  fasting  or  thirst,  or  to  persevere  to  an  un- 
usual degree  in  the  pursuit  of  prey  are  the  only  ones  that  can 
survive.  If  the  region  is  rugged,  still  other  specializations,  such 
as  the  ability  to  climb  steep,  rocky  slopes,  are  a  great  help  in 
enabling  an  animal  to  live  and  reproduce  its  kind.  Hence  in  the 
Asiatic  center  there  has  for  many  ages  been  a  tendency  to  kiU 
off  the  unspecialized  kinds  of  animals  and  to  evolve  types  with 
a  higher  and  higher  degree  of  adaptation  to  a  severe  and  variable 
environment. 

From  this  there  follows  another  important  geological  gen- 
eralization which  also  applies  to  man.  The  dry  interiors  of  the 
continents,  especially  of  Asia,  have  been  the  great  centers  of 
migration.  This  is  not  only  because  new  types  originate  there, 
but  because  such  an  interior,  especially  if  it  lies  at  a  fairly  high 
latitude,  suffers  far  greater  changes  from  one  geological  period 
to  another  than  does  any  other  part  of  the  world.  Sometimes  the 
inner  parts  of  continents  have  warm,  moist,  monotonous  climates 
such  as  we  have  already  described  at  the  beginning  of  the  Mio- 
cene before  the  early  anthropoids  left  the  trees.  At  other  times 
they  have  a  desert  climate  like  that  of  central  Asia  to-day. 
When  the  climate  is  mild,  the  number  of  animals  of  a  given 
species  becomes  large;  when  it  is  severe,  the  animals  either  die 
or  migrate.  In  low  latitudes  like  the  Amazon  or  Congo  basins 
there  is  little  reason  to  think  that  during  any  part  of  geological 
time  the  climate  has  been  greatly  different  from  that  of  to-day. 
In  Illinois  and  central  Russia,  however,  even  in  recent  geological 
times,  we  have  had  the  contrast  between  a  glacial  climate  accom- 
panied by  a  thick  sheet  of  ice  on  the  one  hand,  and  a  climate 
milder  than  that  of  to-day  on  the  other.  In  central  Asia  the 
corresponding  changes  have  been  almost  equally  great,  and 
probably  even  more  important  in  promoting  evolution  because 
they  have  never  completely  extinguished  all  Hfe.  During  or  im- 
mediately after  the  glacial  epochs  huge  lakes  hundreds  of  miles 


THE  EARLIEST  GREAT  MIGRATIONS  85 


long  filled  basins  that  are  now  deserts,  while  the  surrounding 
country  was  covered  with  grass  and  forests.  At  the  other  ex- 
treme the  country  became  a  desert  even  more  terrible  than  that 
of  to-day.  The  central  parts  of  continents  have  also  endured 
great  changes  due  to  the  uplifting  of  mountains  and  the  isola- 
tion of  the  interior  from  the  oceans.  The  upheaval  of  the  Hima- 
layas, Kwen  Lun,  Tian  Shan,  and  other  ranges  in  Asia,  and  of 
the  Sierra  Nevada  and  Rockies  in  the  United  States,  have  in 
themselves  been  sufficient  to  produce  deserts  where  the  climate 
had  previously  been  mild,  moist,  and  oceanic. 

A  single  illustration  will  show  how  all  these  changes  in  climate 
and  relief  not  only  select  certain  types  of  animals  for  preserva- 
tion and  kill  others,  but  how  they  drive  the  more  primitive  types 
away  from  the  centers  of  evolution.  In  central  Asia  the  Andrews 
expedition  of  the  American  Museum  of  Natural  History  found 
the  remains  of  a  very  primitive  horse,  which  appears  to  be  not 
far  removed  from  the  type  whence  all  other  horses  have  sprung. 
Suppose  that  when  such  a  species  is  most  numerous  and  most 
widely  spread,  perhaps  with  its  center  in  MongoHa  but  extend- 
ing over  a  considerable  area,  the  climate  is  such  that  broad 
grassy  plains  extend  far  and  wide.  Now  suppose  that  greater 
aridity  ensues,  becoming  evident  first  in  a  relatively  limited  cen- 
tral area  and  then  spreading  outward.  The  number  of  horses  in 
the  desiccated  central  area  must  diminish,  for  there  is  not  food 
enough  to  support  so  many  as  formerly. 

This  diminution  takes  place  in  two  ways :  first,  the  death-rate 
becomes  high,  for  many  horses  are  undernourished,  and  many 
mares  cannot  supply  milk  for  their  foals.  Second,  as  the  horses 
wander  irregularly  in  search  of  food  a  certain  number  who  hap- 
pen to  be  on  the  borders  of  the  dry  area  stray  into  better  regions 
and  never  come  back.  The  horses  that  remain  permanently  in 
the  dry  area  are  likely  to  be  a  peculiar  type.  Perhaps  they  may 
be  ones  whose  toes  have  become  elongated,  thus  giving  the 
animals  greater  agility  and  fleetness,  and  hence  making  them 
better  able  to  cover  long  distances  in  traveling  back  and  forth 
between  the  scattered  water-holes  and  the  places  where  the 


36 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


scanty  grasses  are  found.  Thus  in  the  dry  area  a  new  species 
may  arise,  while  on  the  outskirts  the  old  species  persists.  If  the 
dry  conditions  continue  long  enough  and  become  extreme  enough, 
the  old  species  may  be  pushed  thousands  of  miles  from  its  original 
home.  Then  the  climate  may  moderate  once  more,  but  the  old 
species  will  not  necessarily  come  back  into  the  old  home.  That 
region  may  be  so  completely  occupied  by  the  new  and  more 
highly  specialized  species  that  there  will  be  no  room  for  the 
other. 

Again  there  comes  a  dry  period.  A  still  more  specialized  type 
of  horse  is  developed,  perhaps  the  one-toed  type,  succeeding  the 
more  primitive  three-toed  form.  It  pushes  out  its  predecessor 
and  this  predecessor  pushes  the  primitive  species  stiU  farther. 
The  net  result  is  that  among  mammals  the  most  primitive  forms 
are  usually  found  either  as  ancient  fossils  in  old  strata  near  the 
place  where  the  family  originated,  or  as  later  fossils  in  modern 
strata  or  even  as  living  species  in  regions  far  from  their  original 
home.  The  places  where  the  primitive  types  are  most  likely  to 
be  found  still  living  are  areas  of  refuge  such  as  tropical  forests, 
isolated  peninsulas,  islands,  or  other  inaccessible  regions  protected 
perhaps  by  mountains.  There  they  are  able  to  persist  either  be- 
cause they  have  not  been  subjected  to  an  extreme  environment 
greatly  different  from  that  in  which  they  originated,  or  because 
new  types  have  not  been  able  to  drive  them  out. 

All  this  applies  to  man  quite  as  much  as  to  animals.  In  fact, 
the  growth  of  man's  intelligence  seems  to  be  a  wonderful  exam- 
ple of  the  way  in  which  evolution  centers  in  regions  of  physical 
extremes  and  is  accelerated  by  climatic  variations.  The  whole 
of  human  history  falls  within  an  exceptional  period  in  the  earth's 
physical  condition.  Ever  since  the  time  when  the  apes  first  came 
down  out  of  the  trees,  the  continents  have  been  unusually  large, 
the  mountains  unusually  high,  the  climate  unusually  severe,  and 
the  variations  of  climate  unusually  great.  It  is  difficult  to  dis- 
abuse ourselves  of  the  idea  that  the  conditions  with  which  we 
are  familiar  are  those  which  prevail  most  widely.  Most  of  the 
readers  of  this  book  are  doubtless  residents  of  regions  where  the 


THE  EARLIEST  GREAT  MIGRATIONS  S7 


hills  and  plains  are  covered  with  vegetation,  and  where  the  grass 
if  left  to  itself,  takes  the  form  of  turf.  But  that  is  not  the  usual 
condition  throughout  the  earth  as  a  whole.  Most  of  the  eight 
i  hundred  million  people  of  Asia  have  never  seen  real  turf.  Nor 
have  most  of  those  of  Africa  and  South  America.  The  same  is 
true  of  large  parts  of  North  America,  Austraha,  and  even  south- 
ern Europe.  It  is  probably  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  to  nearly 
three-fourths  of  the  sixteen  or  seventeen  hundred  million  people 
in  the  world  turfy  grass  does  not  seem  normal.  They  are  like  a 
Kurd  and  an  Armenian  with  whom  I  was  once  riding  in  Asia 
Minor.  We  came  to  a  beautiful,  green,  grassy  plain  at  the  end  of 
a  small  lake.  Having  seen  nothing  really  green  for  two  or  three 
months,  for  it  was  August,  and  having  seen  no  good  turf  for  two 
or  three  years,  I  was  delighted. 

"See  how  beautiful  that  is,"  I  said.  "In  my  country  it  is 
like  that  everywhere.'*  But  the  impression  on  my  companions 
was  not  what  I  intended;  "How  unhealthy  your  country  must 
be ! "  was  their  answer.  To  them  a  place  where  the  grass  is  green 
in  midsummer  meant  standing  water,  mosquitoes,  and  malaria. 

Just  as  we  who  are  to-day  the  world's  leaders  live  in  a  rela- 
tively unusual  and  restricted  environment,  so  the  human  race 
throughout  its  whole  history  has  lived  in  a  decidedly  unusual 
environment.  Throughout  geological  times  by  far  the  most 
common  condition  has  resembled  that  which  prevailed  in  early 
Miocene  times  before  the  primitive  ape-men  came  down  from  the 
trees.  At  that  time,  it  will  be  remembered,  the  lands  were  rela- 
tively small  and  low,  arms  of  the  sea  penetrated  far  inland,  most 
of  the  mountain  ranges  were  rounded,  gentle,  and  low,  and  the 
climate  was  so  mild  that  corals  flourished  far  to  the  north,  great 
forests  presumably  throve  in  central  Asia,  and  beech-trees,  oaks, 
planes,  poplars,  limes,  magnolias,  holly,  ivy,  and  grapevines  grew 
in  Greenland,  Iceland,  and  Spitzbergen. 

Then  began  the  great  change  which  we  have  pictured,  the 
uplifting  of  the  lands,  the  upheaval  of  vast  mountain  chains, 
and  the  progressive  cooling  and  drying  of  the  atmosphere.  At 
first  the  change  was  probably  very  slow  and  gradual,  impercep- 


38 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


tible  in  the  life  of  any  individual.  Perhaps  it  was  never  rapid 
enough  so  that  even  if  modern  man  had  been  there  he  would 
have  been  conscious  of  it  except  on  the  basis  of  records  kept 
from  one  generation  to  another.  But  ultimately  the  change  cul- 
minated m  one  of  the  most  perturbed  periods  the  world  has  ever 
seen,  the  Pleistocene  glacial  period.  During  at  least  four  epochs, 
and  perhaps  in  several  earher  epochs  whose  record  is  lost  or  not 
yet  known,  there  were  great  climatic  pulsations  which  culmi- 
nated in  vast  continental  ice-sheets.  To-day  we  are  still  living  in 
an  unusual  period— the  last  part  of  an  ice  age.  It  is  by  no  means 
usual  for  Greenland  to  be  shrouded  in  ice  or  for  the  whole  Ant- 
arctic continent  to  be  covered  with  an  ice-sheet.  Our  great 
extremes  of  temperature  from  summer  to  winter,  as  well  as  our 
cold  oceans,  are  quite  different  from  the  conditions  which  have 
ordinarily  prevailed.  Thus  from  the  standpoint  of  environment 
one  of  the  outstanding  facts  in  organic  evolution  is  that  during 
the  period  of  strictly  human  development  the  physical  environ- 
ment has  been  unusual;  the  greatest  advances  appear  to  have 
been  made  when  the  environment  has  been  most  extreme.  The 
last  step  in  the  development  of  the  mental  capacities  in  which 
man  now  rejoices  was  taken  during  the  last  ice  age,  whose  wan- 
ing power  is  still  seen  in  the  glaciers  not  only  of  Greenland  and 
Antarctica,  but  even  of  Norway  and  the  Alps. 

The  preceding  outline  of  biological  and  geological  principles 
prepares  the  way  for  a  study  of  the  kind  of  events  that  must 
have  happened  to  early  man  during  the  various  ice  ages.  Here, 
as  in  the  last  chapter,  our  story  must  consist  largely  of  inferences 
rather  than  of  historical  facts.  Only  at  long  intervals  have  we 
even  the  faintest  trace  of  man  at  this  time.  In  the  whole  vast 
continent  of  Asia  there  has  not  yet  been  found  a  single  authentic 
trace  of  man  before  the  last  glacial  epoch.  Nevertheless,  on  the 
basis  of  certain  generally  accepted  principles  of  ecology  and 
paleontology  we  can  sketch  a  rough  outline  of  certain  steps  in 
man's  upward  progress.  The  sketch  is  like  some  of  the  stories 
of  the  Bible  whose  main  object  is  to  illustrate  broad  principles 
rather  than  supply  an  exact  account  of  what  actually  happened. 


THE  EARLIEST  GREAT  MIGRATIONS  39 


Its  value  is  that  it  enables  us  to  view  man  in  perspective,  it 
brings  out  the  close  similarity  between  man  and  other  animals, 
and  it  gives  a  consistent  background  against  which  to  project 
the  definite  facts  that  will  engage  our  attention  during  the  later 
stages  of  human  development. 

In  the  preceding  chapter  we  carried  our  primitive  ancestors 
to  the  point  where  they  had  permanently  assumed  the  erect 
attitude  and  no  longer  depended  upon  the  forests  either  for 
shelter  or  food.  They  were  living,  presumably,  somewhere  be- 
tween the  Caspian  Sea  and  western  China,  in  a  region  of  steppes 
and  savannas,  but  not  of  deserts.  Perhaps  they  had  already 
spread  over  most  of  this  region.  The  limits  to  which  they  ex- 
panded were  possibly  set  by  the  range  of  the  grass-eating  animals 
which  probably  formed  their  main  source  of  food.  In  Europe  the 
earliest  human  remains  are  almost  invariably  associated  with 
animals  such  as  the  bison,  elephant,  mammoth,  and  rhinoceros. 
The  continent  of  Eurasia  as  a  whole,  and  most  of  the  individual 
mountain  ranges  stood  much  higher  than  a  million  or  so  years 
previously,  when  the  first  apes  began  to  walk  unsteadily  on  two 
feet  from  tree  to  tree  in  the  open  glades.  But  the  mountains  were 
apparently  not  so  high  as  they  became  during  the  period  of  per- 
haps half  a  miUion  years  which  has  since  elapsed. 

During  those  half-million  years  human  evolution  has  been 
chiefly  guided  by  two  sets  of  facts,  namely,  the  mutations  that 
have  occurred  in  man,  especially  in  his  skull  and  brain,  and  mi- 
gration and  natural  selection  under  the  influence  of  great  pulsa- 
tions of  climate.  Before  the  beginning  of  the  first  glacial  period 
central  Asia  must  have  reached  a  condition  almost  as  dry  as 
now.  That  could  scarcely  happen  without  causing  early  man  to 
spread  widely  from  his  ancestral  home.  Either  then  or  in  some 
later  interglacial  period  he  reached  at  least  four  main  types  of 
environment,  according  to  whether  he  traveled  south  or  north, 
west  or  east.  Those  that  went  southward  may  be  represented  by 
Pithecanthropus  erectus,  the  ape-man  of  Java,  whom  some  au- 
thorities believe  to  be  preglacial.  Probably  the  modern  and 
much  mixed  descendants  of  some  group  of  southward-moving 


40 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


migrants  may  be  recognized  in  the  primitive  Pygmies  of  southern 
Asia,  central  Africa,  and  the  East  Indies,  and  in  the  Australoid 
and  Negroid  peoples  of  the  torrid  zone  in  general.  In  their  most 
primitive  forms  such  people  live  largely  in  inaccessible  tropical 
forests  where  they  are  protected  from  later  arrivals  by  the  dense- 
ness  of  the  trees  and  the  general  unhealthfulness  of  the  surround- 
ings. 

Those  of  the  early  migrants  who  went  south  would  doubt- 
less have  congratulated  themselves  on  their  good  fortune,  had 
they  known  and  understood  what  happened  to  the  others.  But 
their  seeming  good  fortune  was  their  undoing.  By  getting  into 
a  tropical  climate  they  almost  inevitably  condemned  them- 
selves either  to  stagnation  or  to  an  evolution  slower  than  that 
of  their  kindred  who  stayed  in  the  old  home  or  went  in  other 
directions.  One  reason  for  this  was  that  their  new  environment 
did  not  differ  greatly  from  that  in  which  their  ancestors  lived 
before  leaving  the  trees.  In  fact  their  southward  way  brought 
many  of  them  into  the  forest  environment  of  the  apes.  The  pro- 
fusion of  trees,  insects,  and  beasts  of  prey  in  the  torrid  zone  en- 
courages an  arboreal  life.  Among  the  Pygmies  there  has  been  a 
considerable  development  in  this  direction.  Those  little  people 
build  their  houses  high  among  the  branches,  they  are  wonder- 
fully adept  at  climbing,  and  the  trees  are  to  them  a  refuge,  much 
as  they  are  to  the  apes.  Moreover,  in  a  tropical  environment  it 
is  easier  to  get  a  living  than  on  the  steppes  and  savannas.  Less 
activity  and  more  patience  in  lying  in  wait  are  required  in  hunt- 
ing. There  is  no  pronounced  change  of  seasons  to  oblige  people 
to  adopt  one  method  in  winter  and  another  in  summer,  and  thus 
make  them  adaptable.  There  is  less  likelihood  of  prolonged 
periods  without  food,  so  that  the  hoarding  instinct,  and  the 
power  of  self-control  in  order  to  make  the  food  last  through  a 
period  of  privation  are  not  fostered  so  much  as  farther  pole- 
ward. This  is  the  more  true  because  tropical  man  can  find  vege- 
table food  more  abundantly  than  can  the  man  in  the  cooler 
grasslands,  while  at  the  same  time  the  tropical  food  is  far  more 
perishable  than  the  other.    Fruits  and  even  roots  are  by  no 


THE  EARLIEST  GREAT  MIGRATIONS  41 


means  easy  to  store  for  any  length  of  time,  whereas  the  seeds  of 
!  grasslike  grains  such  as  wheat  and  barley  spoil  much  less  quickly. 
Here,  too,  the  temperature  and  humidity  make  a  great  difference, 
for  even  the  great  tropical  grains,  rice,  millet,  and  corn,  which 
will  keep  perfectly  during  a  winter  in  central  Asia  when  the 
thermometer  goes  down  to  zero,  are  relatively  hard  to  store  in 
a  warm  climate  which  averages  near  80°  F.  Moreover,  in  the 
cooler  climate,  even  during  its  warm  season,  there  are  not  so 
many  insects,  rodents,  and  other  creatures  as  in  tropical  lands, 
nor  so  many  moulds,  fungi,  and  the  like  to  destroy  the  food 
that  man  attempts  to  save  for  times  of  scarcity. 

Added  to  all  this  is  the  fact  that  even  the  more  backward 
races  seem  to  have  the  best  health  and  greatest  energy  in  a  cli- 
mate with  an  average  temperature  of  70°  F.  or  less  rather  than  80°. 
The  fact  that  the  temperature  is  constantly  too  high  seems  not 
only  to  weaken  the  body  somewhat  so  that  it  is  more  easily  a 
prey  to  disease,  but  to  make  people  do  things  in  the  way  that 
requires  least  effort.  Great  activity  in  a  hot,  moist  region  raises 
the  bodily  temperature  too  high— so  high  that  the  cooling  mech- 
anism of  the  sweat  glands  and  lungs  cannot  keep  the  tempera- 
ture down  to  normal.  Thus  the  active  people  are  frequently 
afflicted  with  what  is  really  a  slight  fever,  harmless  perhaps  in 
itself,  or  in  a  single  occurrence,  but  tending  toward  weakness  in 
the  long  run.  The  man  who  can  get  a  living  with  the  least  effort, 
that  is,  without  heating  himself  or  without  going  into  places 
where  he  will  be  stung  by  noxious  insects,  has  a  real  advantage 
in  warm,  moist  countries,  and  his  kind  is  likely  to  survive  where 
the  active  kind  die  out.  Hence  from  a  score  of  standpoints  the 
primitive  men  who  followed  the  seemingly  favorable  climate 
southward  from  central  Asia,  and  who  finally  migrated  into  a 
tropical  environment  were  at  a  disadvantage  compared  with 
those  who  unwittingly  remained  in  the  lands  where  life  was 
hard. 

Let  us  go  back  now  to  central  Asia,  and  inquire  what  pre- 
sumably happened  to  the  primitive  men  who  spread  westward 
and  eastward  during  early  times.  How  far  they  actually  mi- 


42 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


grated  during  the  period  when  the  Asiatic  mountains  were  ris- 
ing, and  the  cHmate  of  central  Asia  was  growing  drier,  we  do  not 
yet  know.  If  the  so-called  Foxhall  and  Red  Crag  flints  and  the 
'^coprolite  jaw"  found  in  England  are  of  preglacial  age,  as  some 
scholars  believe,  preglacial  man  must  have  spread  into  Africa 
and  Europe  as  well  as  Asia.  He  could  get  to  Europe  only  by 
way  of  North  Africa.  At  Suez  there  was  a  broad  connection  be- 
tween Africa  and  Asia,  whereas  Europe  appears  to  have  been 
cut  off  from  Asia  by  a  continuous  sea,  which  extended  from  the 
Black  Sea  to  the  Caspian  and  thence  to  the  Arctic  Ocean  by 
way  of  the  great  Ural  Gulf.  On  the  other  hand,  Africa  and 
Europe  were  united  at  Gibraltar,  and  perhaps  at  Sicily,  so  that 
men  and  animals  could  migrate  freely.  It  is  not  here  necessary, 
however,  to  know  just  when  man  spread  to  various  parts  of  the 
world.  We  are  concerned  with  the  effect  of  increasing  aridity 
in  central  Asia  and  of  corresponding  climatic  changes  in  other 
parts  of  the  world,  no  matter  whether  these  occurred  before  the 
first  glaciation  or  during  an  interglacial  or  post-glacial  epoch. 
The  same  general  sequence  of  climatic  events  occurred  repeat- 
edly, and  in  each  case  the  general  effect  upon  man  must  have 
been  similar. 

As  central  Asia  grew  drier  there  must  always  have  been  on 
each  border  of  the  desert  a  belt  of  moister  climate,  in  some 
places  wide,  in  others  narrow.  Its  inner  portion  consisted  of 
grasslands  and  tree-studded  savannas,  like  those  of  the  sup- 
posed first  home  wherein  man  came  down  from  the  trees.  Be- 
yond this  lay  forests.  As  the  dry  area  expanded  the  savanna 
belt  retreated  and  pushed  back  the  forest.  The  men  who  for 
generation  after  generation  slowly  migrated  eastward  or  west- 
ward with  the  savanna  belt  probably  did  not  appreciably  change 
their  type  of  habitat.  Since  they  encountered  few  new  types  of 
vegetation  and  animals,  and  since  the  climatic  conditions  to 
which  they  were  exposed  were  closely  similar  to  those  under 
which  their  ancestors  had  lived,  there  is  Httle  reason  to  think 
that  the  evolution  of  new  types  went  on  with  any  great  activity. 
In  China  the  northern  part  of  the  country,  namely  Mongolia 


I 


THE  EARLIEST  GREAT  MIGRATIONS  43 


and  western  Manchuria,  is  not  forested,  and  would  not  be  cov- 
ered densely  with  trees  even  if  man  were  not  there.  The  fact 
that  the  rain  comes  only  in  the  summer,  and  is  often  delayed 
until  Jime  or  even  July,  makes  it  impossible  for  forests  to  pre- 
vail, except  locally.  In  north  Africa  the  treeless  region  is  well 
known  to  reach  as  far  as  the  Atlantic.  Hence  both  the  eastward 
and  the  westward  migrants  may  have  almost  reached  the  ocean 
without  suffering  any  great  change  in  environment  or  in  char- 
acter. 

This  does  not  mean  that  evolution  came  to  a  standstill. 
Among  the  eastward  and  westward  migrants  and  likewise  among 
those  who  went  south  or  north,  mutant  types  may  have  arisen 
at  any  time.  Moreover,  the  processes  of  sexual  selection,  so  far 
as  it  has  any  importance,  and  whatever  advance  there  may  be 
through  the  struggle  for  existence  as  described  by  Darwin,  must 
have  gone  on  at  all  times.  Each  set  of  people  may  likewise  have 
met  certain  new  conditions  due  to  movements  of  the  earth's 
crust  or  to  the  presence  of  plants  and  animals  hitherto  unknown, 
or  new  combinations  of  mountains,  plains,  valleys,  rivers,  lakes, 
and  oceans.  In  each  migrant  group  there  may  have  arisen  men 
of  imusual  abiHty  who  made  new  inventions  such  as  better  traps, 
more  effective  bows,  more  shapely  flints,  and  more  convenient 
clubs,  huts,  and  other  devices.  The  people  who  were  clever 
enough  to  adopt  these  devices  would  be  the  ones  who  would 
be  most  likely  to  survive.  Thus  human  evolution  presumably 
would  have  made  progress  even  if  the  climate  had  remained 
constant.  But  all  the  causes  of  progress  or  change  mentioned 
in  this  paragraph  would  perhaps  in  the  long  run  act  almost  as 
strongly  upon  people  who  migrated  in  one  direction  as  in  an- 
other. What  we  are  here  concerned  with  is  the  conditions  which 
would  produce  noteworthy  differences  in  the  rate  of  progress 
among  migrants  to  different  parts  of  the  world. 

The  primitive  people  who  went  north  from  the  dry  central 
region  of  Asia  or  who  went  north  from  Africa  into  Europe,  must 
have  encountered  conditions  more  severe  than  those  which  con- 
fronted the  migrants  to  the  south,  east,  or  west.  With  the  lower 


44  THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 

temperature  and  longer  winters  the  need  of  clothing,  shelter,  ' 
and  fire  would  increase.  Thus  skill  in  procuring  these  necessi- 
ties and  in  making  the  tools  with  which  they  are  prepared  would 
be  at  a  premium.  Moreover,  among  people  in  cooler  climates  the  | 
low  temperature  encourages  activity:  it  leads  a  man  to  pursue 
the  chase  with  vigor;  it  makes  him  enjoy  the  task  of  gathering 
wood  for  a  fire,  or  of  cutting  a  tree  with  a  stone  axe;  it  puts  a 
premium  on  continued  and  repeated  physical  activity.  There 
would  likewise  be  greater  need  for  forethought  in  order  that 
fuel,  clothing,  and  a  place  for  shelter  might  at  all  times  be  avail- 
able in  cold  and  snowy  weather.  Any  great  movement  toward 
the  north  would  also  bring  the  migrants  into  the  forest.  Whether 
the  forest  environment  is  as  stimulating  as  that  of  the  savannas 
need  not  now  concern  us.  It  is  different,  and  therefore  those  of 
the  wanderers  who  were  most  adaptable,  and  best  able  to  cope 
with  new  circumstances  would  have  an  advantage.  In  many 
ways  those  who  entered  the  forests  to  the  south  must  have  had 
the  same  advantage,  but  the  northern  forest  is  more  difficult 
because  food  is  harder  to  find.  Still  more  important  is  the  fact 
that  in  the  northern  forest  the  hunter  who  has  wandered  far 
from  home  may  freeze  to  death  at  night  unless  careful  precau- 
tions are  taken,  whereas  in  the  southern  forest  primitive  man 
could  anywhere  climb  a  tree  and  remain  in  comparative  com- 
fort and  safety  without  clothing,  shelter,  or  fire.  Thus  among 
the  northern  migrants  the  selection  of  the  most  intelligent  types 
for  preservation  probably  went  on  faster  and  more  effectively 
than  among  those  who  wandered  in  other  directions. 

But  how  about  the  remnant  who  remained  in  the  original 
home  in  spite  of  the  steadily  increasing  aridity?  Generation  by 
generation  their  struggle  must  have  become  harder.  Like  all  the 
other  men  of  that  ancient  time  they  were  presumably  hunters 
who  eked  out  their  supplies  of  meat  with  whatever  vegetable 
food  they  could  lay  hands  on,  but  as  yet  agriculture  was  not 
even  a  dream.  Judging  by  the  present  deserts,  just  as  we  have 
judged  the  other  environments  by  what  happens  in  them  to-day, 
the  people  who  remained  in  the  central  dry  area  of  Asia  must 


THE  EARLIEST  GREAT  MIGRATIONS  45 


have  been  subjected  to  the  severest  type  of  natural  selection.  As 
the  mountains  rose  higher  throughout  the  long  ages  they  had  to 
endure  greater  extremes  than  formerly  of  both  heat  and  cold. 
Game  must  have  been  scarcer  than  formerly;  longer  and  harder 
journeys  were  required  in  pursuit  of  it.  Greater  endurance  than 
ever  was  required  not  only  in  this  respect,  but  in  the  ordeal  of 
himger  and  thirst  which  must  have  been  experienced  more  often 
than  at  any  previous  time.  In  many  ways  the  factors  that  acted 
to  select  certain  types  for  preservation  were  the  same  as  those 
farther  north,  except  that  aridity  and  vast  uninhabitable  areas, 
with  their  many  severe  trials,  took  the  place  of  prolonged  cold 
and  vast  forests.  The  process  of  weeding  out  the  human  beings 
who  fell  below  a  certain  level  must  have  gone  on  rapidly.  But 
an  environment  which  in  moderation  tends  to  weed  out  the  less 
competent  may  be  so  extreme  that  it  weeds  out  the  more  alert 
types,  leaving  those  that  are  able  to  survive  through  sluggish 
endurance  rather  than  through  activity  and  alertness,  as  we 
shall  see  fully  in  China.  From  the  standpoint  of  the  evolution 
of  human  intelligence  the  environment  of  the  deserts  and  of  the 
northlands  was  good  in  so  far  as  it  put  a  premium  on  activity 
and  alertness;  it  was  bad  when  it  became  so  extreme  that  it 
drove  out  the  active  types,  or  gave  the  main  advantage  to  those 
which  were  able  to  survive  only  by  means  of  passivity,  semi- 
hibernation,  or  lack  of  a  keen  nervous  system. 

We  have  dwelt  on  these  early  migrations  and  their  presuma- 
ble effect  upon  human  character  because  the  same  process  must 
have  been  repeated  time  after  time.  With  the  growth  of  human 
knowledge  and  the  building  up  of  the  vast  mechanism  of  civili- 
zation which  is  passed  on  from  generation  to  generation,  the  re- 
sponse of  man  to  any  given  environment  changes  somewhat, 
but  the  principles  by  which  certain  variations  in  human  ability 
are  selected  for  preservation  or  destruction  remain  constant.  In 
the  first  great  migrations  those  who  went  to  the  tropical  regions 
subjected  themselves  unknowingly  to  conditions  which  presum- 
ably tended  toward  stagnation  or  even  toward  retrogression,  for 
moderate  activity  was  often  more  profitable  than  great  activity, 


46 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


while  the  abundance  of  resources  and  lack  of  the  exigencies  of 
the  seasons  tended  to  give  the  stupid  almost  as  good  a  chance  of 
survival  as  the  intelligent.  Among  those  who  migrated  east  or 
west,  there  was  probably  no  great  selection  of  one  type  rather 
than  another  because  there  was  no  marked  change  in  environ- 
ment. They  progressed  to  the  extent  that  other  causes  deter- 
mined, but  in  those  respects  were  presumably  Httle  better  off 
than  the  rest  of  mankind.  But  those  who  went  to  the  north, 
either  in  Asia  or  from  Africa  to  Europe,  and  those  who  remained 
in  the  dry  primeval  habitat,  provided  the  environment  did  not 
become  too  extreme,  seem  to  have  been  subjected  to  a  series 
of  conditions  which  placed  a  maximum  survival  value  upon  the 
qualities  of  mental  and  physical  alertness,  upon  the  abiHty  to 
persist  in  the  chase  or  in  the  search  for  water,  upon  the  kind  of 
mentality  that  takes  thought  for  the  morrow  and  that  can  pro- 
vide itself  with  tools,  clothing,  and  shelter,  and  that  can  utilize 
that  great  weapon  and  comforter,  fire.  It  is,  then,  in  central  and 
north  central  Asia  or  possibly  in  the  north  Atlantic  parts  of 
Europe  and  the  Asiatic  area  draining  into  the  north  Pacific,  that 
we  should  expect  the  greatest  development  of  human  abiHty  dur- 
ing the  period  of  the  first  dispersion  of  mankind. 


CHAPTER  IV 


GLACIATION  AND  THE  SUPREMACY  OF  EUROPE 

The  next  great  step  in  the  evolution  of  races  was  the  coming 
of  the  first  glacial  epoch.  This  means  much  more  than  the  mere 
advance  of  an  ice-sheet,  for  that  is  only  one  of  many  results  all 
springing  from  common  causes.  Those  causes  include  in  the  first 
place  the  gradual  elevation  of  the  land  and  the  uplifting  of  moun- 
tain chains,  together  with  a  possible  decrease  in  the  amount  of 
carbon  dioxide  and  water  vapor  in  the  air.  But  in  addition  there 
seem  to  have  been  other  causes  which  acted  more  suddenly, 
and  were  capable  of  repeatedly  reversing  themselves  and  of 
varying  irregularly  in  periods  which  had  a  length  of  tens  of 
thousands  of  years  for  the  greater  cycles,  or  of  only  scores  or 
hundreds  of  years  for  the  minor  cycles.  Irregular  upward  or 
downward  movements  of  the  lands  are  almost  certainly  included 
among  these  causes,  as  is  intermittent  veiling  of  the  sun  by  vast 
quantities  of  volcanic  dust. 

Still  more  important,  as  it  seems  to  me,  are  variations  in 
solar  activity,  as  explained  in  Climatic  Changes  and  Earth  and 
Sun,  The  climatic  cycles  of  the  glacial  period  seem  on  a  large 
scale  to  be  almost  identical  with  the  small  cycles  whose  extremes 
are  now  observed  at  times  of  sun-spot  maxima  and  minima. 
One  of  the  main  characteristics  of  the  present  cycles  is  an  in- 
crease in  the  number  and  intensity  of  cyclonic  storms  at  times 
of  many  sun-spots,  and  especially  a  tendency  for  the  paths  of 
the  storms  to  lie  in  relatively  high  latitudes.  The  frequency 
and  intensity  of  the  storms  cause  an  unusually  large  amount  of 
warm  air  to  be  carried  aloft  in  their  centers.  How  this  happens 
is  famihar  to  every  one  who  has  observed  the  way  in  which  a 
warm  wind  from  a  southerly  quarter,  especially  in  winter,  is 
apt  to  precede  a  storm,  whereas  after  the  storm  there  comes  a 
strong  cold  wind  from  the  north  and  west.  The  cold  air  actually 

47 


48 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


blows  under  the  warm  air  and  lifts  it  up.  Curiously  enough,  al- 
though it  has  now  been  demonstrated  beyond  question  that  the 
earth's  surface  is  cooler  at  times  of  many  sun-spots  than  at  times 
of  few,  the  sun  seems  to  give  out  more  heat  at  times  of  many 
sun-spots.  This  anomaly  seems  to  find  its  explanation  in  the  up- 
ward movement  of  vast  quantities  of  warm  air  in  the  centers  of 
the  storms. 

On  this  basis  we  interpret  a  glacial  epoch  as  a  time  which 
may  begin  with  a  certain  amount  of  uplifting  of  the  lands,  and 
an  unusual  degree  of  volcanic  activity,  but  which  is  mainly  char- 
acterized by  increased  storminess  and  strong  winds,  especially 
in  high  latitudes.  The  actual  sunshine  may  be  warmer  than  usual, 
but  the  air  on  the  average  is  unusually  cool  because  vast  amounts 
of  warm  air  are  drawn  away  from  low  latitudes  and  carried  aloft 
in  the  centers  of  storms.  For  a  considerable  period,  presumably 
several  thousand  years,  the  accumulation  of  snow  continues  in 
certain  especially  stormy  areas,  which  are  usually  but  not  always 
highlands.  The  chief  areas  were  Canada  on  both  sides  of  Hud- 
son Bay  and  Scandinavia,  as  appears  in  Fig.  i,  but  there  were 
numerous  minor  centers  such  as  Scotland,  the  Alps,  and  the 
Canadian  Rockies.  In  course  of  time  the  depth  of  the  snow  in- 
creased to  hundreds  of  feet. 

Because  a  snow-field  is  almost  invariably  cold,  each  large 
region  where  snow  remained  permanently  must  have  become  an 
area  of  high  atmospheric  pressure.  Therefore  strong  winds  pre- 
sumably blew  outward  as  they  do  on  the  borders  of  the  ice- 
sheets  of  Antarctica  and  Greenland,  where  the  gales  often  reach 
velocities  of  a  hundred  miles  an  hour.  This  would  tend  to  blow 
the  snow  continually  outward  toward  the  edges  of  the  snow- 
fields.  At  the  same  time  the  high  atmospheric  pressure  would 
force  the  storms  to  seek  lower  latitudes  than  formerly,  and  most 
of  them  would  sweep  around  the  equatorward  border  of  the 
main  snow-fields.  At  some  stage  the  snow  would  become  so  deep 
that  it  would  gradually  be  converted  into  ice,  and  would  begin 
to  flow  outward  and  thereby  add  to  the  ice-covered  area.  Thus 
at  the  height  of  each  of  the  four  glacial  epochs  much  of  north- 


t 


I 


GLACIATION  AND  THE  SUPREMACY  OF  EUROPE  49 


western  Europe  was  shrouded  with  ice,  while  much  of  the  region 
north  of  the  Pyrenees  and  Alps  probably  had  a  climate  as  severe 
as  that  of  Lapland  to-day.  Farther  south  in  the  Mediterranean 
region  and  north  Africa,  and  extending  eastward  to  central 
Asia  and  northern  India,  there  was  apparently  a  broad  belt  of 
cyclonic  storms  and  highly  variable  weather,  with  abundant 
rain  at  practically  all  seasons.  Still  farther  south  the  great  deserts 
of  Sahara  and  Arabia  were  apparently  greatly  narrowed,  and 
were  far  less  dry  and  much  more  habitable  than  at  present. 

Let  us  now  see  what  probably  happened  to  the  primitive 
men  who  had  become  established  in  different  parts  of  the  Old 
World  when  the  glacial  period  came  on.  In  the  tropical  re- 
gions the  coming  and  going  of  such  a  period  would  make  rela- 
tively little  difference.  The  general  temperature  would  be  low- 
ered somewhat,  enough  perhaps  to  make  the  chmate  quite 
pleasant.  For  example,  the  vast  area  within  ten  or  fifteen  degrees 
of  the  equator  may  have  had  an  average  temperature  not  far  from 
70°  F.  instead  of  above  80°  F.,  and  there  was  probably  more 
variability  than  now  from  one  day  to  another.  In  a  general  way 
the  climate  probably  tended  to  reproduce  many  of  the  condi- 
tions which  prevailed  farther  north,  in  the  supposed  primeval 
home  of  man  before  his  descent  from  the  trees.  A  mild,  pleasant 
climate  of  this  sort  would  improve  the  health  of  the  tropical 
people,  and  make  them  more  active.  It  would  permit  a  larger 
proportion  of  the  children  to  grow  up,  and  thus  would  tend  to 
make  the  population  more  dense.  The  amount  of  food  available 
for  human  consumption  would  presumably  not  be  altered  greatly, 
and  the  methods  of  getting  it  would  not  have  to  be  changed. 
The  problem  of  getting  a  living  would  be  easier  than  formerly 
because  people  would  be  more  active  and  vigorous,  but  the 
problem  might  also  be  made  more  difficult  if  a  lower  death-rate 
appreciably  increased  the  density  of  population.  Such  an  in- 
crease might  have  an  important  effect  in  putting  a  premium 
upon  all  the  qualities  which  enable  a  people  to  make  a  living, 
but  perhaps  the  extra  effort  required  because  of  the  denser  pop- 
iJation  would  be  balanced  by  the  greater  energy. 


50 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


Even  if  the  climatic  amelioration  in  tropical  lands  during  a 
glacial  epoch  were  a  real  factor  in  raising  the  general  level  of  the 
people,  as  may  well  have  been  the  case,  it  would  apparently  in- 
troduce few  new  factors  and  few  new  types  of  natural  selection. 
Not  even  the  most  severe  glacial  period  would  apparently  cause 
the  equatorial  regions  to  have  any  great  contrast  of  seasons  in 
excess  of  the  regular  periods  of  more  or  less  rain  which  prevail 
at  present.  In  the  genuine  equatorial  regions,  with  which  alone 
we  are  now  concerned,  the  mode  of  life,  so  far  as  I  can  see,  would 
remain  practically  constant  no  matter  how  many  glacial  epochs 
came  and  went.  The  universal  evolutionary  factors  such  as  the 
struggle  for  food,  and  possibly  mutations,  would  still  pursue 
their  courses.  Migrations,  likewise,  would  sometimes  introduce 
new  races,  but  the  partial  isolation  of  the  tropical  regions  by 
deserts  on  either  side,  their  relative  impenetrability,  the  danger 
to  newcomers  from  disease,  and  the  relatively  unchanging  char- 
acter of  the  environment,  all  appear  to  have  combined  to  make 
migrations  less  important  near  the  equator  than  farther  north. 
Thus  while  tropical  man  may  not  have  been  stationary  in  the 
march  of  evolution,  he  appears  never  to  have  been  subjected  to 
any  such  active  evolution  as  has  been  the  case  in  higher  latitudes 
and  more  variable  climates.  In  this  respect  man  merely  repeats 
the  experience  of  family  after  family  of  mammals  and  other 
animals,  whose  most  primitive  types  dwell  in  the  habitats  where 
changes  have  been  least  numerous,  and  where  the  environment 
has  demanded  the  least  adaptation  to  special  circumstances. 

The  contrast  between  the  action  of  tropical  and  non-tropical 
environments,  whether  through  natural  selection  or  through  the 
stimulation  of  mutations,  seems  to  be  one  of  the  most  important 
causes  of  differences  in  racial  character.  It  appears  to  be  a  bi- 
ological law  that  a  tropical  environment,  because  of  its  uniform- 
ity, tends  to  perpetuate  primitive,  unspecialized  forms.  Since 
man  spHt  off  from  the  apes  his  speciaHzation  has  been  in  the 
size,  complexity,  and  functioning  of  the  brain.  Other  specializa- 
tions, such  as  changes  of  complexion,  stature,  and  hair,  have 
been  of  minor  importance.  In  equatorial  regions  the  mental  type 


GLACIATION  AND  THE  SUPREMACY  OF  EUROPE  51 


of  specialization  has  apparently  been  slow,  largely  because  there 
j  have  been  no  really  great  changes  throughout  man^s  history,  not 
I  even  during  the  severest  glacial  epochs.  That,  presumably,  is 
j  one  of  the  chief  reasons  why  it  is  so  difficult  to  impose  upon  equa- 
torial people  anything  more  than  the  outer  husk  of  northern 
government,  northern  religion,  northern  ideals,  and  northern 
culture.  Of  course  many  tropical  or  semitropical  people  are  of 
highly  mixed  ancestry  and  contain  elements  in  which  mental 
specialization  has  gone  so  far  that  they  can  assimilate  other 
forms  of  culture;  but  that  is  a  different  matter.  Moreover,  when 
various  races  have  first  migrated  to  low  latitudes,  the  new  envi- 
ronment may  in  certain  respects  tend  to  select  for  preservation 
the  individuals  with  certain  specialized  characteristics.  It  is  not 
impossible  that  if  a  few  million  of  the  most  competent  Europeans 
were  to  be  set  down  in  a  tropical  country  where  they  were  fully 
isolated  from  the  present  inhabitants,  they  might  ultimately  de- 
velop into  a  new  race  of  extremely  high  type.  After  their  num- 
bers had  been  cut  down  remorselessly  by  disease  for  generations, 
the  survivors  might  be  those  who  possess  great  mental  ability, 
adaptability,  and  self-control,  and  are  at  the  same  time  able  to 
take  life  easily  but  seriously,  to  work  wisely,  rest  freely,  and  pro- 
tect themselves  assiduously  not  only  from  the  ordinary  tropical 
diseases  but  from  whatever  more  insidious  dangers  there  may 
be  in  the  climate.  But  this  does  not  apply  to  the  present  people 
of  the  torrid  zone.  They  are  largely  descended  from  stocks  which 
apparently  experienced  their  main  mental  evolution  long  ago, 
and  have  almost  stagnated  ever  since. 

In  high  latitudes  the  effect  of  the  glacial  period  must  have 
been  very  different  from  its  effect  near  the  equator.  The  first 
thing  that  the  inhabitants  noticed  when  a  glacial  epoch  began 
to  come  on  in  central  Europe,  for  example,  may  have  been  that 
they  experienced  more  rain,  more  snow,  and  longer  winters  than 
were  indicated  by  the  traditions  of  their  fathers.  More  probably, 
they  became  aware  that  whereas  the  traditions  told  of  hunting 
Merck's  rhinoceros,  the  lion,  the  urus,  or  the  hairless  elephant, 
they  themselves  much  more  frequently  pursued  the  woolly  rhi- 


52  THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 

noceros,  the  lynx,  the  bison,  or  the  hairy  mammoth.  The  types 
of  trees  likewise  changed.  The  tulip-tree,  beech,  maple,  elm,  and 
their  congeners  gave  place  to  larch,  hemlock,  birch,  and  pine. 
Just  such  transformations  are  recorded  by  fossils  in  central 
Europe. 

As  time  went  on  the  conditions  became  still  worse.  The 
hunting  must  have  been  so  bad  that  many  a  day  the  wife  scolded 
her  husband  for  bringing  home  nothing,  and  the  children  cried 
from  hunger.  Many  of  the  children  and  an  unduly  large  number 
of  the  older  people  doubtless  perished  each  winter.  An  intense 
selective  process  thus  went  on  whereby  only  those  with  the 
greatest  endurance  and  the  greatest  skill  could  survive.  But  their 
skill  was  of  little  use,  for  their  environment  left  them  few  re- 
sources and  little  opportunity,  energy,  and  spirit  for  devising 
anything  new,  or  for  even  the  most  primitive  art.  Moreover, 
when  things  reached  this  stage,  or  perhaps  earlier,  the  cleverest 
of  the  primitive  families  and  those  in  whom  initiative,  the  power 
of  leadership,  and  the  love  of  adventure  were  most  developed 
presumably  migrated.  The  wisest  of  all  would  deliberately  choose 
their  direction  of  migration,  and  go  toward  warmer  lands,  more 
like  those  described  in  the  oral  traditions  of  their  fathers.  Among 
the  less  competent  who  remained  in  the  old  environment,  the 
hardships  attendant  on  the  long,  cold,  snowy  winters  must  at 
some  point  have  begun  to  cause  degeneration,  for  in  the  harshest 
climates  the  mere  power  to  endure  is  one  of  the  chief  character- 
istics. Finally,  in  all  northwestern  Europe,  the  few  hardy  fami- 
lies who  still  survived  must  have  perished  or  else  followed  their 
wiser  and  more  adventurous  companions  who  had  had  the  wit 
and  knowledge  to  move  in  the  right  direction  before  the  glacial 
period  caused  them  to  deteriorate. 

This  brings  us  to  what  I  believe  to  be  another  highly  impor- 
tant step  in  understanding  the  evolution  of  racial  character.  In 
northern  Asia,  as  well  as  in  northern  Europe,  the  approach  of 
an  ice  age  would  cause  three  things  to  happen.  First,  some  of  the 
inhabitants,  presumably  the  more  adventurous  and  intelligent, 
would  migrate  southward  into  milder  regions.   Second,  a  large 


GLACIATION  AND  THE  SUPREMACY  OF  EUROPE  53 


percentage  of  the  population,  though  not  a  large  number  as  we 
count  population,  would  be  exterminated  from  generation  to 
generation.  Third,  the  remnant  which  survived  would  go  through 
i   a  process  of  regressive  selection,  whereby  the  survivors  would  be 
those  in  whom  passive  qualities  of  resistance  to  hunger  and  dis- 
comfort were  most  highly  developed.  The  nervous,  active  types 
who  lead  the  march  of  human  progress  would  be  at  a  disadvan- 
tage compared  with  those  of  a  more  phlegmatic  constitution,  as 
i   we  shall  see  more  fully  in  studying  the  people  who  went  to 
j   America  and  China.   This  phlegmatic  type  is  now  represented 
I   by  the  Lapps,  Eskimos,  Chukjis,  Tierra  del  Fuegans,  Samoyedes, 
I   and  Alaska  Indians.    In  ancient  Europe  it  was  perhaps  rep- 
I   resented  by  the  late  Mousterian  people  whose  retrograding  cul- 
ture may  be  inferred  from  the  flints  and  other  implements  left 
by  them  during  the  period  just  before  the  last  glacial  epoch,  the 
so-caUed  Wurm  advance  of  the  ice. 

At  this  point  we  must  emphasize  the  distinction  between 
Europe  and  Asia,  a  distinction  which  seems  to  have  been  one 
of  the  most  vital  factors  in  human  evolution.  The  distinction 
is  that  in  Europe  it  was  the  cold  and  ice  of  glacial  epochs  which 
caused  the  greatest  weeding  out  of  human  types  and  produced 
the  conditions  that  most  fostered  migrations  and  mutations. 
In  Asia  it  was  the  drought  and  deserts  of  inter  glacial  epochs  that 
presumably  produced  the  most  intensive  human  evolution. 
During  the  height  of  each  glacial  epoch  most  of  Europe  down 
to  southern  England,  northern  France,  central  Germany,  and 
central  Russia,  was  shrouded  with  ice  and  snow;  another  large 
ice-field  deployed  from  the  Alps;  and  ice  from  the  Pyrenees  and 
Carpathians  spread  far  down  the  valleys.  The  rest  of  the  con- 
tinent north  of  the  Pyrenees,  Alps,  and  Carpathians  must  have 
been  extremely  stormy  and  disagreeable,  and  was  probably  cov- 
ered with  snow  well  into  the  summer.  Hence  with  the  recur- 
rence of  each  glaciation  absolutely  all  the  inhabitants  were 
driven  out  or  exterminated  north  of  latitude  50°.  It  is  not  to  be 
supposed  that  they  were  killed  suddenly,  but  merely  that  they 
gradually  diminished  from  generation  to  generation  because  of 


54 


THE  CHARACTER  OP  RACES 


migration  or  an  excessive  death-rate  especially  among  the  chil- 
dren. South  of  this  in  the  tier  of  countries  including  France, 
Austria,  Hungary,  Rumania,  and  southern  Russia,  only  a  hand- 
ful of  survivors  can  have  remained.  They  must  have  been  a 
highly  selected  remnant,  selected  because  of  their  ability  to 
withstand  cold,  hunger,  long  winters,  and  privation.  During  the 
long  process  of  exterminating,  repressing,  or  driving  out  the 
people  of  Europe,  a  considerable  number  of  the  more  energetic, 
intelligent,  hardy,  and  adventurous  men,  with  or  without  their 
families,  must  have  drifted  southward  and  eastward  into  the 
Mediterranean  peninsulas,  north  Africa,  and  southwestern  Asia. 
These  were  presumably  the  people  of  greatest  abihty  and  initia- 
tive. Even  among  them  the  great  majority  probably  died,  for 
only  the  strong  survive  in  any  primitive  migration.  The  women 
and  children  suffer  especially  from  all  sorts  of  hardships,  such  as 
lack  of  food  and  shelter,  while  many  of  the  men  are  killed  in  the 
fighting  which  is  almost  inevitable  when  migrants  enter  a  new 
land  already  populated.  Whole  tribes  and  even  whole  racial 
groups  may  have  been  practically  exterminated.  In  other  words 
here  we  have  one  of  those  inexorable  processes  of  selection  which 
weed  out  those  who  are  weak  in  body  or  mind,  and  preserve 
those  who  are  strong,  resourceful,  energetic,  and  adaptable. 
The  shrouding  of  Europe  by  ice  in  four  successive  epochs  car- 
ried out  such  a  selection  time  and  again.  It  presumably  drove 
the  selected  remnant  into  southern  Europe  and  into  the  neigh- 
boring parts  of  north  Africa  and  western  Asia.  During  at  least 
the  first  three  ice  ages  the  Ural  Gulf  probably  prevented  mi- 
gration to  Asia  except  by  way  of  Asia  Minor  or  the  Caucasus. 
Thus  the  countries  from  Persia,  Asia  Minor,  and  Mesopotamia 
around  by  Egypt  to  Morocco,  together  with  the  southern  penin- 
sulas of  Europe  itself,  formed  a  belt  into  which  must  have  mi- 
grated the  selected  remnants  of  the  Europeans  of  greatest  physi- 
cal strength,  mental  ability,  and  initiative  who  survived  the 
migrations  due  to  the  advancing  ice.  There  the  migrants  must 
have  encountered  some  of  the  most  vigorous  races  of  Asia.  Thus 
there  presumably  arose  not  only  a  complex  mingling  of  races  but 


GLACIATION  AND  THE  SUPREMACY  OF  EUROPE  55 


a  severe  problem  of  adjustment  whereby  many  of  the  former  in- 
habitants were  killed  or  driven  out.  In  the  parts  of  Europe  well 
beyond  the  ice-sheet  and  its  uninhabitable  climate,  and  in  the 
neighboring  parts  of  Africa  and  Asia  we  have  the  very  antithesis 
of  the  tropical  regions.  A  semicircle  of  selected  people  who  have 
been  through  radical  changes  of  environment  and  who  have 
made  long  migrations,  are  mingled  with  other  races.  They  have 
experienced  almost  every  condition  that  leads  to  rapid  evolu- 
tion. They  surround  an  empty  continent,  ready  to  penetrate  it 
and  expose  themselves  again  to  the  evolutionary  processes  of 
migration  and  expansion  as  soon  as  the  ice  and  the  climate 
permit. 

Turn  now  to  Asia.  There  the  precipitation  appears  never  to 
have  been  great  enough  to  cause  any  extensive  ice-sheet.  One 
of  the  facts  that  geology  has  only  lately  realized  is  that  snowy 
precipitation  is  far  more  important  than  low  temperature  in 
causing  glaciers.  The  coldest  part  of  Asia,  namely  the  region 
around  Yakutsk,  shows  no  hint  of  glaciation  in  the  lowlands, 
either  now  or  in  the  past.  In  the  mountains  farther  south,  to  be 
sure,  and  likewise  in  the  Taimir  peninsula  to  the  northwest,  and 
the  Anadyr  peninsula  to  the  east  near  Bering  Strait,  there  was 
glaciation,  for  in  these  places  the  temperature  is  higher  and  the 
precipitation  greater  than  in  the  region  from  Yakutsk  north- 
ward. If  by  chance  these  far  northern  regions  contained  any  in- 
habitants in  preglacial  or  interglacial  times,  they  were  of  course 
driven  out  of  the  glaciated  portions.  Elsewhere,  even  in  the 
coldest  parts  they  may  possibly  have  survived,  although  there 
is  no  evidence  as  to  this  either  one  way  or  the  other.  If  people 
can  Hve  where  the  January  temperature  averages  60°  below 
zero  F.,  as  they  do  in  north  central  Siberia,  they  could  perhaps 
survive  a  temperature  10*^  or  15°  degrees  lower,  although  as- 
suredly on  a  very  low  plane  and  in  very  small  numbers.  The 
point  that  we  would  make,  however,  is  that  the  climatic  change 
in  northern  Asia  was  not  nearly  so  great  as  in  Europe  so  far  as 
human  habitability  is  concerned.  In  northwestern  Europe  places 
like  Denmark,  that  now  have  some  of  the  finest  cHmates  in  the 


56  THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 

world,  were  transformed  into  snowy  regions  covered  with  an 
ice-sheet  hundreds  or  thousands  of  feet  thick.  In  Siberia  the 
change  was  merely  from  a  dismally  cold,  repressive  climate  to 
one  that  was  still  more  dismal  and  repressive.  In  Europe  a 
large  population,  that  is,  large  for  primitive  hunters,  presumably 
grew  up  during  interglacial  times.  It  was  then  subjected  to  an 
exceedingly  severe  selective  process  whereby  the  most  competent 
people  were  gradually  sorted  out  and  pushed  into  an  outlying 
ring  where  the  climate  was  comparatively  favorable.  In  northern 
Asia,  provided  there  were  any  people  there  before  the  last  glacial 
advance,  a  similar  process  presumably  took  place,  but  it  must 
have  been  relatively  ineffective  in  promoting  evolution.  This  is 
partly  because  the  interglacial  climate  was  not  nearly  so  good 
as  that  of  Europe,  and  the  population  must  have  been  corre- 
spondingly smaller,  and  partly  because  the  change  in  habitability 
was  not  nearly  so  great  as  in  Europe. 

In  this  discussion  of  the  effect  of  glacial  epochs  upon  racial 
character  we  have  left  the  deserts  until  last.  In  contrast  to  the 
relatively  mild  changes  in  the  latitudes  south  of  the  great  desert 
belt  and  to  the  great  and  repressive  changes  to  the  north,  the 
deserts  themselves  must  have  experienced  a  great  and  most 
favorable  change.  That  is,  the  change  was  favorable  from  the 
point  of  view  of  mere  comfort,  though  not  perhaps  of  evolution. 
While  northern  Europe  was  being  slowly  gripped  and  choked  by 
the  ice,  the  deserts  were  growing  more  and  more  habitable. 
Storms  began  to  sweep  over  them,  at  first  in  small  numbers  and 
only  at  certain  seasons,  but  later  in  large  numbers  and  through- 
out a  far  longer  season.  The  barren  sands,  gravels,  and  clays 
became  clothed  with  grass;  the  places  that  had  been  grassy 
began  to  support  forests;  the  salt  lakes  expanded;  new  lakes 
were  formed;  wild  animals,  especially  those  that  Hve  in  the' 
grasslands,  must  have  increased  enormously.  All  these  condi- 
tions made  Hfe  easy.  The  abundant  food,  the  freedom  from  the 
constant  menace  of  famine,  the  stimulating  climate,  and  the 
presence  of  new  areas  ready  for  occupation  must  have  caused  a 
rapid  growth  of  population.  Such  a  growth  would  not  exert  any 


GLACIATION  AND  THE  SUPREMACY  OF  EUROPE  57 


special  selective  influence,  for  even  the  stupid  and  weak  would 
have  plenty  of  opportunity.  But  it  would  allow  freedom  for 
man's  inventive  genius  to  express  itself,  and  for  new  ideas  and 
institutions  to  expand  and  bear  fruit. 

The  only  great  drawback  in  such  a  time  of  prosperity  and 
expansion  would  be  the  influx  of  invaders  from  the  northern  re- 
gions that  were  growing  cold  and  icy.  On  the  margins  of  the  dry 
areas  there  must  have  been  constant  conflict,  conquest,  and 
racial  mixture.  At  the  same  time  the  push  from  these  northern 
regions  must  have  co-operated  with  the  attraction  of  what  had 
formerly  been  the  deserts  which  were  now  becoming  more  habi- 
table. Thus  the  people  dwelling  between  the  cold  northern  en- 
vironment and  the  desert  would  tend  to  move  desertward.  This 
movement  must  have  been  greatest  on  the  northern  side  of  the 
great  desert  belt,  that  is,  in  north  Africa  and  central  Asia. 
Farther  south  the  Sahara  and  Arabian  Deserts,  although  more 
habitable  than  now,  were  presumably  not  so  habitable  as  those  to 
the  north  because  less  fully  under  the  influence  of  cyclonic  storms. 
In  the  northern  belt  far  more  than  the  southern  we  find  traces  of 
expanded  lakes  such  as  those  which  filled  the  basins  of  the  Dead 
Sea,  the  Sea  of  Aral,  and  Lop  Nor  in  western  China.  Moreover, 
as  we  have  just  seen,  the  southward  migrations  due  to  the  cold 
climate  of  the  far  north  must  have  been  far  less  important  in 
Asia,  which  was  merely  cold,  than  in  Europe  with  its  ice-sheet. 
Hence  during  the  approach  and  culmination  of  an  ice  age  the 
inhabitants  of  the  Mediterranean  region  and  north  Africa  must 
have  been  terribly  squeezed,  as  it  were,  between  the  desert  on 
the  south  and  the  European  migrants  on  the  north.  Accordingly 
great  migrations  may  have  taken  place  from  that  region  east- 
ward into  the  improving  deserts  of  central  Asia,  and  thus  back 
toward  man's  ancestral  home.  Such  movements  may  have  con- 
flicted with  the  southward  movements  from  the  cold  regions  in 
the  north  of  Asia. 

Now  reverse  the  process.  Let  us  see  what  must  have  hap- 
pened when  the  glacial  climate  began  to  relax.  Here  we  must 
remember  that  in  all  probability  the  atmospheric  conditions 


58 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


which  induced  glaciation  passed  away  considerably  before  the 
ice-sheet  finally  melted.  This  is  important  because  it  means  a 
tremendous  stress  in  certain  areas.  First,  however,  let  us  briefly 
record  what  would  happen  in  other  areas.  In  tropical  regions  the 
passing  away  of  a  glacial  epoch,  like  its  approach,  would  have 
relatively  little  effect.  So  far  as  it  influenced  the  equatorial  peo- 
ple it  probably  tended  to  reduce  them  to  a  lower  plane  of  prog- 
ress. In  addition  to  this  it  may  have  driven  migrants  from  the 
deserts  into  low  latitudes.  Of  course  such  migrations  would  come 
mainly  from  the  deserts  north  of  the  equator,  but  also  from  those 
to  the  south,  provided  mankind  had  penetrated  to  all  parts  of 
the  world. 

The  amelioration  of  the  glacial  climate  in  high  latitudes  would 
cause  an  effect  the  opposite  of  that  in  low  latitudes.  Siberia,  for 
example,  must  have  become  more  habitable,  although  there,  as 
we  have  already  seen,  the  change  was  apparently  of  only  moder- 
ate proportions.  Where  the  environment  had  been  extremely  re- 
pressive it  became  moderately  repressive.  This  would  permit 
some  migration  from  central  Asia  northward  and  northeastward. 
But  in  Siberia,  as  in  the  tropical  countries,  the  effect  upon  human 
progress  was  probably  slight. 

On  the  other  hand,  consider  what  must  have  happened  in 
the  desert  belt  from  north  Africa  to  Mongolia;  and  likewise  in 
the  neighboring  regions  of  Europe  on  the  one  hand,  and  China, 
Chosen,  and  Japan  on  the  other.  As  soon  as  the  storminess 
which  appears  to  have  been  one  of  the  main  causes  of  glaciation 
began  to  decHne,  the  interior  of  Asia  and  of  north  Africa  appar- 
ently began  to  return  toward  its  desert  condition.  The  rela- 
tively large  and  progressive  population  which  had  presumably 
become  established  there  must  have  been  put  under  great  stress, 
because  there  were  too  many  people  in  proportion  to  the  supply 
of  food.  Large  numbers  doubtless  perished  because  of  recurrent 
famines  due  to  drought.  Others  presumably  migrated.  Where 
would  these  migrations  lead  them  ?  A  few,  as  we  have  just  seen, 
would  migrate  northward,  but  the  northern  lands  would  still  be 
much  less  able  to  support  people  than  they  are  in  our  own  day. 


GLACIATION  AND  THE  SUPREMACY  OF  EUROPE  59 


Southward  the  lines  of  migration  would  be  blocked  partly  by  the 
great  plateaus  and  mountains  from  Tibet  and  the  Himalayas 
westward,  partly  by  deserts  such  as  those  of  Arabia  and  the 
Sahara.  Some  migrants  would  break  through  into  India  and 
Persia,  as  has  happened  repeatedly  during  historic  times.  A  mi- 
gration might  follow  the  lofty  western  side  of  Arabia  thus  skirting 
the  desert  and  finding  a  way  across  into  Africa  at  the  south- 
western corner  of  Arabia  where  during  much  of  the  glacial  period 
Africa  and  Arabia  were  connected.  But  the  greatest  tendency 
would  be  to  migrate  eastward  into  China  and  adjacent  countries 
such  as  Chosen  and  even  Japan,  and  westward  into  the  relatively 
well-watered  border-lands  of  Asia  such  as  the  Caucasus,  Meso- 
potamia, Asia  Minor,  Syria,  and  likewise  Egypt  and  northern 
Africa.  Meanwhile  much  of  Europe  would  still  be  shrouded 
in  ice  and  could  not  receive  many  new  migrants.  The  result 
would  be  that  in  western  Asia  and  north  Africa  there  would  be 
one  of  the  most  tremendous  processes  of  selection  and  racial 
mixture  that  can  well  be  imagined.  Tribe  after  tribe  would  move 
in  from  the  desert.  On  the  way,  or  before  they  started,  they 
would  have  lost  a  large  share  of  their  weaker,  less  intelligent 
members.  They  would  come  into  conflict  with  the  picked  rem- 
nant of  the  former  inhabitants  of  Europe.  Thus  there  would 
take  place  a  mixture  of  races  probably  unparalleled  elsewhere, 
and  the  races  thus  mixed  would  be  the  selected  remnant  from 
Asia  on  the  one  hand  and  Europe  on  the  other.  Small  wonder 
then  that  in  the  region  from  Persia  or  Transcaspia  westward 
into  north  Africa  we  find  the  homelands  of  most  of  the  world's 
more  progressive  races.  In  such  a  region,  according  to  the  com- 
monly accepted  principles  of  biology,  evolution  is  bound  to  be 
more  rapid  than  elsewhere,  for  there  we  have  the  maximum  en- 
vironmental change,  the  maximum  migration,  and  the  maximum 
mixture  of  different  types. 

In  view  of  all  these  circumstances  it  is  not  surprising  that 
the  world's  greatest  early  civilizations  arose  in  the  region  which 
extends  from  Persia  through  Mesopotamia  and  Syria  to  north 
Africa,  with  a  similar  but  lesser  development  in  northern  India 


60 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


and  China.  Moreover,  from  this  same  region,  as  the  ice  retreated 
from  Europe,  came  the  tribes  which  peopled  that  continent  after 
the  ice  had  passed  away.  Some  moved  northward  from  the  Medi- 
terranean regions,  others  westward  by  the  route  through  Asia 
Minor  or  north  of  the  Caspian  Sea.  As  they  poured  into  the  new 
continent  renewed  by  its  long  rest  under  ice  and  storms,  the 
various  streams  met  and  fought,  and  still  another  strenuous 
conflict  and  great  mixing  of  races  took  place.  Thus  here,  even 
more  than  in  western  Asia  and  in  north  Africa,  we  should  look 
for  the  development  of  highly  specialized  races. 

Our  survey  of  the  biological  effect  of  glacial  periods  seems  to 
lead  to  the  conclusion  that  as  each  glacial  epoch  passed  away, 
the  people  in  a  great  belt  from  China  to  Gibraltar  were  left  with 
higher  abilities  than  had  been  possessed  by  their  predecessors. 
Since  the  effect  of  four  successive  glaciations  was  concentrated 
in  virtually  the  same  area,  the  evolutionary  effect  of  glaciation 
must  have  been  multiplied  fourfold.  Hence  as  the  last  ice-sheet 
waned,  the  highest  abilities  were  naturally  concentrated  in  China, 
north  India,  and  especially  southwestern  Asia,  northern  Africa, 
and  the  neighboring  Mediterranean  areas  where  migrations  not 
only  had  produced  their  greatest  selective  effect,  but  where  there 
had  been  little  or  none  of  the  repressive  selection  which  seems  to 
take  place  in  high  and  low  latitudes.  Thus,  seemingly,  when  man 
had  evolved  to  a  certain  point,  it  was  only  to  be  expected  that 
agriculture  and  what  we  know  as  civilization  should  evolve  in 
exactly  the  countries  where  we  first  find  traces  of  them.  It  was 
equally  logical  and  inevitable  that  in  Europe,  as  the  waning  ice 
opened  a  virgin  field  of  settlement,  there  should  be  concentrated 
the  selected  outpourings  of  the  progressive  belt  of  countries 
where  civiHzation  was  beginning  to  grow  up.  Such  migrants 
would  naturally  be  among  the  most  competent  of  all  the  races 
that  the  world  has  yet  seen.  If  they  found  themselves  in  a 
superlatively  healthful  and  invigorating  climate,  as  they  appar- 
ently did  in  Greece  and  Rome,  and  later  in  the  North  Sea 
region,  it  would  indeed  be  strange  if  they  failed  to  dominate  the 
world. 


CHAPTER  V 
THE  SUPPRESSION  OF  AMERICA 

Just  as  Europe  has  presumably  been  a  constant  gainer, 
America  appears  till  recently  to  have  been  a  constant  loser 
through  the  vicissitudes  of  climate.  Many  fascinating  books 
have  advanced  the  idea  that  America  was  peopled  by  migrants 
from  the  Old  World  to  the  New  in  low  latitudes.  Some  have 
gone  so  far  as  to  allow  an  Egyptian  culture  to  migrate  to  Central 
America  by  way  of  the  hypothetical,  a  continent  of  Atlantis, 
which  supposedly  foundered  a  few  thousand  years  ago.  Others, 
less  extreme  in  their  theories,  suggest  that  the  germs  of  the  rela- 
tively high  civilizations  in  Central  America  and  Mexico  must  have 
come  from  the  Old  World  by  ships  from  the  Mediterranean  re- 
gions, or  else  from  Indo-China  across  the  Pacific.  As  time  goes 
on,  however,  these  theories,  fascinating  as  they  are,  seem  to  find 
less  and  less  support.  A  stray  boat  or  two  may  perhaps  have 
been  driven  across  the  Atlantic  by  the  trade-winds,  and  may 
have  brought  certain  new  phases  of  culture  which  the  most  in- 
telHgent  aboriginal  Americans,  already  well  on  the  road  toward 
civilization,  were  able  to  adopt.  Beyond  this,  however,  it  seems 
probable  that  the  culture  of  America  before  the  days  of  Colum- 
bus was  of  purely  native  origin,  except  in  so  far  as  it  was  brought 
by  the  original  immigrants.  Those  immigrants  are  generally 
agreed  to  have  come  originally  from  Asia  by  way  of  Siberia  and 
I  Alaska.  Whether  they  came  before  or  after  the  last  ice  age  has 
not  yet  been  definitely  settled.  Parts  of  human  skeletons  which 
are  sometimes  interpreted  as  of  interglacial  or  preglacial  age  have 
indeed  been  found  in  Florida,  California,  and  elsewhere.  Even  as 
I  write,  the  newspapers  report  a  PHocene  skull  near  Los  Angeles. 
But  the  fact  of  any  such  great  age  is  by  no  means  established  as 
yet,  and  the  supposedly  ancient  bones,  except  perhaps  in  this 
latest  case,  appear  to  be  of  surprisingly  modern  types. 

61 


03 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


In  spite  of  this,  it  seems  probable  that  man  came  to  America 
before  the  last  glacial  advance,  and  perhaps  earlier.  One  reason 
for  this  view  is  that  men  with  heads  of  practically  every  shape 
are  found  in  both  North  and  South  America.  Such  great  variety  j 
seems  to  indicate  a  series  of  successive  migrations  from  Asia. 
Unless  a  long  period  is  available  it  is  scarcely  probable  that  so 
many  migrations  could  have  penetrated  to  the  far  corners  of 
the  continents.  If  the  aborigines  came  to  America  after  the  last 
glaciation,  the  ancestors  of  the  first  migrant  group  can  scarcely 
have  lived  north  of  latitude  60°  in  Asia  until  the  ice  had  com- 
pleted at  least  half  of  its  present  retreat.  That  would  be  per- 
haps twelve  or  fifteen  thousand  years  ago.  It  does  not  seem  as 
if  that  were  enough  time  for  all  that  has  since  happened.  More- 
over, if  these  various  migrations  have  all  taken  place  during  so 
recent  a  period,  most  of  the  migrants  must  have  crossed  at  least 
fifty-six  miles  of  open  ocean  at  Bering  Strait,  or  a  much  greater 
stretch  farther  south.  The  strait  is  now  so  important  a  barrier 
that  only  a  handful  of  American  Eskimos  are  found  on  the 
Asiatic  side,  and  practically  no  Asiatics  on  the  American  side. 
In  other  words,  no  appreciable  migration  from  one  continent  to 
the  other  is  now  going  on,  and  none  from  Asia  has  occurred  so 
recently  that  any  Asiatic  language  has  taken  root  on  the  Ameri- 
can side.  Bering  Strait  is  a  real  barrier.  In  its  present  state,  it 
might  prevent  migrations  for  thousands  of  years.  In  earlier 
times,  however,  there  were  long  periods  when  the  land  stood 
higher  than  now,  and  people  could  pass  freely  from  Asia  to 
Alaska. 

After  crossing  into  Alaska  the  migrants  of  each  successive 
wave  presumably  spread  widely  in  both  Americas,  driving  the 
preceding  migrants  before  them,  and  being  themselves  driven 
out  by  their  successors.  The  migrations  occurred  so  long  ago  that 
fifty-five  different  linguistic  stocks  have  been  developed  north 
of  Mexico,  and  many  others  farther  south.  Few  of  these  stocks 
have  less  than  three  or  four  dialects,  and  most  are  divided  into 
numerous  dialects,  or  even  languages  more  distinct  than  French 
and  ItaHan.  A  language  does  not  grow  up  in  a  day— -nor  even  in 


THE  SUPPRESSION  OF  AMERICA 


63 


a  century.  Again,  it  must  be  remembered  that  it  requires  a 
long  period  for  a  hunting  race  to  develop  the  arts  of  agriculture, 
architecture,  and  writing,  and  bring  to  fruition  a  civilization 
like  that  of  the  Mayas  in  Central  America.  More  than  two 
thousand  years  ago  the  written  characters  of  the  Mayas'  lan- 
guage had  reached  such  perfection  that  records  could  be  carved 
upon  stone  in  hieroglyphics  which  appear  to  represent  syllables 
rather  than  words,  a  system  more  advanced  than  that  of  either 
ancient  Egypt  or  modern  China.  Moreover,  the  Maya  calendar 
was  extraordinarily  perfect,  more  perfect  than  any  ever  known 
until  our  Gregorian  calendar  was  devised  a  few  hundred  years 
ago.  Such  a  development  of  language,  of  astronomy,  and  of 
accurate  records  presumably  requires  thousands  of  years  of  pre- 
liminary progress  before  people  begin  to  leave  written  records 
inscribed  on  permanent  materials  such  as  metal  and  stone. 

Without  going  into  further  details  we  shall  adopt  the  work- 
ing hypothesis  that  the  American  Indians  are  a  mixed  people, 
the  result  of  several  invasions  from  Asia  by  way  of  Alaska. 
Further  reasons  for  this  will  appear  in  a  later  chapter.  We  shall 
assume  that  at  least  part  of  the  earlier  invasions  took  place  dur- 
ing interglacial  times.  If  we  put  aside  for  the  moment  the  possi- 
bihty  that  some  of  the  Asiatics  came  to  America  by  sea— a  pos- 
sibility which  we  shall  consider  later— we  may  be  quite  sure  that 
the  others  could  scarcely  have  come  during  an  ice  age,  for  ice 
then  covered  the  peninsulas  on  both  sides  of  Bering  Strait. 
Even  now  the  climate  of  northern  Siberia  and  central  Alaska  is 
so  severe  that  we  can  scarcely  believe  that  primitive  people  with 
scanty  protection  against  cold  and  storms  would  migrate  thither 
except  under  strong  compulsion.  Hence,  unless  the  earhest  hu- 
man inhabitants  date  back  no  more  than  ten  or  fifteen  thousand 
years,  they  were  presumably  pushed  out  from  central  Asia  during 
relatively  mild  interglacial  times,  perhaps  by  reason  of  the  ex- 
pansion of  the  Asiatic  deserts  even  beyond  their  present  limits. 
Thus  we  may  think  of  America  as  having  been  peopled  by  wave 
after  wave  of  migrants  in  the  same  way  as  Europe,  Africa,  and 
Australia.  The  first  of  these  may  have  been  pressed  northeast- 


64 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


ward  by  the  increased  aridity  of  the  central  Asiatic  deserts  dur- 
ing an  interglacial  epoch,  and  may  have  finally  trickled  over  into 
Alaska  during  times  when  the  deserts  were  perhaps  larger  than 
now,  and  the  climate  of  the  far  north  more  hospitable.  When  the 
change  toward  a  glacial  climate  ensued,  the  impulse  toward  mi- 
gration presumably  relaxed  because  the  deserts  became  more 
habitable  and  the  northern  regions  more  inhospitable.  Ulti- 
mately the  increasing  severity  of  the  climate  presumably  drove 
the  inhabitants  of  the  colder  regions  southward  in  both  conti- 
nents. This  process  of  driving  people  out  of  the  north  must  have 
been  especially  active  in  North  America,  where  ice  covered  prac- 
tically all  of  Canada.  Some  of  the  races  who  are  thus  supposed 
to  have  come  in  interglacial  or  even  preglacial  times,  may  have 
disappeared  entirely,  leaving  no  traces  except  perhaps  in  fos- 
sils such  as  the  skull  found  near  Los  Angeles.  Others  who  came 
in  the  last  interglacial  epoch  may  at  a  later  date  have  been  re- 
inforced by  post-glacial  migrants,  and  may  have  been  among 
the  ancestors  of  part  of  the  modern  American  Indians. 

The  point  that  concerns  us  here  is  not  the  number  or  date  of 
the  Asiatic  migrations  to  America,  but  the  fact  that  no  matter 
when  they  occurred,  practically  all  who  migrated  by  land  must 
presumably  have  spent  many  generations  in  an  extremely  rigor- 
ous climate.  Even  in  the  mildest  interglacial  epoch  this  was 
probably  true  to  a  considerable  degree,  and  during  all  other 
periods  for  the  last  hundred  thousand  years  the  climate  was 
presumably  well-nigh  as  severe  as  now,  and  much  of  the  time  more 
so.  A  long  migration  of  perhaps  fifteen  hundred  miles  in  the 
coldest  part  of  Siberia,  followed  by  another  twenty-five  hundred 
miles,  more  or  less,  through  the  coldest  part  of  Canada  under 
the  cruel  compulsion  of  an  impending  ice  age,  must  have  been  a 
terrible  experience.  The  part  of  Siberia  through  which  the 
migrants  must  have  passed  is  the  coldest  portion  of  the  earth. 
Even  in  November  and  March  practically  the  whole  region 
averages  below  io°  F.;  in  January  the  entire  region,  including  a 
large  part  of  Alaska,  averages  lower  than  —  io°  F.,  wliile  certain 
parts  average  50°  F,  below  zero. 


THE  SUPPRESSION  OF  AMERICA  65 

It  must  be  remembered  that  the  vast  majority  of  migrations 
take  place  very  slowly.  A  rapid  movement  like  that  of  the  Huns 
under  Genghiz  Khan  attracts  wide  attention,  but  such  movements 
probably  do  not  account  for  one  per  cent  of  the  migrations  even 
during  historic  times.  Among  primitive  people  the  tendency  is 
for  migrations  to  be  even  slower  than  among  the  more  advanced 
people  who  are  helped  by  their  superior  knowledge  and  by  their 
widespread  command  of  the  forces  of  nature.  This  is  especially 
the  case  when  wholly  new  lands  are  being  penetrated,  and  still 
more  when  the  migrants  do  not  know  what  lies  before  them. 
Most  of  all  must  it  be  true  when  the  migrants  are  being  forced 
against  their  will  into  regions  less  hospitable  than  those  where 
they  formerly  dwelt.  It  took  the  British  settlers  more  than  two 
centuries — at  least  seven  generations — to  advance  from  one  side 
of  the  United  States  to  the  other.  Yet  they  were  the  most  pro- 
gressive and  best-equipped  people  of  their  day,  or  of  any  day 
except  our  own.  Moreover,  they  were  taking  possession  of  one 
of  the  most  favored  lands  in  the  whole  world.  It  may  have 
taken  the  primitive  ancestors  oi  the  American  aborigines  many 
times  seven  generations  to  advance  a  similar  distance,  for  they 
had  no  iron  tools,  no  beasts  of  burden,  no  compass,  no  highly 
developed  arts,  and  no  means  of  making  permanent  descriptions 
and  maps  of  the  lands  that  they  were  about  to  penetrate.  Still 
more  would  this  be  true  when  such  primitive  people  were  being 
forced  into  lands  which  became  more  inhospitable  as  they  ad- 
vanced. It  is  almost  certain  that  no  human  race  would  migrate 
into  such  regions  except  as  the  more  favorable  regions  were  al- 
ready occupied.  If  ever  such  people  decided  consciously  to  mi- 
grate and  thereby  better  their  condition,  they  would  surely  move 
backward  into  warmer  lands,  not  farther  north  into  those  that 
were  almost  inexpressibly  inhospitable.  Hence  we  believe  that 
the  aboriginal  migrations  from  Asia  northeastward  to  America, 
and  especially  the  first  one,  must  have  taken  many  generations, 
possibly  thousands  of  years. 

In  The  Red  Man's  Continent  I  have  advanced  the  idea  that 
such  a  climate  may  be  one  reason  for  the  stolid  character  of  the 


66 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


Indians.  It  produces  such  stress  that  food  is  often  scanty,  and 
starvation  a  frequent  visitor,  especially  in  winter  when  game  is 
hard  to  get.  Here  is  what  the  famous  explorer  Wrangel  tells  of 
the  strain  among  the  Yukagir  in  northeastern  Siberia  even 
during  the  summer  hunting  season: 

Summer  had  arrived  but  the  reindeer  had  not  yet  come.  It  is  difficult 
to  imagine  the  extent  to  which  hunger  prevails  among  the  aborigines, 
whose  existence  depends  primarily  on  chance.  Even  in  the  middle  of  sum- 
mer people  often  begin  to  feed  on  the  bark  of  trees  and  on  skins  which  have 
hitherto  served  them  as  bedding  and  clothing.  A  reindeer  caught  by  chance 
is  divided  among  all,  and  is  eaten  up  in  the  full  sense  of  the  word.  All,  even 
the  internal  organs  and  the  crushed  bones,  are  used,  because  one  has  to 
have  something  to  fill  the  empty,  tormenting  stomach. 

During  our  stay  here  the  coming  of  the  reindeer  was  the  only  subject 
of  conversation.  Finally,  on  September  12,  to  the  joy  and  rehef  of  the 
aborigines,  there  appeared  on  the  right  bank  of  the  river  a  countless  herd 
of  reindeer,  which  covered  all  the  hills  along  the  shore.  Everyone  came  to 
life.  From  all  sides  the  aborigines  pressed  toward  the  river  in  the  hope  of 
ending  their  sufferings  by  a  successful  hunt.  Glad  anticipation  shone  in  all 
faces,  and  everything  promised  abundant  game.  But  to  the  horror  of  all, 
the  grievous  word  suddenly  spread  that  the  reindeer  were  leaving.  And  in 
truth  we  saw  that  the  entire  herd,  no  doubt  frightened  by  the  crowd  of 
hunters,  left  the  banks  and  disappeared  in  the  mountains.  Desperation  re- 
placed joyful  hope.  One's  heart  was  torn  by  the  sight  of  the  people  suddenly 
deprived  of  all  means  of  maintaining  their  miserable  existence.  The  uni- 
versal grief  and  desperation  were  heartrending.  Women  and  children 
moaned,  wringing  their  hands,  others  fell  to  the  ground  and  with  howls 
dug  into  the  snow  as  if  preparing  graves  for  themselves.  Fathers  of  fam- 
ilies remained  silent,  immovable,  gazing  at  the  hills  where  their  last  hope 
had  disappeared.    (Translation  by  S.  Novakovsky.) 

After  such  a  summer  when  the  herds  of  reindeer  have  been 
scarce,  the  winter  is  almost  unbearably  miserable.  The  extremely 
low  temperature  and  the  shortness  of  the  days  make  himting 
and  fishing  well-nigh  impossible.  There  is  little  to  do  except  wait 
in  misery  until  the  pangs  of  hunger  and  the  monotony  of  inac- 
tivity cause  the  nerves  to  break,  or  till  death  claims  its  victims. 
Under  such  conditions  two  types  of  natural  selection  appear  to 
take  place.  First,  the  weakest  in  both  mind  and  body,  especially 
those  in  whom  the  power  of  passive  endurance  is  not  highly  de- 
veloped, die  at  a  rapid  rate.   Second,  a  certain  number  of  the 


THE  SUPPRESSION  OF  AMERICA 


67 


bolder,  more  adventurous,  and  more  intelligent  spirits  break 
away  from  their  fellows  and  struggle  back  toward  a  better  en- 
vironment. Most  of  them  perish,  but  some  reinforce  the  people 
in  their  old  homes,  while  the  loss  of  all  weakens  the  people  of  the 
north. 

In  the  colder  Arctic  regions  the  process  of  natural  selection 
goes  on  apace  among  white  men  as  well  as  aborigines.  Among  the 
whites,  as  I  have  explained  in  The  Red  Man's  Continent,  it  is 
especially  likely  to  drive  away  or  kill  people  of  a  relatively  ac- 
tive, nervous,  or  mentally  high-strung  type.  Every  spring  the 
first  boats  returning  to  civilization  from  Alaska  carry  an  un- 
duly large  proportion  of  men  who  have  lost  their  minds  because 
they  have  endured  too  many  dark,  cold  winters.  His  companions 
say  of  such  a  man:  "The  north  has  got  him."  Almost  every 
Alaskan  recognizes  the  danger. 

Thus  the  strain  of  Hfe  in  the  far  north  tends  to  eliminate  the 
very  type  which  is  most  likely  to  start  some  new  idea  and  thereby 
cause  progress.  If  such  people  do  not  break  down  mentally, 
they  migrate  to  warmer  climates.  Only  those  survive  whose 
nerves  are  in  perfect  condition,  and  who  are  able  to  bear  the 
strain  of  prolonged  cold,  darkness,  and  monotony.  The  man  of 
action,  the  one  who  has  ideas,  generally  leaves  Alaska  because 
he  is  the  one  to  whom  the  strain  of  inaction  is  least  endurable 
during  the  unduly  long  winter.  For  women  the  Arctic  life  is  far 
harder  than  for  men,  especially  when  they  have  children.  Thus 
the  reproduction  of  the  active  type  of  minds  is  greatly  handi- 
capped. 

Another  side  of  the  Arctic  problem  must  not  be  overlooked. 
The  explorer  Stefansson  in  those  fascinating  books.  The  Friendly 
Arctic  and  The  Northward  Course  of  Empire,  has  strongly  pro- 
tested against  the  common  idea  of  the  uninhabitability  of  Arctic 
regions.  He  believes  that  the  view  presented  above  does  not 
fairly  represent  the  reality.  According  to  him,  the  Arctic  regions 
are  among  the  pleasantest  in  the  world.  People's  health  is  good, 
the  cold  is  not  benumbing,  and  the  long  dark  nights  are  not  a 
disadvantage.   In  fact  the  Eskimos  like  the  winter  better  than 


68 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


the  summer,  and  the  same  is  true  of  many  white  men.  It  is  only 
a  question  of  adapting  oneself  to  the  Arctic  conditions,  and 
learning  how  to  use  them.  It  is,  as  he  points  out,  necessary  to 
adopt  a  wholly  new  mode  of  life.  One  must  learn  how  to  clothe 
oneself,  how  to  avoid  the  suffering  due  to  the  condensation  and 
freezing  of  the  moisture  given  out  by  the  body,  and  accumulated 
in  the  clothing,  how  to  build  Arctic  houses,  and  how  to  find  an 
occupation  which  keeps  one  busy  and  interested  through  the 
winter.  Nervous  disorders,  he  holds,  are  quite  unnecessary.  They 
occur  largely  because  people  fear  them  and  do  not  live  in  the 
way  to  forestall  them.  But  the  people  whom  Stefansson  cites  to 
prove  his  point  are  those  who  have  chosen  to  stay  in  the  Arctic 
because  they  enjoy  the  winters.  In  other  words  they  are  the 
selected  remnant  of  a  vastly  larger  group,  the  majority  of  whom 
have  gone  back  to  warmer  climates.  Few  women  and  almost  no 
children  are  included  in  the  remnant.  Thus  while  Stefansson 
may  be  right  in  thinking  that  the  Arctic  regions  will  some  day 
contain  enough  people  so  that  herds  of  reindeer  and  ovibos,  as 
he  prefers  to  call  the  musk-ox,  will  help  to  feed  the  vast  indus- 
trial population  of  middle  latitudes,  his  conclusions  do  not  really 
conflict  with  those  stated  above.  In  fact  he  shows  most  strongly, 
although  unconsciously,  that  a  stringent  selection  is  necessary 
in  order  to  find  people  adapted  to  life  in  the  far  north.  To  find 
women  and  children  who  can  stand  it  is  far  harder  than  to  find 
men  in  the  prime  of  life. 

But  how  about  the  Indians  ?  What  type  of  natural  selection 
takes  place  or  has  taken  place  among  them?  One  answer  to 
this  is  found  in  an  unpublished  work  on  the  nervous  disease 
known  as  Arctic  or  Siberian  hysteria,  which  the  Polish  geographer, 
Novakovsky,  has  kindly  put  at  my  disposal.*  This  disease  is  a 
common  form  of  disability  in  the  north.  It  often  comes  upon 
people  very  suddenly,  and  causes  them  to  do  all  sorts  of  strange 
things.  For  example,  in  one  case  a  man  was  in  a  boat  when  sud- 
denly he  was  seized  with  hysteria  and  would  have  thrown  him- 
self overboard  had  it  not  been  for  the  efforts  of  his  companions. 

*An  abbreviated  form  of  this  work  appeared  in  Ecology  for  April,  1924. 


THE  SUPPRESSION  OF  AMERICA 


69 


In  many  cases  it  leads  people  to  imitate  others  against  their  will 
!  and  to  do  what  they  are  ordered  regardless  of  the  consequences. 
For  example,  Jochelson,  who  spent  many  years  in  northeastern 
Asia  as  a  political  exile,  tells  how  he  was  in  a  village  while  the 
people  were  fishing.  His  Cossack  attendant,  knowing  of  the 
curious  nervous  ailment  which  prevails  there,  took  a  live  fish 
between  his  teeth  and  ran  off  with  it  up  the  hill.  An  old  woman 
immediately  did  the  same  thing,  and  ran  after  him,  panting  but 
apparently  unable  either  to  stop  or  to  let  go  of  the  fish.  She 
kept  crying  out  "Enough,  enough,"  meaning  that  the  Cossack 
should  stop,  but  he  persisted  until  he  came  back  to  the  river. 
The  old  woman  ran  into  the  river,  and  would  have  been  drowned 
had  she  not  been  helped.  Only  then  did  she  let  go  of  the  fish. 

This  curious  disease  is  closely  connected  with  a  tendency 
toward  suicide.  For  instance,  among  the  Chukchees  it  is  not 
uncommon  for  a  man  deliberately  to  decide  that  the  struggle  of 
life  is  too  hard.  He  calmly  announces  his  purpose  to  his  friends, 
who  try  to  dissuade  him.  If  he  persists,  they  finally  aid  him  in 
his  purpose.  Preparations  for  a  festival  and  for  the  funeral  rites 
are  made  by  all  concerned.  After  two  or  three  weeks,  at  the  end 
of  a  great  feast  in  which  the  man  who  is  to  die  is  fed  the  very 
best  in  vast  amounts,  he  is  put  to  death  by  his  friends  in  such 
manner  as  he  himself  may  select. 

Another  curious  feature  of  Arctic  hysteria  is  that  while  men 
are  subject  to  it,  it  especially  affects  women.  Moreover,  it  has 
its  worst  effect  at  times  of  pregnancy  and  when  the  reproductive 
functions  are  most  active.  Whether  it  causes  disturbances  in  re- 
production or  is  caused  by  them  matters  little  for  our  present 
purpose.  The  important  point  is  that  it  tends  strongly  to  reduce 
the  number  of  children.  It  afflicts  the  people  who  are  nervously 
or  mentally  active,  and  who  are  potentially  the  best  material  for 
human  progress.  Thus  this  type  tends  to  be  weeded  out  rapidly. 

Siberian  hysteria  is  pecuHar  in  its  geographical  distribution, 
its  seasonal  distribution,  and  its  distribution  among  different 
types  of  people.  In  one  form  or  another  the  disease  is  found  in 
almost  all  Arctic  regions.  In  Greenland,  for  instance,  Whitney, 


70 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


in  his  book  on  Hunting  with  the  Eskimo,  tells  of  a  woman  who 
began  to  rave  during  the  night,  and  ran  out  into  three  feet  of 
snow  and  partly  froze  herself.  Such  hysteria  appears  to  be  some- 
what like  the  insanity  which  afflicts  the  white  man  in  Alaska. 
But  it  is  most  highly  developed  in  Siberia,  where  it  assumes  its 
peculiar  form.  Moreover,  and  this  is  a  point  which  Novakovsky 
makes  very  clear,  the  hysteria  is  most  abundant  in  the  very 
coldest  part  of  the  country.  "The  whole  of  northern  and  part 
of  southern  Siberia  is  a  region  where  the  people  suffer  from  ner- 
vous diseases  more  than  in  any  other  known  regions  of  the 
world."  So  says  Miss  Chaplicka,  a  Polish  scientist  who  person- 
ally conducted  some  interesting  investigations  among  the  abo- 
rigines of  Siberia.  Her  conclusion  is  borne  out  by  many  other 
investigators  on  the  basis  of  great  amounts  of  evidence.  As  the 
"pole  of  cold"  near  Verkhoyansk,  in  the  province  of  Yakutsk, 
is  approached,  the  ravages  of  the  disease  become  greatest.  Often 
it  is  epidemic,  and  person  after  person,  especially  among  the 
women,  falls  into  convulsions  and  indulges  in  all  sorts  of  strange 
and  dangerous  antics.  Its  results  are  apparently  seen  in  the  fre- 
quency of  idiots  and  dullards. 

Another  noteworthy  feature  of  Arctic  hysteria  is  that  it  is 
worst  in  the  winter  and  spring.  In  other  words,  it  seems  to  be 
brought  on  by  the  long  cold  winter.  How  much  the  low  tempera- 
ture has  to  do  with  it  and  how  much  the  long  nights  is  not  clear. 
It  should  be  borne  in  mind  that  in  these  far  northern  regions  all 
parts  of  the  year  bring  a  great  deal  of  nervous  strain. 

Another  interesting  fact  is  that  Arctic  hysteria  is  least  com- 
mon among  the  races  which  have  lived  longest  in  northern  Si- 
beria. According  to  Novakovsky  the  Chukchees  and  the  Kor- 
yaks  are  relatively  free  from  the  disease,  and  they  are  the  most 
ancient  inhabitants  of  northern  Siberia.  On  the  contrary,  among 
the  Yakuts,  Lamuts,  and  Tungus  the  disease  is  more  prevalent 
and  severe.  These  people  are  relatively  newcomers.  In  the  same 
way,  although  Russians  do  not  suffer  from  hysteria  in  their  own 
country,  they  are  afflicted  with  the  disease  when  they  migrate 
to  the  coldest  parts  of  Siberia.  Thus  it  appears  that  if  a  race 


i 


THE  SUPPRESSION  OF  AMERICA 


71 


stays  long  enough  in  the  severest  Siberian  environment,  it  grad- 
I  ually  becomes  acdimatized,  but  that  happens  only,  it  would 
seem,  through  the  weeding  out  of  the  types  that  are  nervously 
I  and  mentally  most  active. 

In  our  own  day  some  of  the  best  observers  maintain  that  the 
Indians  as  a  whole  still  show  the  characteristics  of  a  northern 
race.  In  Central  America,  for  instance,  it  is  generally  recognized 
that  Indians  do  not  stand  the  heat  and  moisture  of  the  lowlands 
I  as  well  as  negroes.  According  to  Brinton,  one  of  the  greatest 
j  authorities  on  the  subject:  "The  American  Indians  cannot  bear 
!  the  heat  of  the  tropics  even  as  well  as  the  European,  not  to 
speak  of  the  African  race.  They  perspire  little,  their  skin  be- 
comes hot,  and  they  are  easily  prostrated  by  exertion  in  an  ele- 
vated temperature.  They  are  peculiarly  subject  to  diseases  of 
hot  climates,  as  hepatic  disorders,  showing  none  of  the  immu- 
nity of  the  African.  Furthermore,  the  finest  physical  specimens 
of  the  race  are  found  in  the  colder  regions  of  the  temperate  zones, 
I  the  Pampas  and  Patagonian  Indians  in  the  south,  the  Iroquois 
and  Algonquins  in  the  north;  whereas,  in  the  tropics  they  are  gen- 
erally undersized,  short-lived,  of  inferior  muscular  force,  and 
with  slight  tolerance  of  disease.''  "No  one,"  says  the  famous 
naturalist  Bates,  "could  Hve  among  the  Indians  of  the  Upper 
Amazon  without  being  struck  with  their  constitutional  dislike 
to  heat.  The  impression  forced  itself  upon  my  mind  that  the 
Indian  lives  as  a  stranger  or  immigrant  in  these  hot  regions.'' 

The  importance  of  aU  this  in  appraising  the  character  of  the 
Indians  is  obvious.  On  their  way  from  Asia  to  America  almost 
every  stream  of  migrants,  no  matter  what  its  original  racial 
characteristics,  probably  passed  through  the  regions  where 
Arctic  hysteria  is  most  prevalent,  and  where  life  often  depends 
on  sheer  passive  endurance  rather  than  on  energy,  activity,  or 
inventiveness.  There  for  perhaps  thousands  of  years  they  may 
have  been  subjected  to  a  selective  process  which  weeded  out 
those  who  were  of  the  more  nervous,  active  types,  the  kind  who 
lead,  who  invent,  and  who  are  largely  responsible  for  human 
progress.  Thus  the  American  aborigines,  whatever  their  race, 


72  THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 

may  have  acquired  a  certain  uniformly  dull,  passive  quality. 
They  did  not,  to  be  sure,  lose  all  capacity  for  improvement,  as 
their  achievements  abundantly  prove.  Moreover,  among  them  as 
among  any  race  new  mutants  may  have  arisen,  and  may  yet 
arise,  possessing  qualities  surpassing  those  of  the  original  Asiatic 
stock.  Nevertheless  when  once  a  certain  quahty  has  been  ac- 
quired by  a  species  or  race,  the  laws  of  heredity  make  it  very 
difficult  to  get  rid  of  that  quality.  So  it  would  seem  that  the 
Arctic  environment  may  have  stamped  upon  the  people  of 
America  a  certain  lack  of  originality,  a  certain  tendency  toward 
stoicism,  a  great  ability  to  endure  privation;  and  may  have 
weeded  out  much,  though  not  all,  of  the  alertness,  curiosity,  and 
inventive  faculty  which  are  so  essential  to  progress.  This  may 
perhaps  help  to  explain  some  of  the  qualities  which  distinguish 
the  American  race,  if  race  it  is,  from  the  races  of  Europe  and 
Asia. 


CHAPTER  VI 


THE  CLASSIFICATION  OF  RACES 

Up  to  this  point  we  have  been  following  the  methods  of  geolo- 
gists and  ecologists.  The  foundations  upon  which  we  have  built 
have  consisted  of  two  parts:  first,  certain  generally  accepted 
pruiciples  as  to  the  effect  of  environment  upon  natural  selection 
and  perhaps  upon  mutations;  and  second,  certain  well-established 
facts  and  widely  accepted  conclusions  as  to  the  environmental 
changes  through  which  primitive  man  must  have  passed  if  he 
originated  somewhere  in  central  Asia  in  Pliocene  times.  On 
this  basis  we  have  attempted  to  discover  how  the  environment, 
and  especially  how  the  glacial  period  must  have  influenced  the 
evolution  of  human  character.  We  have  found  that  this  analysis 
seems  to  shed  important  light  upon  the  origin  of  civiHzation  and 
upon  the  present  qualities  of  various  races  in  Asia,  Europe, 
North  America,  and  the  other  continents.  We  might  have  gone 
on  to  show  that  in  the  most  extreme  deserts,  and  especially  in 
the  hotter  deserts  such  as  those  of  Arabia,  the  Sahara,  and  those 
south  of  the  equator,  the  stress  of  Hf e  is  so  great  that  a  repressive 
evolution  seems  to  occur.  There,  as  in  extremely  cold  regions, 
the  conditions  under  which  the  environment  acts  as  a  stimulant 
are  passed,  and  retrogression  begins. 

We  might  also  have  shown  that  the  low  estate  of  the  aborigi- 
nal people  of  south  Africa,  the  southern  part  of  South  America, 
and  especially  Australia  may  be  partly  connected  with  the  fact 
that  the  more  primitive  types  of  humanity  have,  as  a  rule,  been 
the  ones  that  were  driven  into  these  remote  regions.  We  might 
also  show  that  the  low  condition  of  the  aborigines  is  apparently 
correlated  with  the  fact  that  they  were  subjected  first  to  the  re- 
pressive or  retrogressive  environment  of  the  equator  and  then 
to  the  almost  equally  unfavorable  environment  of  the  hot  deserts 
which  lack  the  stimulating  quahties  of  the  more  northern  deserts 
where  there  are  strong  changes  of  seasons.  This  is  pre-eminently 

73 


74 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


true  of  Australia,  where  primitive  man  is  at  his  lowest.  A  people 
subjected  to  two  such  environments  could  scarcely  be  expected 
to  develop  greatly,  even  if  they  were  originally  gifted,  which  was 
apparently  not  the  case,  or  if  they  were  endowed  with  all  sorts 
of  natural  and  artificial  advantages  such  as  good  domestic  plants 
and  animals,  and  helpful  iron  tools,  the  wheel,  and  the  art  of 
agriculture,  which  again  was  not  the  case.  Thus  in  a  broad  way, 
the  general  distribution  of  racial  character  seems  to  be  closely 
in  harmony  with  what  we  should  expect  from  the  principles  of 
paleontology  and  ecology,  and  from  the  geological  facts  as  to 
early  man  and  his  environment. 

It  will  now  be  of  interest  to  approach  the  problem  from  a 
wholly  different  standpoint,  namely,  that  of  the  anthropologist. 
Perhaps  the  most  widely  accepted  generahzation  of  anthropology 
is  that  the  degree  of  kinship  among  races  can  be  read  in  the  form 
of  their  heads  better  than  in  .any  other  way.  This  is  because 
environmental  circumstances  appear  to  have  less  influence  upon 
the  form  of  the  skull  than  upon  that  of  any  other  part  of  the 
body,  or  than  upon  any  mental  trait  or  external  habit.  Some  an- 
thropologists, to  be  sure,  question  this  generahzation.  Boas,  for 
example,  holds  that  a  new  environment  may  cause  the  form  of 
the  skull  to  change  a  little.  He  believes  that  his  measurements 
of  immigrants  and  their  children  in  New  York  City  indicate  that 
when  broad-headed  Jews  from  Poland  come  to  New  York  the 
children  born  in  this  country  have  heads  not  quite  so  broad  as 
those  of  their  parents  or  of  their  brothers  and  sisters  born  in 
Poland.  On  the  other  hand,  the  children  of  long-headed  Sicilian 
immigrants,  when  born  in  New  York,  appear  to  be  less  long- 
headed than  their  parents  or  than  their  brothers  and  sisters 
born  in  Sicily.  Whether  Boas  made  sufficient  allowance  for  the 
fact  that  the  head-form  of  children  and  young  people  continues 
to  change  until  complete  maturity  is  attained  is  not  yet  cer- 
tain. Even  if  he  is  right  and  there  is  an  actual  change  in  head- 
form  when  people  migrate  to  a  new  environment,  the  change 
appears  to  be  slight,  and  the  children  of  both  the  broad-headed 
and  the  long-headed  parents  would  be  grouped  in  the  same  gen- 


THE  CLASSIFICATION  OF  RACES 


75 


eral  categories  as  their  parents.  Moreover,  there  is  no  knowing 
how  greatly  a  few  unrecognized  cases  of  racial  mixture  in  the 
new  environment  may  have  influenced  the  results.  Again,  the 
change  in  head-form,  if  change  there  really  is,  appears  to  occur 
immediately  after  the  arrival  of  the  immigrants,  and  is  prob- 
ably a  sudden  mutation  rather  than  a  progressive  tendency. 
Hence  the  facts  thus  far  available  do  not  seem  to  disturb  the 
anthropologists  in  their  general  conclusion  that  the  shape  of 
the  head  is  the  best  measure  of  the  relation  between  one  race 
and  another. 

Without  committing  ourselves  one  way  or  the  other  as  to 
the  degree  to  which  environment  can  alter  the  form  of  the  hu- 
man body,  let  us  see  whither  we  are  led  if  we  accept  the  general 
view  of  anthropologists  as  to  the  importance  of  head-form  as  a 
criterion  of  race.  Curiously  enough  the  first  broad  appHcation 
of  this  criterion  to  the  world  as  a  whole  was  made  by  a  geographer, 
Griffith  Taylor  of  Australia.  His  conclusions  published  in  The 
Geographical  Review  in  191 9  and  192 1  were  so  contrary  to  gen- 
erally accepted  ideas,  and  were  also  inevitably  based  on  data 
containing  so  many  gaps,  that  they  were  received  most  scepti- 
cally. In  1923,  however,  in  his  book  on  The  Racial  History  of 
Man  J  Roland  B.  Dixon  of  Harvard  came  to  essentially  the  same 
conclusion.  The  generalization  which  both  men  make  is  this: 
The  form  of  the  head  is  the  most  permanent  and  distinctive  of 
racial  traits.  The  most  primitive  heads  are  long,  narrow,  and 
low,  with  small  brain  capacity.  As  man  has  evolved,  his  head 
has  tended  first  to  lengthen  from  back  to  front;  then  to  become 
higher,  and  finally  broader.  Thus  there  has  been  a  series  of 
I  steps  toward  a  roimd  head.  Such  a  head  is  biologically  the  high- 
est and  most  specialized,  because  it  can  hold  the  largest  brain  in 
proportion  to  its  surface  and  weight.  If  the  people  of  the  world 
are  analyzed  according  to  the  form  of  their  heads,  we  find  the 
\  same  peculiar  distribution  in  each  continent.  Even  in  Australia 
'this  is  shown  imperfectly,  especially  if  we  count  the  Pacific 
'islands  with  the  continent.  The  general  nature  of  the  distribu- 
tion is  that  the  most  primitive  types  with  the  narrowest  heads 


76 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


are  found  in  the  margins  of  each  continent,  or  in  areas  that  are 
protected  by  mountains,  by  tropical  forests,  or  in  some  other 
way.  Toward  the  center  of  the  continent  and  in  the  most  easily 
accessible  of  the  other  portions,  the  breadth  of  the  heads  in- 
creases. Hence  the  central  part  of  each  continent  is  regularly 
occupied  by  broad-headed  people  of  relatively  recent  origin. 

This  condition  has  been  sketched  by  Taylor  in  a  map  which 
is  reproduced  as  Figure  2.  This  map,  as  Taylor  most  carefully 
insists,  is  merely  a  rough  generalization.  Flaws  can  be  picked  in 
it  right  and  left,  as  they  can  in  every  map  which  attempts  to 
express  an  extremely  complex  relationship  in  a  few  simple  strokes. 
Nevertheless,  it  is  of  high  value  because  it  presents  graphically 
the  main  conclusion  to  which  the  premises  of  the  anthropologists 
seem  inevitably  to  lead;  and  which  the  more  detailed  maps  of 
Dixon  abundantly  support.  It  suggests  that  narrow-headed  peo- 
ple first  spread  over  the  world.  They  might  have  thought  that 
the  world  was  theirs  if  they  could  have  known  their  own  distri- 
bution. But  even  as  they  were  advancing,  new  races  with  larger 
heads  were  developing  in  central  Asia,  and  soon  began  to  spread 
into  the  other  continents  and  to  displace  their  narrow-headed 
predecessors.  And  so  the  process  has  gone  on.  The  most  narrow- 
headed  people  live  largely  in  tropical  regions  and  on  the  edges 
of  the  continents,  the  tips  of  peninsulas,  the  places  that  could 
easily  be  defended  against  invaders  and  those  that  their  suc- 
cessors have  not  wanted,  or  could  not  easily  get  into  because  of 
mountains,  seas,  deserts,  or  other  barriers.  Look  at  Figure  3, 
also  from  Taylor,  and  see  how  clearly  the  process  is  illustrated. 
The  most  long-headed  people,  as  appears  from  the  dark  shad- 
ing, occupy  the  mountainous  peninsulas  of  Scandinavia,  and 
Siberia,  and  the  protected  and  rugged  western  portions  of  Great 
Britain  together  with  Ireland.  They  likewise  occur  along  the 
southern  coast  of  Italy  and  in  rugged  northern  Greece  where 
they  presumably  represent  a  primitive  race  which  we  shall  later 
discuss  under  the  name  Pelasgians  or  ^Egaeans.  In  north  Africa 
it  is  the  desert  rather  than  mountains  or  seas  that  has  protected 
the  long-heads. 


THE  CLASSIFICATION  OF  RACES  77 

In  the  central  parts  of  each  continent  (Figure  2)  the  broad- 
headed  people  are  steadily  pressing  forward.  Central  Europe 
I  has  suffered  a  great  change  in  this  respect  even  in  our  own  day, 
for  broad-headed  Poles,  Czechs,  Russians,  and  others  have  been 
pressing  into  Germany.  Figure  3  shows  clearly  how  the  people 
from  Asia  with  a  cephalic  index  above  80  have  thrust  themselves 
among  the  long-heads  like  a  great  wedge.  The  migration  of  the 
English,  Scotch,  and  Irish  to  America,  as  well  as  of  the  early 
Spanish  and  French,  was  a  movement  of  relatively  long-headed 
people.   If  it  occurred  in  prehistoric  times  the  anthropologists 
would  probably  interpret  it  as  a  thrusting  out  of  the  long-heads 
by  the  round-heads.    In  America  the  first  wave  of  long-heads 
ihas  been  followed  by  a  wave  of  round-heads  from  eastern  and 
central  Europe.   These  round-heads,  with  their  high  birth-rate, 
are  taking  possession  of  the  northeastern  United  States  and 
driving  the  original  long-heads  westward.  These  later  phases  of 
migration  do  not  appear  in  Figure  2,  which  deals  only  with  the 
1  aborigines  of  America,  Austraha,  and  Africa.   They  merely  in- 
Idicate  that  the  old  process  of  replacing  long-heads  by  round- 
i  heads  is  still  as  active  as  ever.  One  can  almost  feel  their  activity 
if  one  studies  Figure  3  in  detail  and  notes  the  arrows  indicating 
lines  of  migration.  All  this  is  not  pleasing  to  us  who  are  Nordics, 
for  our  heads,  though  long  and  high,  lack  breadth.  The  south 
Germans,  Rumanians,  Turks,  and  Chinese  approach  nearer  to 
the  supposedly  ultimate  broad-headed  type  than  we  do.  We 
hate  to  admit  that  potentially  they  may  be  the  better  people, 
but  both  Taylor  and  Dixon  agree  that  our  present  seeming  racial 
superiority  is  only  an  accident.  But,  as  Taylor  puts  it,  in  many 
,  features  the  Mongolian  is  at  least  on  the  same  level  as  the  white 
I  race.  The  Mongols  of  central  Asia  and  of  the  American  Cordil- 
j  lera  share  with  the  Alpine  (early  Mongol)  folk  of  central  Europe 
I  the  honor  of  possessing  the  highest  cephalic  index.  They  are  of 
i  course  farthest  removed  from  the  Negro  and  Negrito  in  this 
important  respect.    The  same  order  obtains  as  regards  orbital 
i  and  aural  indices  and  in  the  cross-section  of  the  hair.  As  regards 
I  cranial  capacity  the  white  and  yellow  races  are  ranked  together 


I 


78 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


by  Duckworth,  though  Clapham  states  that  the  average  weight 
of  the  Chinese  brain  is  greater. 

The  present  superiority  of  the  Nordics  is  due  to  environment, 
according  to  Taylor,  and  to  racial  mixture,  according  to  Dixon. 
I  beheve  that  both  these  factors  are  important,  and  that  a  third 
factor,  natural  selection,  works  with  them,  no  one  of  the  three 
being  any  less  essential  than  the  others.  Back  of  these  lies  still 
a  fourth  factor— the  mutations  or  progressive  deviations  which 
may  be  of  supreme  importance;  but  as  to  whose  causes  we  know 
so  Httle.  Unless  this  factor  intervenes  to  produce  other  results, 
it  seems  probable  that  if  the  round-headed  races  should  have  an 
environment  as  good  as  ours,  if  they  should  make  as  fortunate 
mixtures  with  other  races,  and  undergo  as  rigid  selection,  their 
rounder  heads  and  greater  brain  capacity  may  win  the  day.  The 
hope  of  the  other  races  perhaps  lies  in  so  utilizuig  racial  mixture 
and  natural  selection  that  the  leaders  will  retain  their  environ- 
mental advantages  and  at  the  same  time  gain  that  type  of  phys- 
ique—whatever it  may  be— which  leads  to  greatest  progress. 

It  must  not  be  supposed  that  the  form  of  the  head  is  the 
only  way  of  detecting  the  relation  of  one  race  to  another.  Other 
physical  conditions  such  as  the  cross-section  of  the  hair,  the  pro- 
portion of  the  limbs,  complexion,  and  stature  must  likewise  be 
considered.  The  most  primitive  hair  is  flat  in  cross-section,  and 
therefore  is  kinky  like  that  of  the  negroes,  or  even  knots  itself 
into  "pepper-corns."  Higher  than  this  in  the  evolutionary  scale 
comes  hair  that  is  oval  in  cross-section,  and  which  therefore  is 
wavy  or  curly  as  among  Nordics.  Highest  of  all  is  the  kind  which 
is  perfectly  round  in  cross-section,  and  which  therefore  remains 
like  that  of  the  Chinese,  straight.  As  to  the  proportions  of  the 
limbs,  the  lowest  types  of  men  such  as  the  Pygmies  have  short 
legs,  long  arms,  and  long  bodies,  but  these  features  are  variable 
and  have  thus  far  been  of  comparatively  Httle  use  in  determining 
the  relationship  of  one  race  to  another.  The  same  is  true  of  stat- 
ure and  complexion,  for  both  of  these  conditions  appear  to  be 
greatly  influenced  by  environment.  The  Nordics,  for  example, 
may  contain  an  appreciable  share  of  the  blood  of  a  bleached 


THE  CLASSIFICATION  OF  RACES 


79 


negroid  race.  Nevertheless,  all  these  physical  factors  need  to  be 
used  in  connection  with  the  shape  of  the  head  in  determming 
how  the  various  races  have  originated  and  how  they  are  con- 
nected with  one  another.  One  of  the  merits  of  Taylor^s  presen- 
tation is  that  he  takes  account  of  all  these  factors  and  has  even 
attempted  to  make  allowance  for  the  degree  to  which  each  may 
be  modified  by  environment. 

Still  another  set  of  factors  may  contain  most  important  in- 
formation as  to  the  relationships  of  races.  These  are  the  cultural 
factors  such  as  language,  customs,  implements,  and  the  like. 
Taylor  has  boldly  attempted  to  correlate  some  ten  of  these  with 
the  shape  of  the  head. 

The  results  are  shown  in  Figure  4.  In  each  of  the  maps  there 
shown,  the  area  where  a  certain  cultural  feature  is  known  among 
primitive  people  is  shaded  or  else  indicated  by  a  letter.  Taylor 
has  added  lines  like  those  of  Figures  2  and  3,  showing  the  ap- 
proximate limits  within  which  the  cephalic  index  generally  at- 
tains a  certain  level.  For  example,  in  the  first  map  it  appears 
that  deformation  of  the  head  in  infancy  prevails  almost  entirely 
among  broad-headed  people  whose  cephalic  index  ranges  from 
80  to  84,  but  not  among  those  with  the  broadest  heads  where  the 
index  rises  above  84.  In  the  same  way  totemism  is  found  among 
people  whose  index  is  generally  less  than  77.  The  rest  of  the 
maps  are  almost  self-explanatory.  The  couvade,  it  will  be  re- 
membered, is  the  curious  custom  whereby  at  the  time  when  a 
child  is  born  the  father  takes  to  his  bed,  or  at  least  pretends  to 
suffer  pangs  like  those  of  the  mother.  In  the  case  of  kin-words 
the  languages  of  the  unforked  type  use  the  same  word  for  the 
kin  of  both  parents;  just  as  we  say  "uncle"  for  either  a  father's 
or  a  mother's  brother.  In  the  forked  type,  however,  a  mother's 
brother  and  a  father's  brother  are  called  by  different  words; 
and  so  with  all  degrees  of  relationship.  The  Levirate  is  the  cus- 
tom whereby  a  man  marries  the  widow  of  his  deceased  brother, 
as  among  the  ancient  Hebrews. 

These  maps  of  Taylor's  have  been  criticised  as  being  too 
highly  generahzed.   It  seems  to  me,  however,  that  such  broad 


80 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


generalization  is  necessary  as  the  first  step  in  any  highly  com- 
plex problem.  Taylor  has  surveyed  a  vast  nmnber  of  facts;  he 
has  had  the  wisdom  to  gather  together  related  data  from  all  parts 
of  the  world,  and  to  express  them  graphically  in  maps.  He  has 
thus  caused  ethnology  and  anthropology  to  work  hand  in  hand 
with  geography.  It  seems  to  me  that  in  doing  this  he  has  opened 
the  way  for  a  vast  amount  of  more  detailed  and  accurate  studies. 
Many  of  the  details  of  his  work  will  doubtless  be  modified,  but 
if  their  main  outlines  stand,  they  will  some  day  be  recognized 
as  a  great  contribution  to  human  knowledge.  The  primary  reason 
for  this  belief  is  that  Taylor  for  the  first  time  advances  a  broad 
anthropological  hypothesis  which  is  in  harmony  with  the  facts 
of  modern  geography,  and  also  with  the  facts  proved  by  geology 
as  to  the  evolution  of  the  great  families  of  mammals.  I  am  sur- 
prised at  the  way  in  which  Taylor^s  conclusions  accord  in  the 
main  with  those  to  which  we  have  been  led  in  previous  chapters 
on  the  basis  of  paleontology,  ecology,  and  geology.  Another 
reason  for  believing  that  Taylor's  main  thesis  is  correct  is  that 
Willis  in  his  remarkable  study  of  Age  and  Area  has  demonstrated 
with  mathematical  precision  that,  other  things  being  equal, 
the  oldest  famihes  and  genera  of  plants  are  also  the  most  widely 
distributed.  In  plants,  just  as  in  animals,  an  ancient  type  may 
be  missing  over  broad  central  areas,  but  its  age  is  evidenced  by 
the  fact  that  it  is  found  in  outlying  regions.  What  this  means, 
according  to  the  interpretation  of  Willis,  is  that  the  old  forms 
each  started  in  some  central  area.  From  this  they  spread  outward 
in  many  directions,  suffering  slight  modifications,  but  in  general 
retaining  the  ancestral  character.  The  original  homes  of  plants, 
that  is,  the  places  where  new  species  are  now  arising,  are  very 
largely  areas  like  mountain-tops  where  extreme  conditions  pre- 
vail. In  such  areas  new  types  originate  and  often  drive  out  the 
old.  They  may  even  cause  the  older  species  or  famihes  to  disap- 
pear over  areas  of  almost  continental  extent.  Yet  the  fact  that 
the  old  forms  are  found  scattered  here  and  there  almost  certainly 
means  that  the  intervening  areas,  so  far  as  their  environment 
does  not  forbid,  were  at  some  time  occupied  by  these  old  forms. 


FIG.  4.    MAPS  SHOWING  THE  CORRELATION  OF  CULTURAL  CONDITIONS  WITH 
THE  CEPHALIC  INDEX.     (After  Taylor.) 


THE  CLASSIFICATION  OF  RACES 


81 


The  old  forms  must  have  spread  from  the  common  centre  along 
certain  paths  where  now  they  have  disappeared,  as  is  proved  by 
almost  innumerable  cases  such  as  New  Zealand  where  the  facts 
as  to  the  geographic  distribution  of  plants  are  so  clear  as  to  leave 
little  room  for  question.  Hence  age  is  roughly  measured  by  area. 
This  generalization,  as  Willis  has  shown,  applies  to  living  forms 
of  animals  as  well  as  to  plants.  It  is  the  same  generalization  which 
the  geologists  have  made  in  respect  to  extinct  animals,  and  which 
Taylor  has  made  in  respect  to  man.  The  agreement  of  these  three 
lines  of  evidence  is  what  we  should  expect  in  view  of  the  increasing 
evidence  that  nature's  main  laws  apply  equally  to  plants,  ani- 
mals, and  man. 

Another  important  confirmation  of  Taylor's  hypothesis  is 
that  Dixon  has  independently  come  to  the  same  generalization, 
although  his  methods  and  temperament  are  absolutely  different 
from  those  of  Taylor,  and  many  of  his  facts  are  drawn  from 
different  sources.  Thus  it  would  seem  that  by  the  present  form 
of  his  head,  and  to  a  less  degree  by  his  other  physical  character- 
istics and  even  by  traces  of  certain  elements  of  primitive  culture, 
man  shows  that  like  most  of  the  great  families  of  mammals,  he 
originated  in  central  Asia,  and  migrated  outward  in  successive 
waves,  largely  under  the  influence  of  great  changes  of  climate. 

The  book  in  which  Dixon  discusses  the  great  anthropological 
generalization  as  to  the  significance  of  head-form  is  a  remarkable 
example  of  what  can  be  done  by  taking  a  single  guiding  prin- 
ciple and  working  it  out  with  absolute  logic.  It  will  pay  us  to 
discuss  it  more  fully.  This  does  not  mean  acceptance  or  rejec- 
tion of  its  conclusions,  for  the  facts  are  not  yet  sufficient  for 
that.  Assuming  that  head-form  is  the  main  criterion  of  racial 
relationships,  Dixon  concludes  that  five  main  measurements  of 
the  skull  are  sufficient,  or  at  least  are  all  that  can  be  used  in  the 
present  incomplete  state  of  anthropology.  He  shows,  however, 
that  other  measurements  agree  so  well  with  these  that  it  is  fairly 
certain  that  we  cannot  be  led  far  astray  if  we  rigidly  rely  on  the 
five  which  he  has  chosen. 

The  five  measurements  are:  (i)  the  breadth  of  the  skull  from 


82 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


ear  to  ear;  (2)  its  length  from  the  forehead  to  the  most  project- 
ing part  of  the  occiput  at  the  back;  (3)  its  height  from  the  base 
to  the  top  of  the  head;  (4)  the  width  of  the  nose  at  the  widest 
part  as  measured  on  the  skull,  and  (5)  the  height  of  the  nose. 
These  five  measurements  give  rise  to  three  indexes,  each  of  which 
is  arbitrarily  divided  into  three  groups  according  to  whether  it 
is  large,  medium,  or  small.  The  first  index  is  the  ordinary  cranial 
or  cephaHc  index,  that  is,  the  ratio  of  the  breadth  of  the  head 
to  the  length.  This  shows  whether  a  head,  when  looked  at  from 
above,  appears  more  or  less  oval.  An  elongated  oval  head  is 
doHchocephalic  or  long-headed,  and  is  normally  accompanied  by 
a  long  face.  A  head  with  a  medium  cephalic  index  is  moderately 
oval  and  is  called  mesocephaHc,  while  a  head  with  a  high  index 
is  brachycephalic,  or  broad-headed,  andjs  normally  accompanied 
by  a  broad  face. 

The  second  or  altitudinal  index  is  the  ratio  between  the 
length  of  the  head  and  the  height.  A  high  index  means  a  high 
forehead  and  a  head  that  approaches  the  circular  form  when 
viewed  from  the  side  without  regarding  the  chin.  A  head  with 
a  high  index  is  called  hypsicephaHc,  one  with  a  medium  index 
orthocephalic,  and  a  low  head  chamacephalic.  Other  things  being 
equal,  the  high  head  contains  a  larger  brain  than  the  low. 

The  third  index  is  the  ratio  between  the  breadth  and  height 
of  the  nose.  A  narrow  nose  is  leptorrhine,  a  medium  nose  mes- 
orrhine,  and  a  broad  nose  platyrrhine.  The  three  indexes,  to- 
gether with  the  degree  of  prognathism  or  projection  of  the  jaws, 
determine  the  shape  of  the  face. 

With  three  indexes  and  three  divisions  under  each  index, 
there  may  be  skulls  of  twenty-seven  different  types.  Thus  one 
skull  may  be  relatively  long,  high,  and  broad-nosed.  Two  others 
may  be  equally  long  and  high,  but  one  may  be  medium-nosed 
and  the  other  narrow-nosed.  Still  others  may  all  be  low  and 
narrow-nosed,  but  one  may  be  long,  another  short,  and  a  third 
medium  in  length.  Among  the  twenty-seven  types  eight  contain 
no  medium  indexes  of  any  sort.  These  Dixon  regards  as  typical 
of  eight  fundamental  races  from  which  all  others  are  derived  by 


THE  CLASSIFICATION  OF  RACES 


8S 


the  mixture  of  race  with  race.  Whether  he  is  right  in  this  assump- 
tion is  open  to  question,  but  he  at  least  shows  not  only  that  the 
other  nineteen  types  can  all  be  derived  from  the  eight  extreme 
types  by  various  mixtures,  but  also  that  the  assumption  of  eight 
types,  which  have  migrated  widely,  fits  a  vast  body  of  historical 
and  archeological  facts,  and  is  not  contradicted  by  any  similar 
body  of  facts.  Moreover,  it  explains  many  things  which  have 
hitherto  been  unexplained.  Hence,  while  Dixon's  eight  types  or 
primeval  races  may  not  be  final,  they  at  least  suggest  a  helpful 
means  of  determining  the  degree  of  relation  between  one  race 
and  another.  Since  his  method  of  using  cranial  indexes  is  new, 
he  has  been  obliged  to  study  the  original  data  for  all  the  individual 
skulls  whose  measurements  have  been  published,  and  for  many 
that  are  unpublished.  The  amount  of  work  is  colossal,  but  the 
results  are  highly  suggestive. 

Dixon  names  and  describes  his  eight  main  races  or  types  as 
follows: 


Name 

Probable 
Original  Home 

Shape 

of 
Head 

Shape 

of 
Face 

Shape 

of 
Nose 

Degree 
of 

Prognathism 

Skull 
Capacity 

Proto-Australoid 

Southeast  coast  of 

Long 

Medium 

Broad 

Moderate 

Small 

Asia 

Low 

broad 

Proto-Negroid 

Northern  and  west- 

Long 

Medium 

Broad 

Moderate 

Small 

ern  Africa 

High 

broad 

Mediterranean 

Eastern  Mediter- 

Long 

Narrow 

Narrow 

None 

Large 

ranean  and  Black 

Low 

Sea  region 

Caspian 

Caspian  region 

Long 

Narrow 

Narrow 

None 

Large 

High 

Mongoloid 

Mongolia 

Round 

Broad 

Broad 

Moderate 

Medium 

Low 

Palae-Alpine 

Eastern  central 

Round 

Broad 

Broad 

Moderate 

Medium 

Asia 

High 

Ural 

South  Ural  (?) 

Round 

Medium 

Narrow 

None 

(Largest) 

Low 

Alpine 

Western  central 

Round 

Medium 

Narrow 

None 

Largest 

Asia 

High 

Having  assumed  that  these  are  the  fundamental  races,  the 
next  thing  is  to  discover  the  racial  composition  of  any  given  set 
of  people.  If  we  are  Nordics,  Dixon's  analysis  indicates  that 
we  are  chiefly  of  Caspian  and  Mediterranean  origin,  with  some 
Proto-Negroid  admixture.  The  Proto-Negroids  are  not  the 
Negroes  of  to-day,  but  a  far  more  primitive  race  whose  origin 


84  THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 

is  placed  somewhere  in  northern  or  western  Africa.  Dixon  be-  ^ 
Heves  that  part  of  this  race  migrated  into  northwestern  Europe. 
There  they  were  bleached  by  the  climate  so  that  a  race  which 
was  originally  black-haired  became  blond.  Later  the  same  re-  L 
gions  were  invaded  by  two  other  races.  The  Mediterranean  race,  ' 
coming  perhaps  from  far  western  Asia,  probably  encircled  the 
Mediterranean,  and  then  moved  northward.  In  its  purest  form 
it  is  found  in  Sicily,  but  farther  north  it  too  became  somewhat 
blond.  The  third  race  was  the  Caspian  which  came  from  some- 
where near  the  sea  of  that  name  and  migrated  across  Russia  to 
the  Baltic.  It  hurts  the  racial  pride  of  the  fair,  lordly  Nordic  to 
think  that  he  has  in  his  veins  the  same  blood  as  the  himible 
Negro.  It  also  hurts  his  pride  to  think  that  the  round-headed 
Ural  and  Alpine  races,  such  people  as  the  Kalmucks  and  Chinese, 
have  brains  that  are  relatively  larger  and  perhaps  potentially 
more  competent  than  ours.  Nevertheless,  if  Dixon's  premises  are 
accepted,  most  of  his  conclusions  are  logical. 

Having  estabhshed  the  criteria  of  these  eight  types,  Dixon 
assumes  that  all  the  intermediate  types  are  derived  from  them 
by  intermixtures,  which  is  perfectly  possible.  It  is  not  our  pur- 
pose to  discuss  the  vaHdity  of  the  types  nor  of  the  assumption 
as  to  the  results  of  their  intermixture.  It  is  enough  to  say  that 
Dixon's  method  produces  results  which  agree  to  an  extraordinar}' 
degree  with  the  known  facts  of  history.  They  also  clear  up  a 
number  of  hitherto  insoluble  racial  problems,  as  will  be  illus- 
trated later  in  the  case  of  South  Africa.  They  introduce,  to  be 
sure,  certain  new  problems  which  are  highly  perplexing,  but 
many  of  these  become  clear  when  studied  in  the  light  of  geog-  , 
raphy  and  ecology.  Hence  we  accept  his  method,  not  as  final,  ) 
but  as  the  best  means  yet  devised  of  testing  racial  kinships. 

In  order  to  discover  the  real  racial  antecedents  of  any  group 
of  people  Dixon  goes  back  to  the  individual  skulls,  entirely  dis- 
carding the  use  of  averages.  He  classifies  the  skulls  according 
to  his  twenty-seven  types,  and  then  analyzes  the  mixed  types 
into  the  eight  primary  types.  In  doing  this  one  of  the  most 
curious  results  is  that  the  cranial  types  among  women  are  found 


THE  CLASSIFICATION  OF  RACES 


85 


to  vary  distinctly  less  than  among  men.  In  case  after  case  the 
cranial  measurements  of  women  indicate  more  primitive  types 
than  those  of  their  husbands.  Often  the  men  show  a  preponder- 
ance of  types  which  are  known  to  have  migrated  into  a  region 
relatively  recently,  while  the  women  display  a  larger  proportion 
of  types  which  migrated  earlier.  Of  course  at  the  immediate  time 
of  a  migration  this  is  natural,  for  men  often  make  invasions 
leaving  their  women  behind.  They  slaughter  the  men  in  the 
places  where  they  settle  and  take  the  women  as  wives.  But  after 
such  a  migration  is  over,  one  would  expect  that  among  the  chil- 
dren, the  girls  and  the  boys  would  show  an  equal  inheritance 
of  head-form  from  their  fathers  and  their  mothers.  But  such  is 
not  the  case.  For  many  generations  after  the  invasion  the  men 
still  show  more  predominantly  the  head-form  of  the  invaders, 
and  the  women  that  of  the  earHer  inhabitants.  Thus  women 
are  conservative  in  head-form  as  well  as  in  character.  For  the 
anthropologist  this  conservatism  is  most  fortunate,  for  it  pre- 
sumably preserves  indications  of  earlier  racial  relationships. 
Moreover,  so  far  as  it  goes  it  suggests  that  Dixon's  general 
method  is  right,  even  though  his  eight  races  may  never  be  firmly 
estabhshed. 

A  single  example  will  illustrate  the  curious  way  in  which  the 
history  of  races  can  be  read  in  the  form  of  their  heads.  In  South 
Africa  there  are  now  three  races,  the  Bantus,  Hottentots,  and 
Bushmen,  while  a  fourth  race,  the  so-called  Strandloopers,  be- 
came extinct  during  the  early  colonial  period.  Anthropologists 
have  been  much  puzzled  as  to  how  these  various  people  were  re- 
lated to  one  another.  Language  and  customs  give  only  a  few  im- 
portant clues,  but  a  comparison  of  the  skulls  brings  out  what 
seems  to  be  a  reasonable  racial  history.  For  instance,  among  the 
Strandloopers  half  the  women  were  Mongoloid,  a  quarter  Proto- 
Australoid,  and  a  sixth  Proto-Negroid.  Among  the  Strandlooper 
I  men,  however,  the  Mongoloid  and  Negroid  elements  are  not 
quite  so  strong  as  among  the  women.  This  seems  to  indicate 
that  the  first  people  in  South  Africa  were  of  the  primitive  Mon- 
goloid and  Negroid  types  and  that  the  Australoids  came  later. 


86 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


In  all  four  of  the  South  African  races  there  is  a  considerable  pro- 
portion of  Mongoloid  blood.  This  is  largest  in  the  female  Strand- 
loopers  and  next  in  the  male  Strandloopers.  Then  come  the  male 
Bushmen  and  the  female  Hottentots  with  approximately  the 
same  amount,  while  the  male  Hottentots  and  the  Zulus  have  the 
least.  All  four  of  the  races  likewise  contain  a  considerable  per- 
centage of  Proto-Negroid  blood,  but  this  is  relatively  slight  in 
the  Strandloopers,  increases  in  the  Bushmen,  is  still  greater  in 
the  Hottentots,  and  greatest  in  the  Zulus.  This  would  indicate 
that  the  Negroid  blood  was  the  result  of  an  invasion  later  than 
that  of  the  Mongoloid.  As  to  the  Proto-Australoid  strain,  it  is 
about  equal  in  men  and  women  among  the  Strandloopers,  rises 
to  a  large  percentage  among  the  male  Bushmen  and  female  Hot- 
tentots, and  is  most  noteworthy  among  the  male  Hottentots  and 
male  Kaffirs,  the  latter  being  a  branch  of  the  Bantus. 
On  this  basis,  according  to  Dixon: 

A  logical  theory  of  the  racial  history  of  the  whole  of  South  Africa  may 
be  outlined  as  follows :  The  oldest  population  is  represented  by  the  Strand- 
looper,  who  at  a  very  early  period,  perhaps  already  in  Palaeolithic  times, 
extended  widely  over  the  plateaus  of  the  southern  portion  of  the  con- 
tinent and  reached  northward,  perhaps  as  far  as  the  region  of  the 
Great  Lakes.  Primarily  Mongoloid  in  type,  they  were  blended  with  a 
considerable  Proto-Austroloid  factor  and  a  lesser  element  of  the  Proto- 
Negroid  type.  Later  a  southward  movement  of  peoples,  mainly  of  Proto- 
Negroid  and  Proto-Australoid  types,  who  had  absorbed  a  small  proportion 
of  Pigmy,  Palae-Alpine  folk,  took  place,  and,  passing  through  Rhodesia, 
forced  their  way  into  the  region  of  the  southern  plateaus.  Of  the  older 
Strandlooper  population  they  absorbed  a  part,  driving  the  remainder  to 
the  coast,  where  they  survived  down  to  the  sixteenth  century.  From  the 
mingling  of  the  immigrants  and  the  Strandloopers  the  Bushmen  developed, 
and  these  occupied  all  of  the  better  lands.  Again  a  new  drift,  this  time  of 
Bantu-like  peoples,  forced  their  way  over  the  same  route  from  the  north- 
ward, and  established  themselves  in  the  region  south  of  the  Zambesi. 
These  folk,  who  were  pastoral,  cattle-keeping  people,  took  the  better  lands, 
driving  the  Bushmen  into  the  less  favorable  localities,  and  in  time  ab- 
sorbed a  certain  proportion  of  them,  and  thus  developed  the  Hottentot, 
whose  language,  although  possessing  several  clicks  taken  over  from  the 
Bushmen,  nevertheless  shows  strong  Hamitic  relationships.  Lastly,  prob- 
ably about  the  fourteenth  or  fifteenth  century,  a  last  thrust  of  Bantu  peo- 
ples occurred,  bringing  into  the  region  the  warlike  Zulu,  Kafiir,  and  so 


THE  CLASSIFICATION  OF  RACES 


87 


forth."-  Like  their  predecessors,  they  drove  the  earlier  occupants  from  much 
of  the  better  lands,  forcing  the  Hottentots  west  and  north  toward  the 
Atlantic  coast,  and  the  Bushmen  into  the  Kalahari  and  other  desert  sec- 
tions. Just  as  the  earlier  groups  of  invaders,  these  latest  Bantu  conquerors 
mingled  somewhat  with  the  older  peoples,  so  that  when  their  progress  was 
stopped  by  European  occupation,  they  had  already  absorbed  a  small 
Mongoloid  element,  which  thus  differentiates  them  from  the  Bantu  tribes 
farther  north.  If  this  suggested  theory  is  correct,  the  Strandlooper,  Bush- 
man, and  Hottentot  represent  three  successive  stages  in  the  racial  history 
of  this  part  of  Africa,  the  fourth  and  last  stage  of  which  was  put  an  end  to 
by  the  European  colonization.  That  the  Hottentot  represented  a  very  old 
Bushman-Bantu  mixture  has  been  often  suggested  by  others;  the  present 
theory  carries  this  a  step  farther,  and  derives  the  Bushmen  themselves 
from  the  still  older  Strandloopers  by  a  similar  process. 

We  have  given  this  example  at  length  because  it  illustrates 
the  remarkable  way  in  which  a  mathematical  analysis  of  the 
form  of  the  head  seems  to  bring  out  racial  relationships.  In  later 
chapters  we  shall  apply  Dixon's  results  to  other  parts  of  the 
world,  including  our  own,  and  shall  see  what  they  indicate  as 
to  the  relation  between  inheritance  and  environment  in  the 
determination  of  racial  character. 


CHAPTER  VII 


THE  ANOMALIES  OF  ABORIGINAL  AMERICA 

The  distribution  of  racial  character  and  of  progress  in  America 
before  the  coming  of  the  white  man  seems  at  first  sight  to  follow 
quite  different  laws  from  those  which  govern  the  corresponding 
distribution  in  Europe.  The  greatest  progress  was  not  found  in 
the  regions  with  the  most  stimulating  environment,  nor  was  it 
connected  with  the  races  whose  head-form  allies  them  with  the 
most  advanced  races  of  Europe.  In  discussing  this  matter  I  shall 
in  part  follow  The  Red  Man's  Continent,  where  the  culture  of 
the  red  men  is  considered  in  its  relation  to  physical  environ- 
ment; but  I  shall  add  many  new  points  of  view  suggested  by 
Taylor  and  Dixon  and  by  the  earlier  parts  of  this  book. 

To-day  the  distribution  of  progress  in  America,  as  in  Eu- 
rope, is  almost  identical  with  that  of  health  and  climatic  energy. 
In  pre-Columbian  times  one  would  expect  a  similar  distribution, 
for  the  climate  appears  to  have  differed  httle  if  any  from  that 
of  to-day.  Yet  the  most  advanced  American  aborigines  lived  in 
regions  which  rank  relatively  low  in  both  health  and  climate. 
In  the  tropical  plateaus  where  dwelt  the  Aztecs  and  Incas  the 
climate  though  cool  is  so  monotonous  that  it  is  unstimulating. 
On  the  other  hand  in  the  bracing  climate  of  the  northern  United 
States  east  of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  the  American  Indians  were 
mere  savages,  living  largely  by  hunting,  while  southern  and  cen- 
tral California  were  inhabited  by  almost  the  lowest  of  the  abo- 
rigines. The  decay  of  the  high  civilizations  which  preceded  the 
relatively  degenerate  Aztecs  and  Incas  of  the  time  of  Columbus 
may  have  been  hastened  by  a  change  of  climate,  but  cHmatic 
conditions  certainly  do  not  explain  why  the  people  of  the  north- 
eastern United  States  and  of  the  Pacific  coast  stood  so  far  be- 
hind those  same  Aztecs  and  Incas,  even  in  the  days  of  their  de- 
cline.  The  contrast  between  Europe  and  America  may  briefly 

88 


THE  ANOMALIES  OF  ABORIGINAL  AMERICA  89 


be  summed  up  thus.  In  practically  all  parts  of  the  Old  World 
the  degree  of  progress  throughout  the  historic  period  appears 
to  have  been  closely  in  harmony  with  the  environment,  pro- 
vided due  allowance  be  made  for  other  known  factors,  such  as 
migrations,  famines,  the  discovery  of  America,  the  Crusades, 
and  the  Reformation.  In  modern  America  the  same  is  true. 
Why,  then,  were  the  conditions  of  pre-Columbian  America  so 
different  ? 

From  the  standpoint  of  racial  inheritance  the  anomaly  of 
America  may  be  as  great  as  from  that  of  environment.  Accord- 
ing to  Dixon: 

Singly  or  together  .  .  .  [the  Caspian  and  Mediterranean]  types  stand 
pre-eminent  in  the  history  of  the  Old  World,  yet,  strangely  enough,  in  the 
New  they  can  boast  little  in  the  way  of  achievement.  In  South  America 
the  Caspian  type  appears  in  any  importance  only  among  the  wretched 
and  fast-dying  tribes  of  the  [Alikaluf  in  the]  extreme  south,  while  in  the 
northern  continent  it  apparently  forms  the  dominant  element  only  in  the 
Eskimo.  It  is  hard  to  conceive  of  a  greater  contrast  to  the  forceful,  conquer- 
ing, intellectual  peoples  of  this  type  in  the  Old  World,  than  the  timid  and 
simple  Eskimo.  Is  it  not  impossible  that  the  one  should  be  of  common 
ancestry  with  the  other?  Have  our  criteria  and  analysis  in  this  instance 
told  the  truth?  It  must  be  confessed  that  explanation  of  the  failure  of  the 
Caspian  peoples  in  America  to  live  up  to  the  achievements  of  their  supposed 
kindred  in  Asia  and  Europe  is  difficult,  although  for  the  Eskimo  a  case 
can  perhaps  be  made.  For  if,  instead  of  the  strongly  favoring  environments 
in  which  the  Old  World  representatives  of  the  type  have  lived,  we  substi- 
tute the  poverty  of  that  to  which  the  Eskimos,  in  historic  times  at  least, 
have  been  confined,  we  may  have  a  partial  answer.  Yet  we  do  not  know 
that  the  Eskimos  have  always  been  held  within  the  Arctic,  and  for  the 
small  groups  of  people  of  this  type  which  reached  the  southern  continent 
no  claim  of  the  repressive  influence  of  environment  can  of  course  be  made. 
The  paradox  therefore  remains. 

The  same  anomaly  finds  expression  in  the  history  of  the 
Proto-Australoids  and  Proto-Negroids  as  summed  up  by  Dixon: 

Not  only  have  the  Proto-Australoids  and  Proto-Negroids  not  been  able 
to  reach  out  and  hold  any  considerable  portions  of  the  world  outside  the 
tropics,  they  have  had  to  give  ground  within  their  own  territory,  and  half 
of  Africa,  the  whole  of  which  they  seem  once  to  have  held,  very  early  passed 
out  of  their  control.  In  the  great  struggle  they  have,  almost  from  the  begin- 


90 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


ning,  been  losers.  ...  In  the  New  World,  where  their  apparent  presence 
is  so  surprising,  with  few  exceptions  the  peoples  showing  the  character- 
istics of  these  types  were  of  low  culture,  generally  marginal  in  distribution, 
and  largely  extinct  when  Europeans  came  to  the  continent.  One  exception, 
however,  is  a  paradox,  for  the  Iroquois  and  southern  Algonkian  tribes 
were  among  the  first  of  those  north  of  Mexico  in  abihty  and  prowess,  and 
neither  in  outward  appearance  nor  in  culture  betrayed  what  seem  to  be 
their  affiliations. 

In  attempting  to  explain  the  distribution  of  racial  character 
in  America  let  us  begin  with  the  fact  that  in  America,  if  Dixon 
is  right,  the  Caspian-Mediterranean  or  Nordic  mixture,  as  exem- 
plified among  the  Eskimos  and  the  AHkaluf,  stands  very  low  in 
civiHzation.  On  the  contrary  among  the  Iroquois  and  Algon- 
quins  a  mixture  of  Proto-Negroid  and  Proto-Australoid  stocks 
stands  relatively  high.  It  may  be  that  the  ancestors  of  all  the 
tribes  here  mentioned  were  subjected  to  a  repressive  evolution 
during  their  journey  from  Asia  to  America  through  Siberia  and 
Alaska.  That  in  itself  may  have  retarded  their  mental  develop- 
ment as  compared  with  the  corresponding  people  in  Europe, 
but  it  does  not  explain  why  they  differ  among  themselves.  So 
far  as  the  Eskimos  are  concerned,  it  is  quite  clear  that  they  live 
in  an  environment  which  is  still  repressive.  Not  only  does  their 
coimtry  fail  to  provide  the  raw  materials  which  are  so  convenient 
and  so  helpful  in  the  advance  of  civilization,  but  their  suffer- 
ings from  hunger,  from  long  cold  winters,  and  from  nervous  ex- 
haustion, resemble  those  already  described  among  the  Siberians. 
If  we  were  right  in  a  previous  chapter  as  to  the  effect  of  pro- 
nounced and  prolonged  low  temperature  upon  the  people  of 
Siberia,  it  seems  reasonable  to  suppose  that  the  more  nervous 
and  progressive  types  among  the  Eskimos  have  largely  been 
weeded  out  by  nervous  diseases  or  by  migration.  Hence,  no 
matter  what  race  they  may  belong  to,  one  would  hardly  expect 
the  Eskimos  to  achieve  much. 

As  to  the  Alikaluf ,  they  are  a  primitive  hunting  people  who 
use  the  bow  and  arrow,  build  large  canoes,  and  have  a  reputa- 
tion for  treachery.  They  live  in  what  most  people  would  call  a 
decidedly  repressive  climate.  Their  home  is  near  the  shores  of 


THE  ANOMALIES  OF  ABORIGINAL  AMERICA  91 


the  Pacific,  among  the  mountainous  islands  of  the  western  part 
of  Tierra  del  Fuego.  There  they  are  exposed  to  the  full  fury  of 
an  interminable  series  of  gales  which  make  the  weather  of  this 
region  probably  the  wildest  on  earth."  (Kendrew.)  About  half 
of  the  gales  come  from  the  cool  Pacific  and  are  the  southern  part 
of  the  "Roaring  Forties,"  the  terrific  westerly  winds  which  the 
mariner  dreads  ofi  Cape  Horn.  Although  no  records  are  avail- 
able in  the  land  of  the  Alikaluf ,  the  reports  of  the  nearest  mete- 
orological stations  to  the  northwest  and  southeast  indicate  that 
the  warmest  month  averages  about  49°  F.,  while  the  coldest 
averages  36°  F.  The  temperature  in  itself  is  no  worse  than  that 
of  Iceland,  whose  high  civilization  we  shall  discuss  in  a  later 
chapter.  But  the  monotonous  repetition  of  gales  with  scarcely 
any  respite,  and  the  tremendous  rainfall  make  the  environment 
very  depressing.  The  annual  precipitation  is  probably  well  over 
100  inches,  being  117  inches  at  Evangelists  Island,  where  about 
8  inches  fall  even  in  the  driest  month.  Worse  still  is  the  fact  that 
about  two  hundred  and  fifty  days  in  the  average  year  are  wholly 
cloudy,  and  only  fifty  or  less  are  clear.  As  to  the  vegetation  I 
have  been  able  to  find  no  exact  data,  but  Professor  Roland 
Thaxter  of  Harvard  gives  the  following  information:  "As  that 
end  of  the  Strait  is  a  focus  for  all  the  winds  of  Heaven,  I  imagine 
that  what  vegetation  there  may  be  is  similar  to  that  of  the  other 
islands  of  the  region  which  I  saw,  stunted  and  blown  horizontal. 
...  I  am  glad  I  am  not  an  Alikaluf  and  have  not  got  to  live 
there.  I  never  saw  it  blow  so  anywhere."  Agriculture  is  impos- 
sible, game  is  scarce,  and  the  natives  have  never  had  any  domestic 
animals  like  the  sheep.  Add  to  this  the  extreme  isolation  of 
the  region  and  one  no  longer  wonders  that  the  Alikaluf  are 
backward.  They  are  like  the  Yaghans  of  whom  we  read  that 
they  "live  imder  conditions  of  extraordinary  rigour.  In  order 
to  obtain  food,  they  venture  naked  in  small  canoes  into  the 
treacherous  seas;  their  life  is  a  constant  battle  with  starvation 
and  a  rude  climate,  and  their  character  has  become  rude  and 
low  in  consequence." 

The  energy  and  ability  of  the  Iroquois  and  southern  Algon- 


92 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


quins  of  the  eastern  United  States  seem  to  be  in  harmony  with 
their  environment  quite  as  much  as  does  the  backwardness  of 
the  Eskimos  and  Alikaluf .  It  is  true  that  the  Proto-Negroid  and 
Proto-Australoid  blood  of  these  finest  tribes  of  the  primeval 
United  States  may  have  given  them  a  smaller  innate  endowment 
of  mental  capacity  than  that  of  many  other  North  American 
tribes,  although  as  to  this  we  have  no  data.  It  is  likewise  true 
that  the  experiences  of  their  ancestors  in  the  north  may  have 
helped  to  develop  the  stoical,  unsympathetic  side  of  their  natures 
and  may  be  one  reason  for  their  lack  of  the  nervous  energ}^  and 
initiative  which  make  men  inventors  and  reformers.  Yet  one 
would  hardly  expect  them  to  be  dull  or  inactive  like  the  people 
of  similar  racial  composition  in  central  Africa,  southern  Asia, 
and  the  tropical  islands.  The  same  whirl  of  chance  which  made 
the  Caspian-Mediterranean  blend  backward  in  America,  though 
progressive  in  Europe,  gave  the  Negroid-Australoid  blend  a 
wonderful  opportunity  in  the  New  World.  It  drove  them  into 
a  region  having  one  of  the  most  stimulating  climates.  They  re- 
sponded in  the  way  that  the  geographer  would  expect.  Perhaps 
they  never  had  the  innate  capacity  of  the  Nordics,  but  the  fact 
that  they  stand  out  so  strongly  among  the  peoples  of  America, 
while  the  seeming  "Nordics"  of  aboriginal  America  stand  so 
low,  suggests  that  environment  may  be  as  potent  as  race  in  de- 
termining people's  capacities  and  achievements. 

Let  us  now  turn  to  the  question  of  why  people  with  so  high 
a  degree  of  activity  as  the  Iroquois  and  Algonquins,  and  with  no 
mean  endowment  of  mentality,  made  so  much  less  progress  than 
the  Pueblo  Indians  of  Arizona,  for  example,  and  were  almost 
immeasurably  more  backward  than  the  primitive  Mayas,  or 
than  the  early  Peruvians  who  originally  developed  the  arts 
which  were  later  practised  among  the  Incas.  A  part  of  the  an- 
swer seems  to  be  that  the  Mayas,  Aztecs,  and  Incas,  as  well  as 
the  pueblo  people  of  New  Mexico  and  Arizona,  practised  agri- 
culture. There  has  been  much  discussion  as  to  the  condition  of 
agriculture  among  the  primitive  Americans,  especially  in  the 
northeast.    Com,  beans,  and  squashes  were  an  important  ele- 


THE  ANOMALIES  OF  ABORIGINAL  AMERICA  93 


ment  in  the  diet  of  the  Indians  of  New  England  and  New  York, 
while  farther  south  potatoes,  sunflower  seeds,  and  melons  were 
also  eaten.  The  New  England  tribes  knew  enough  about  agricul- 
ture to  use  fish  and  shells  for  fertilizer.  They  and  their  neigh- 
bors had  wooden  mattocks  and  hoes  made  from  the  shoulder- 
blades  of  deer,  from  tortoise-shells,  or  from  conch-shells  set  in 
handles.  They  also  had  stone  hoes  and  spades,  while  the  women 
used  short  pickers  or  parers  about  a  foot  long  and  five  inches 
wide.  Seated  on  the  ground  they  employed  these  to  break  the 
upper  part  of  the  soil  and  to  grub  out  weeds,  grass,  and  old  corn- 
stalks. The  regular  method  of  preparing  a  field  was  to  burn 
over  an  old  patch  each  year  and  then  replant  it.  Sometimes  the 
seeds  were  merely  dropped  in  holes,  and  sometimes  the  ground 
was  dug  up  and  loosened,  each  hill  being  treated  separately. 
Clearings  were  made  by  girdling  the  trees  with  stone  implements, 
that  is,  by  cutting  off  the  bark  in  a  circle  at  the  bottom  and 
leaving  the  tree  to  die.  The  brush  meanwhile  was  hacked  or 
broken  down;  and  both  trees  and  brush  were  burned  when  dry 
enough. 

All  this  gives  the  impression  that  agriculture  was  fairly  well 
developed,  but  such  a  conclusion  is  scarcely  warranted.  Before 
the  days  when  the  white  man  had  introduced  iron,  the  primitive 
Indians  of  the  northeastern  United  States  derived  only  a  small 
part  of  their  living  from  agriculture.  To  cut  a  large  tree  with 
an  axe  of  stone  is  extraordinarily  difficult.  To  girdle  the  trees 
and  cut  down  the  brush  of  several  acres,  as  each  man  would  need 
to  do  in  order  to  support  a  family,  is  by  no  means  out  of  the 
question.  But  it  takes  a  long  time,  for  the  American  Indian  not 
only  despises  steady  manual  work,  but  is  unfitted  for  it  by  the 
very  qualities  which  make  him  a  good  hunter.  Moreover,  in 
order  to  keep  his  family  alive,  the  Indian  who  is  trying  to  make 
a  field  must  frequently  interrupt  his  farm  work  to  go  hunting. 
Then  when  the  trees  are  girdled  and  the  brush  cut,  another  long 
period  of  waiting  is  necessary  until  the  vegetation  is  dry  enough 
to  burn,  and  the  crop  can  be  planted,  grow,  and  ripen.  Hence 
the  regular  method  was  for  a  man  to  find  an  opening  in  the 


94 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


forest  where  the  trees  happened  to  have  died  and  where  he  could 
easily  break  down  the  brush.  There  he  made  his  little  field, 
planted  it,  and  left  it  to  itself.  Almost  never  could  he  stay  near 
by  and  let  his  wife  tend  the  crop  steadily,  for  only  rarely  was  the 
game  in  any  one  place  sufficient  to  support  people  several  months. 

In  spite  of  all  these  difficulties  the  northeastern  Indian 
might  have  made  progress  in  agriculture,  if  only  he  had  been 
able  to  retain  the  same  fields  permanently.  In  five  or  ten  years, 
however,  he  was  generally  obliged  to  give  up  his  fields.  Three 
causes  probably  co-operated  in  this:  first,  the  partial  exhaustion 
of  the  soil  because  of  repeated  plantings  of  the  same  crop  without 
plowing  or  spading;  second,  the  accumulation  of  toxic  bacterial 
material  because  the  soil  was  not  properly  aerated  by  plowing; 
and  third,  the  invasion  of  grasses  and  other  perennial  weeds. 
In  the  Southern  States,  the  relative  scarcity  of  humus  causes  the 
soil  to  become  exhausted  more  rapidly  than  farther  north,  while 
bacterial  infections  seem  to  be  more  common.  Yet  the  Indians 
cultivated  the  land  about  their  villages  for  long  periods.  Tribes 
like  the  Creeks,  Cherokees,  and  Natchez  appear  to  have  occu- 
pied the  same  sites  for  generations.  But  the  grass  in  the  South 
is  more  bunchy  and  less  turfy  than  in  the  North,  and  can  be  more 
easily  uprooted  with  primitive  tools.  When  a  clearing  is  first 
made  in  the  northern  forest,  it  is  usually  almost  free  from  grass, 
but  little  by  little  the  grass  encroaches,  especially  when  the 
fields  are  left  largely  to  themselves.  Any  one  who  has  cultivated 
a  garden  knows  how  rapidly  the  weeds  grow.  He  also  knows 
that  almost  no  weed  is  so  hard  to  exterminate  as  grass.  When 
once  it  gets  a  foothold  hoeing  seems  only  to  make  it  grow  faster. 
Some  authorities  beheve  that  the  growth  of  tropical  grasses  in 
the  fields  of  the  Mayas  was  the  chief  cause  of  the  destruction  of 
their  promising  civilization.  When  grass  has  become  well  estab- 
lished or  when  the  soil  has  become  infected  with  harmful  bac- 
teria the  easiest  way  to  insure  a  crop  is  to  plow  the  fields  and 
start  over  again.  This  the  Indian  could  not  do,  because  he  had 
no  iron  tools  and  no  beasts  of  burden.  Hence,  even  if  there  were 
no  other  adverse  conditions,  the  Indian  would  presumably  have 


THE  ANOMALIES  OF  ABORIGINAL  AMERICA  95 


obtained  smaller  and  smaller  crops  from  his  fields  until  they  be- 
came meadows.  Then  he  perforce  either  gave  up  agriculture  or 
cultivated  new  land.  Hence  we  infer  that  in  regions  like  New 
York  and  New  England,  and  still  more  in  the  prairies,  the  grass 
joined  with  the  bacterial  infection  of  the  soil  as  a  main  deterrent 
to  agriculture. 

But  why  did  the  Indians  not  clear  other  pieces  of  forest  close 
to  their  ruined  fields,  and  thus  continue  to  live  in  the  old  place  ? 
One  probable  reason  is  that  the  labor  of  making  a  clearing  with 
stone  axes  and  by  the  slow  process  of  girdling  and  burning  the 
trees  is  so  great  that  the  Indians  usually  chose  favored  spots 
where  by  accident  the  growth  was  less  dense  than  usual.  When 
once  a  clearing  became  grassy  or  the  soil  became  toxic,  the 
regular  procedure  was  to  hunt  for  a  new  site,  and  move  the  vil- 
lage. This  was  apparently  one  reason  why  the  Iroquois,  although 
successful  in  other  ways,  failed  to  establish  permanent  towns. 
Hence  their  advancement  not  only  in  architecture  but  in  many 
of  the  most  important  elements  of  civilization  was  greatly  de- 
layed. 

We  have  seen  that  two  of  the  great  disadvantages  of  the 
American  Indians  were  the  lack  of  iron  tools  and  beasts  of  bur- 
den. Were  these  lacks  the  fault  of  the  Indians?  Would  more 
competent  people  have  discovered  how  to  smelt  iron  and  tame 
wild  animals?  A  positive  answer  is  impossible,  but  it  seems  to 
me  that  even  if  the  Indians  had  been  far  more  intelligent  than 
they  were,  they  might  still  have  had  no  iron  tools  and  no  animals 
wherewith  to  plow  the  sod.  That  the  Indians  were  familiar 
with  copper  is  well  known,  but  they  could  not  fashion  it  into 
hard  tools  with  a  cutting  edge,  nor  did  they  learn  from  copper 
the  art  of  smelting  iron.  The  discovery  of  this  art  requires  at 
least  four  important  conditions.  First,  there  must  be  bits  of  ore 
which  accidentally,  or  with  intent,  are  heated  in  a  very  hot  fire 
until  they  melt  or  at  least  soften.  When  this  happens  there  must 
be  at  hand  a  man  of  unusual  genius  whose  attention  happens  to 
be  directed  to  the  results  of  the  melting  process.  Thirdly,  the 
man  who  saw  the  capacities  of  iron  ore  and  of  its  molten  product 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


must  have  the  zeal,  the  determination,  and  the  leisure  to  bring 
to  fruition  the  ideas  engendered  by  his  observation.   Finally,  a 
single  mind  was  presumably  not  enough  to  consiunmate  the 
great  discovery.    It  was  necessary  that  the  generation  of  men  , 
who  lived  with  the  genius  should  have  a  sufficiently  active  men-  | 
taHty  to  assimilate  and  use  the  new  process  and  pass  it  on  to  j 
future  generations.  All  these  conditions  might  have  occurred  in 
the  New  World  as  well  as  the  Old,  but  as  a  matter  of  fact  they 
did  not.   It  may  be  that  the  relatively  duller  mentality  of  the 
Indian  had  something  to  do  with  the  matter,  but  it  may  have 
been  mere  accident. 

Up  to  a  certain  point  civilization  can  evolve  without  iron 
tools.  In  America  the  Maya  civiHzation  of  Guatemala  and  the 
pre-Inca  civilization  of  Peru  made  marvelous  strides  which  sug- 
gest that  the  mental  handicap  due  to  migration  through  the  cold 
north,  if  such  there  was,  had  been  largely  overcome.  They 
reached  a  point  almost  as  high  as  that  of  the  Mesopotamians, 
Egyptians,  and  early  peoples  of  northern  India  and  China  be- 
fore iron  was  introduced.  If  iron  had  been  available,  and  still 
more  if  there  had  been  a  good  beast  of  burden  such  as  the  horse 
or  ox,  civilization  might  possibly  have  moved  northward  and 
southward  from  its  early  homes  in  Central  America  and  Peru. 
As  the  climate  of  the  glacial  period  gradually  changed  to  that 
of  to-day  and  as  man's  ability  to  conquer  cold  regions  increased, 
there  might  have  been  a  poleward  movement  of  the  centers  of 
civilization  in  the  New  World  as  well  as  in  the  Old. 

As  to  beasts  of  burden  the  case  is  clearer  than  as  to  iron. 
The  earlier  Indian  tribes  may  perhaps  have  been  less  competent 
in  taming  animals  than  were  the  people  of  Asia.  It  is  far  more 
likely  that  they  failed  to  domesticate  any  animals  except  the 
dog,  turkey,  alpaca,  and  llama,  because  there  were  none  of  the 
right  kind  in  America.  Horses  existed  in  the  New  World  down 
to  the  glacial  period,  but  were  then  exterminated.  Our  present 
horses  and  asses  are  descendants  of  stock  introduced  from  Eu- 
rope. The  camel  likewise  was  extinct.  In  the  ox  tribe  the  only 
available  animal  was  the  bison,  but  he  appears  to  have  been  too 


THE  ANOMALIES  OF  ABORIGINAL  AMERICA  97 

large,  and  possibly  too  stupid,  to  be  domesticated.  Nor  was 
there  any  type  of  sheep  that  could  compare  in  value  with  the 
one  domesticated  in  Asia.  Wild  pigs  or  peccaries  might  indeed 
have  been  domesticated,  but  they  would  have  been  of  no  value 
for  plowing.  In  South  America  the  most  available  animals,  the 
llama  and  alpaca,  were  actually  domesticated,  but  the  alpaca  is 
of  little  use  even  for  burdens,  and  the  llama  is  useless  for  agri- 
culture. Thus  among  the  wild  animals  of  America  after  the  last 
glacial  epoch,  there  was  none  which  man  could  domesticate  and 
use  for  the  difficult  work  of  plowing  the  sod. 

Consider  again  how  handicapped  the  Indians  were  by  this 
twofold  lack  of  iron  tools  and  beasts  of  burden.  In  the  south- 
eastern United  States,  where  the  grass  grows  in  bunches  and  can 
be  pulled  or  dug  up  with  comparative  ease  he  could  indeed  carry 
on  permanent  cultivation.  Still  more  was  this  the  case  in  semi- 
arid  and  tropical  areas  where  the  grass  grows  in  isolated  clumps. 
But  in  the  parts  of  America  which  are  climatically  best  for 
human  progress  there  was  no  such  possibility.  In  the  central 
prairies  cultivation  was  feasible  only  in  the  bottom-lands  which 
are  flooded  by  the  rivers  part  of  the  year,  and  which  support 
bushy  growths  rather  than  turf.  Elsewhere  the  rich  grasslands 
waited  untouched  until  the  white  man  brought  beasts  that  could 
draw  an  iron-shod  plow.  In  the  eastern  forests  temporary  culti- 
vation was  possible  in  chance  clearings  where  the  trees  had  re- 
cently died,  or  been  burned  in  forest  fires,  for  there  the  soil  is  at 
first  free  from  turf.  But  as  soon  as  the  grass  had  an  opportunity 
to  grow,  the  fate  of  the  fields  was  sealed  until  plow  animals  from 
Asia  came  to  the  rescue.  Thus  where  man  ought  to  have  pro- 
gressed most  rapidly  in  America  he  was  compelled  to  be  a  sav- 
age hunter  roaming  the  woods,  able  to  tend  his  fields  only  spo- 
radically and  forced  to  move  his  home  at  frequent  intervals  as 
his  gardens  became  meadows. 

The  contrast  between  the  effect  of  agriculture  and  of  hunt- 
ing upon  character  can  scarcely  be  overestimated.  Even  the  care 
of  domestic  animals  requires  a  certain  degree  of  steadiness  and 
concentration  which  is  not  demanded  of  the  hunter.  The  family 


98 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


that  has  many  domestic  animals  must  look  after  them  at  least 
to  a  shght  extent  each  day.  This  is  often  done  for  the  sake  of 
the  milk  if  for  nothing  else.  Nor  can  such  families  wander  so 
freely  as  hunters;  hence  they  acquire  a  greater  feeling  of  posses- 
sion of  the  land.  The  careless  type  tends  to  be  weeded  out  more 
than  among  the  hunters. 

When  agriculture  begins  to  be  practised,  a  far  more  important 
selective  principle  appears.  The  qualities  that  make  a  man  suc- 
cessful in  hunting  and  in  farming  are  quite  different.  For  the 
hunter,  craft,  cunning,  the  power  to  glide  silently  through  the 
forest,  the  abiHty  to  detect  the  recent  passage  of  an  animal  by 
the  slight  breaking  of  the  twigs,  the  power  to  find  his  way 
through  the  forest  in  storm  and  snow,  the  capacity  to  endure 
long  periods  of  fasting  alternating  with  feasts  when  he  gorges 
himself  with  some  large  slain  animal,  the  capacity  to  endure 
prolonged  hunger,  thirst,  and  great  fatigue  while  pursuing  a 
wounded  animal,  and  the  power  to  recover  from  tremendous 
exertion  by  long  periods  of  rest— these  are  the  quahties  that 
make  a  hunter  successful  and  which  enable  him  to  bring  up  his 
children  in  health.  But  for  the  farmer  none  of  these  things  is 
necessary.  What  he  needs  is  the  ability  to  work  steadily  day 
after  day,  to  come  back  to  the  same  field  time  after  time  and 
clean  out  the  weeds.  He  must  have  the  capacity  to  plan  store- 
houses for  the  winter,  to  foresee  what  difficulties  the  cold  or 
the  dry  season  will  bring  forth,  how  much  food  his  family  will 
require,  and  how  a  given  supply  can  best  be  divided  among 
several  mouths  during  the  days  when  no  new  food  can  be 
procured.  The  more  completely  he  becomes  a  farmer  the  less 
he  needs  the  quahties  which  enable  him  to  find  his  way  in  the 
dark  or  in  the  forest.  On  the  other  hand,  the  greater  becomes 
his  need  of  the  ability  to  plan  for  the  future,  to  note  the  kind 
of  food  which  grows  best  in  a  given  place,  the  amount  which 
is  produced  in  one  soil  or  on  one  slope  compared  with  another. 
Ten  thousand  years  of  life  on  the  farm  could  scarcely  leave  a 
people  with  the  same  character  as  ten  thousand  years  of  the 
life  of  a  hunter.    And  it  is  the  farmer's  life  which  gives  the 


THE  ANOMALIES  OF  ABORIGINAL  AMERICA  99 

opportunities  for  progress  in  civilization.  It  holds  him  to  the 
soil;  it  gives  him  an  interest  in  developing  one  special  piece  of 
land;  it  enables  him  to  lay  up  capital;  and  it  puts  a  premium 

I  on  foresight  for  the  future.  This  perhaps  explains  why  in  early 
America  the  agricultural  people  in  relatively  unstimulating 
climates  made  far  greater  progress  than  did  the  hunters  who 
lived  in  the  most  stimulating  environment  and  had  the  greatest 

i  energy. 

j  An  understanding  of  the  relative  part  played  by  race,  cli- 
mate, inventions,  natural  resources,  and  culture  or  folk-ways  in 
determining  human  character  is  so  important  that  I  shall  add 

I  another  illustration  taken  in  part  from  The  Red  Man's  Continent. 
On  the  west  coast  of  America  the  state  of  civilization  in  pre- 
Columbian  days  was,  on  the  whole,  lower  than  on  the  east 
coast.  On  the  west  the  most  advanced  people  were  the  Haidas, 
living  in  the  Queen  Charlotte  Islands  of  British  Columbia.  Most 
authorities  appear  to  agree  with  the  statement  of  the  Encyclo- 
paedia Britannica  that  they  "constituted  with  little  doubt  the 

■  finest  race  and  that  most  advanced  in  the  arts  of  the  entire  west 

'  coast  of  North  America."  According  to  the  Handbook  of  the 
American  Indians,  they  displayed,  for  example,  great  skill  in 
canoe-building,  wood-carving,  and  the  working  of  stone  and 
copper  as  well  as  in  making  baskets.  Canoes  of  uncommon  size 

'  were  hollowed  out  of  logs  of  cedar  with  the  aid  of  fire.  Houses 
which  were  sometimes  forty  by  one  hundred  feet  in  size  were 
built  of  huge  cedar  beams  and  planks.    The  planks  were  first 

I  shaped  with  stone  and  then  put  together  at  great  feasts  not  un- 
like the  "raising  bees"  at  which  the  neighbors  gathered  to  erect 
the  frames  of  houses  in  early  New  England.   The  totem  poles 

'  in  front  of  the  houses  represent  a  fairly  high  development  of 
primitive  art,  while  the  permanence  and  size  of  the  villages,  and 
the  complexity  and  thorough  development  of  the  social  usages 
indicate  a  high  type  of  barbarism  rather  than  the  savagery  which 
prevailed  among  the  Iroquois,  for  example.  Another  notable 
feature  of  the  Haida  life  was  commercial  activity.  The  Haidas 
were  the  great  traders  of  the  west  coast,  and  sent  their  wares 


100 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


hundreds  of  miles  by  sea  among  the  bays  and  islands  of  their 
indented  coast. 

Eastward  from  the  Haidas  the  character  of  the  Indians  de- 
clines very  rapidly.  A  few  hundred  miles  away,  among  the  Rocky 
Mountains  and  on  their  east  side,  there  dwelt  some  of  the  low- 
est tribes  of  the  whole  continent.  To-day,  as  always,  these  tribes 
seem  to  be  so  occupied  with  the  severe  struggle  with  the  ele- 
ments that  they  cannot  advance  out  of  savagery  into  barbarism. 
When  the  white  man  came  they  were  homeless  nomads,  whose 
movements  were  largely  determined  by  the  food-supply.  South- 
ward from  the  Haidas  along  the  Pacific  coast  a  great  deteriora- 
tion of  the  Indians  is  likewise  noticeable,  especially  in  CaUfornia. 
Only  to  the  north  among  the  Tlingits  and  related  tribes  do  the 
standards  of  character  and  achievement  show  any  similarity  to 
those  of  the  Haidas,  but  even  these  tribes  fall  much  below  the 
level  of  that  tribe. 

Several  factors  probably  combine  to  explain  the  relatively 
civilized  and  progressive  character  of  the  Haidas.  In  the  first 
place  the  Queen  Charlotte  Islands  are  located  in  a  climate  much 
like  that  of  northwestern  Scotland,  a  cHmate  which  is  cool, 
moist,  and  invigorating  although  not  especially  good  for  agri- 
culture. The  average  temperature  and  rainfall  suggest,  indeed, 
those  of  the  depressing  home  of  the  Alikaluf  in  about  the  same 
latitude  in  Tierra  del  Fuego.  But  there  is  a  great  difference,  as 
appears  in  the  fact  that  the  Queen  Charlotte  Islands  are  clothed 
with  a  splendid  forest,  whereas  in  the  windy  part  of  the  Tierra 
del  Fuegan  region  the  trees  are  mere  stunted  shrubs.  The  differ- 
ence in  climate  depends  on  three  facts :  first,  the  Queen  Charlotte 
summers  average  perhaps  8°  F.  warmer  than  those  of  the  home 
of  the  Alikaluf;  second,  the  winds  are  far  less  violent,  being  in 
fact  quite  gentle  most  of  the  year;  and  third,  although  the  north- 
ern islands  have  about  as  much  rainfall  and  cloudiness  as  the 
southern  during  most  of  the  year,  they  enjoy  a  relatively  dry 
summer,  with  just  rain  enough  to  be  almost  ideal.  Moreover, 
in  winter  there  is  relatively  little  snow  and  no  severe  cold  such 
as  still  benumbs  the  Indians  of  the  interior,  and  often  led  to 


THE  ANOMALIES  OF  ABORIGINAL  AMERICA  101 


starvation  in  the  past.  Although  the  Haidas  dwelt  where  it  was 
perhaps  never  quite  warm  enough  for  the  best  physical  devel- 
opment, they  lived  in  a  climate  where  mental  activity  is  stimu- 
lated and  where  life  is  not  unpleasant. 

Fully  as  important  as  the  climate  is  the  fact  that  the  Haidas 
had  a  large  and  steady  supply  of  food  close  at  hand.  Most  of 
their  sustenance  was  obtained  from  the  sea  and  from  the  rivers, 
I  in  which  the  summer  runs  of  salmon  furnished  abundant  pro- 
visions, which  rarely  failed.  In  Hecate  Strait,  between  the 
Queen  Charlotte  Islands  and  the  mainland,  there  were  wonder- 
fully productive  halibut  fisheries.  These  excellent  fish  were  dried 
and  packed  away  for  the  winter,  so  that  there  was  almost  always 
a  store  of  provisions  on  hand.  The  forests  in  their  turn  furnished 
berries  and  seeds,  as  well  as  bears,  mountain-goats,  and  other 
game.  The  Haidas  likewise  had  the  advantage  of  not  being  forced 
to  move  from  place  to  place  in  order  to  obtain  food.  They  lived 
on  a  drowned  shore  where  bays,  straits,  and  sounds  are  extraor- 
dinarily^numerous.  The  great  waves  of  the  Pacific  are  shut  out 
by  the  islands  so  that  the  waterways  are  almost  always  safe  for 
canoes.  Instead  of  moving  their  dwellings  in  order  to  follow  the 
food-supply,  as  the  hunting  tribes  were  forced  to  do,  the  Haidas 
and  their  neighbors  were  able  without  difficulty  to  bring  their 
food  home.  At  practically  all  seasons  the  canoes  made  it  easy 
to  transport  large  supplies  of  fish  from  places  a  hundred  miles 
away  if  necessary.  Another  advantage  was  that  the  Haidas  lived 
where  fine  forests  not  only  furnish  splendid  building  material 
and  abundant  fuel,  but  grow  close  to  waterways  which  make  it 
easy  to  transport  the  wood  to  the  villages.  Because  of  their  per- 
manent villages,  good  shelter,  and  abundant  and  assured  food- 
supply,  the  Haidas  could  accumulate  property  and  acquire  that 
feeling  of  ownership  and  stability  which  is  one  of  the  most  im- 
portant conditions  for  the  development  of  civilization.  Perhaps 
biological  mutations,  racial  mixture,  and  natural  selection  had 
made  the  Haidas  intellectually  superior  to  many  other  tribes, 
but  even  without  this  their  surroundings  would  probably  have 
made  them  stand  relatively  high  in  the  scale  of  civilization. 


102 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


Another  possible  reason  for  the  superiority  of  the  Haidas  is 
that  their  ancestors  may  have  come  to  America  by  sea  rather 
than  by  land.  Among  the  islands  and  bays  of  the  Asiatic  coast 
from  Chosen  and  Japan  northeastward  there  have  presumably 
long  been  fishing  tribes  with  some  knowledge  of  boats.  Such  peo- 
ple would  naturally  spread  northward  along  the  coast,  and  might 
reach  the  Aleutian  Islands.  The  distance  from  Kamchatka  to 
Bering  Island  is  only  one  hundred  miles,  although  the  island  is 
not  in  sight  from  the  mainland.  The  next  step  to  Copper  Island 
is  easy,  but  then  comes  a  stretch  of  over  two  hundred  miles.  If 
people  were  constantly  using  boats,  some  of  the  more  adventur- 
ous might  be  blown  within  sight  of  the  islands  on  the  American 
side.  Later  a  band  of  savages,  including  women,  may  have  de- 
liberately sailed  across  the  open  water,  but  only  the  bravest  and 
most  adventurous  would  be  likely  to  do  so.  This  may  have  hap- 
pened during  an  interglacial  epoch  when  the  land  stood  higher 
than  now  with  respect  to  the  sea,  and  the  islands  were  more 
numerous  and  nearer  together.  Even  if  it  occurred  in  post- 
glacial times  when  the  climate  had  not  yet  moderated  to  its 
present  condition,  it  would  not  be  very  difficult  to  cross  from 
Asia  to  America  in  boats  along  the  line  of  the  Aleutian 
Islands. 

That  any  such  migration  from  Asia  to  America  ever  occurred 
by  way  of  the  seacoast  and  the  islands  is,  of  course,  pure  specu- 
lation. Dixon,  indeed,  thinks  that  the  Haidas  came  to  their 
present  home  from  the  east  instead  of  the  northwest.  But  if 
such  a  maritime  migration  did  occur,  it  would  enable  people  to 
come  to  the  New  World  without  passing  through  the  depressing 
experience  of  the  Siberian  "pole  of  cold."  Under  present  condi- 
tions of  climate  no  part  of  their  route  would  have  a  January 
temperature  averaging  much  below  15°  F.,  or  about  like  that  of 
Montreal  in  Canada  and  New  Chwang  in  Manchuria.  If  the 
ancestors  of  the  Haidas,  Tlingits,  and  their  relatives  by  any 
chance  came  to  America  this  way,  their  freedom  from  the  ner- 
vous strain  of  the  long  land  migration  may  have  something  to 
do  with  the  relatively  active  mentality  of  their  descendants. 


THE  ANOMALIES  OF  ABORIGINAL  AMERICA  103 


So,  too,  may  the  natural  selection  which  presumably  kept  the 
less  adventurous  people  on  the  Asiatic  coast  while  those  with 
more  bravery  and  initiative  came  to  America. 

Southward  from  the  Haidas,  around  Puget  Sound  and  in 
Washington  and  Oregon,  we  find  a  gradual  decline  in  the  civiliza- 
tion of  the  aboriginal  Indians.  The  Chinook  tribe  of  the  lower 
Columbia  had  large  communal  houses  occupied  by  three  or  four 
families  of  twenty  or  more  individuals.  Their  villages  were  thus 
fairly  permanent,  but  there  was  much  moving  about  in  summer 
since  the  food-supply  consisted  chiefly  of  salmon  together  with 
roots  and  berries.  The  Chinooks  were  extremely  skilful  in  han- 
dHng  their  large,  well-made  canoes,  which  were  hollowed  out  of 
single  logs.  They  were  also  noted  as  traders.  In  disposition  they 
are  described  as  treacherous  and  deceitful,  especially  when  their 
cupidity  was  aroused.  Slaves  were  common  and  were  usually 
obtained  by  barter  from  surrounding  tribes,  though  occasionally 
by  successful  raids.  These  Indians  of  Oregon  by  no  means 
rivaled  the  Haidas,  perhaps  because  their  food-supply  was  less 
certain  and  they  did  not  have  the  advantage  of  easy  water  com- 
munication, which  did  so  much  for  the  Haidas. 

As  to  the  tribes  farther  south,  we  are  told  by  an  eminent 
authority  (Kroeber,  in  the  Handbook  of  American  Indians  North 
of  Mexico)  that: 

In  general  rudeness  of  culture  the  California  Indians  are  scarcely  above 
the  Eskimo,  and  whereas  the  lack  of  development  of  the  Eskimo  on  many 
sides  of  their  nature  is  reasonably  attributable  in  part  to  their  difficult  and 
limiting  environment,  the  Indians  of  California  inhabit  a  country  naturally 
as  favorable,  it  would  seem,  as  it  might  be.  If  the  degree  of  civilization  at- 
tained by  a  people  depends  in  any  large  measure  on  their  habitat,  as  does 
not  seem  likely,  it  might  be  concluded  from  the  case  of  the  California 
Indians  that  natural  advantages  were  an  impediment  rather  than  an  in- 
centive to  progress. 

We  are  likewise  told  that  some  groups  such  as  the  Hupa 
had  no  tribal  organization  and  no  formalities  of  government. 
Formal  councils  were  unknown,  although  the  chief  might  and 
often  did  ask  advice  of  his  men  in  a  collected  body.  In  general 


104 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


the  social  structure  of  the  California  Indians  was  so  simple  and 
loose  that  it  is  hardly  correct  to  speak  of  them  as  divided  into 
tribes.  Whatever  solidarity  or  cohesion  they  possessed  was  due 
in  part  to  family  ties,  and  in  part  to  the  fact  that  a  given  group 
lived  in  the  same  village  and  spoke  the  same  dialect.  Between 
dijfferent  groups  the  common  bond  was  similarity  of  language, 
as  well  as  frequency  and  cordiality  of  intercourse.  In  so  primi- 
tive a  condition  of  society  there  was  neither  necessity  nor  oppor- 
tunity for  differences  of  rank.  The  influence  of  chiefs  was  small 
and  no  distinct  classes  of  slaves  were  known. 

Extreme  poverty  was  apparently  an  important  cause  of  the 
low  social  and  political  organization  of  these  Indians.  The 
Maidus  in  the  Sacramento  valley  were  so  poor  that,  in  addition 
to  consuming  every  possible  vegetable  product,  they  devoured 
all  birds  except  the  buzzard,  and  ate  badgers,  skunks,  wildcats, 
and  mountain  lions.  They  even  consumed  the  bones  of  salmon 
and  the  vertebrae  of  deer.  They  gathered  grasshoppers  and  lo- 
custs by  digging  large  shallow  pits  in  a  meadow  or  flat;  then, 
setting  fire  to  the  grass  on  all  sides,  they  drove  the  insects  into 
the  pit.  Their  wings  being  burned  off  by  the  flames,  the  grass- 
hoppers were  helpless  and  were  collected  by  the  bushel.  Again, 
of  the  Moquelumne,  one  of  the  largest  tribes  in  central  Cali- 
fornia, it  is  said  that  their  houses  were  simply  frameworks  of 
poles  and  brush  which  in  winter  were  covered  with  earth.  In 
summer  they  erected  cone-shaped  lodges  of  poles  among  the 
mountains.  In  favorable  years  they  gathered  large  quantities  of 
acorns,  which  formed  their  principal  food,  and  stored  them  for 
winter  use  in  granaries  raised  above  the  ground.  Often,  however, 
the  crop  was  poor,  and  the  Indians  were  left  on  the  verge  of 
starvation. 

Finally  in  the  far  south,  in  the  peninsula  of  Lower  California, 
the  tribes  were  "probably  the  lowest  in  culture  of  any  Indians 
in  North  America,  for  their  inhospitable  environment  which 
made  them  wanderers,  was  unfavorable  to  the  foundation  of 
.  .  .  even  .  .  .  the  rude  and  unstable  kind  [of  government]  found 
elsewhere."   The  Yuman  tribes  of  the  mountains  east  of  San- 


THE  ANOMALIES  OF  ABORIGINAL  AMERICA  105 


tiago  are  described  as  "very  dirty  on  account  of  the  much  mescal 
they  eat."  Others  speak  of  them  as  "very  filthy  in  their  habits. 
To  overcome  vermin  they  coat  their  heads  with  mud  with  which 
they  also  paint  their  bodies.  On  a  hot  day  it  is  by  no  means 
unusual  to  see  them  wallowing  in  the  mud  like  pigs."  They  were 
"exceedingly  poor,  having  no  animals  except  foxes  of  which 
they  had  a  few  skins.  The  dress  of  the  women  in  summer  was  a 
shirt  and  a  bark  skirt.  The  men  appear  to  have  been  practically 
unclothed  during  this  season.  The  practice  of  selling  children 
seems  to  have  been  common."  In  other  words,  although  the  mode 
of  life  among  these  poor  Indians  was  quite  different  from  that 
of  the  Chinese,  whom  we  shall  study  in  a  later  chapter,  the 
great  elemental  fact  was  the  same.  Dire  poverty  and  recurrent 
famine  must  often  have  caused  some  of  the  Indians  to  wander 
away  in  search  of  a  better  land.  Those  who  went  away  were 
presumably  the  ones  with  more  initiative,  originality,  and  energy. 
Here  as  in  the  case  of  the  Haidas,  we  have  no  definite  knowledge, 
but  we  seem  to  have  a  clear  example  of  a  common. and  wide- 
spread type  of  natural  selection.  The  principle  involved  is  this: 
a  bad  environment,  especially  one  with  recurrent  periods  of 
acute  distress,  seems  to  drive  away  the  more  capable  inhabi- 
tants; a  favorable  environment,  especially  one  where  the  means 
of  subsistence  are  not  only  abundant  but  vary  little  from  year 
to  year,  attracts  people.  Thus  such  regions  become  the  object 
of  strife  among  the  more  capable  people  from  the  less  favored 
regions,  and  are  likely  to  be  inhabited  by  a  race  in  whom  natu- 
ral selection  has  concentrated  a  higher  ability  than  that  of  the 
people  in  the  poorer  districts. 

In  the  preceding  paragraphs  two  sharply  contrasted  views 
have  been  suggested.  According  to  one  view  the  natural  environ- 
ment of  California  is  highly  favorable  to  Indians  as  well  as  to 
white  men.  But  inasmuch  as  the  Indians  have  been  in  an  ex- 
tremely low  stage  of  progress  and  of  mentality  ever  since  any- 
thing has  been  known  about  them,  it  is  inferred  that  the  environ- 
ment has  nothing  to  do  with  the  status  of  the  people.  Accord- 
ing to  this  view  the  "natural  advantages"  of  central  CaHfornia 


106 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


seem  almost  to  be  "an  impediment  rather  than  an  incentive  to 
progress/*  The  degree  of  progress,  therefore,  must  depend 
either  on  the  absence  of  certain  social  usages,  inventions,  and 
other  cultural  aids  to  progress,  or  on  inherent  defects  of  char- 
acter. 

According  to  the  other  view  the  environment  of  central  and 
southern  California  and  likewise  of  Lower  California  is  highly 
unfavorable.  Its  direct  repressive  influences  together  with  its 
selective  effect  in  causing  the  more  energetic  types  to  migrate 
elsewhere  perhaps  explain  why  the  people,  especially  in  Lower 
California,  were  "the  lowest  in  culture  of  North  America." 

These  contrasted  views  sum  up  the  sharply  defined  antithesis 
between  what  we  may  call  the  anthropological  or  ethnological 
hypothesis  that  the  fundamental  differences  between  different 
races  are  largely  due  to  cultural  conditions  and  historical  acci- 
dents, and  the  geographical  hypothesis  that  they  are  due  pri- 
marily to  physical  environment  and  to  the  action  of  that  en- 
vironment in  causing  migrations  and  natural  selection  whereby 
races  become  inherently  different.  Of  course  there  is  much  truth 
in  both  hypotheses.  That  cultural  advantages  are  of  enormous 
importance  and  that  they  lead  to  the  selection  of  certain  types 
of  character  for  preservation  I  have  already  tried  to  show  in 
discussing  the  importance  of  iron  tools,  beasts  of  burden,  and 
agriculture.  Each  of  these  represents  a  great  cultural  advance, 
which  carried  with  it  an  almost  unlimited  train  of  consequences. 
And  these  consequences  include  not  only  human  habits,  but  also 
human  inheritance.  But  in  the  case  of  California  and  its  Indians 
it  seems  to  me  that  we  have  an  instance  where  physical  environ- 
ment comes  first  and  cultural  conditions  second.  The  climate  of 
California  may  be  good  for  health,  but  the  absence  of  rain  in 
summer  and  its  great  variability  in  winter  produce  conditions  of 
vegetation  and  animal  Hfe  which  kept  the  Indians  in  the  direst 
poverty.  Such  conditions  subjected  the  Indians  to  what  we  have 
called  repressive  evolution,  and  presumably  led  the  more  com- 
petent Indians  gradually  to  migrate  into  regions  more  highly 
favored. 


THE  ANOMALIES  OF  ABORIGINAL  AMERICA  107 


One  reason  for  this  view  is  found  in  the  advanced  Mohave 
tribe  which  had  its  home  on  the  lower  Colorado  River. 

No  better  example  of  the  power  of  environment  to  better  man's  con- 
dition can  be  found  than  that  shown  as  the  lower  Colorado  is  reached. 
Here  are  tribes  of  the  same  family  [as  those  of  Lower  California]  remark- 
able not  only  for  their  fine  physical  development,  but  living  in  settled  vil- 
lages with  well-defined  tribal  lines,  practising  a  rude  but  effective  agri- 
culture, and  well  advanced  in  many  primitive  Indian  arts.  The  usual  In- 
dian staples  were  raised  except  tobacco,  these  tribes  preferring  a  wild 
tobacco  of  their  region  to  the  cultivated.  (Hodge,  Handbook  of  American 
Indians.) 

In  order  to  appreciate  the  force  of  this  quotation,  it  should 
be  remembered  that,  although  California  is  famous  for  its  agri- 
culture, its  crops  are  European  in  origin.  Even  in  the  case  of 
fruits,  such  as  the  grape,  which  have  American  counterparts, 
the  varieties  actually  cultivated  were  brought  from  Europe. 
Wheat,  barley,  and  the  chief  vegetables  for  which  California 
and  sunilar  subtropical  regions  are  noted,  were  unknown  in  the 
New  World  before  the  coming  of  the  white  man.  So  far  as  we  are 
aware  no  crops  of  any  kind  were  ever  cultivated  by  the  primitive 
Indians  in  California  west  of  the  Colorado  valley.  In  pre-Colum- 
bian America  corn  was  the  only  cultivated  cereal.  The  other 
great  staples  were  beans  and  pumpkins.  All  three  are  pre-emi- 
nently summer  crops  and  need  much  water  in  July  and  August. 
In  California  there  is  no  rain  at  that  season.  Wheat  and  barley, 
on  the  other  hand,  need  rain  only  from  October  to  April,  for 
in  regions  as  warm  as  California  they  can  grow  slowly  during 
the  winter.  The  comparatively  dry  weather  of  May  and  June 
is  just  what  is  needed  to  ripen  these  grains  of  the  Old  World, 
and  the  complete  drought  of  July  and  August  does  them  no  harm, 
whereas  it  is  fatal  to  crops  which  depend  on  rain  in  summer. 

Crops  can  of  course  be  grown  during  the  summer  in  Cali- 
fornia provided  they  are  irrigated.  But  irrigation  is  far  harder 
for  primitive  people  in  a  region  of  summer  droughts  than  in  one 
where  the  winter  is  dry  and  there  are  summer  showers.  If  irri- 
gation is  to  be  effective  in  California,  it  cannot  depend  on  the 


108  THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


small  streams  which  dry  up  almost  as  soon  as  the  rains  cease, 
but  must  depend  on  comparatively  large  and  permanent  streams. 
Most  of  these  flow  in  well-defined  channels;  and  during  the  sum- 
mer at  least,  they  do  not  afford  much  natural  irrigation  like  that 
of  Egypt  and  Mesopotamia.  With  our  modern  knowledge  and 
machinery  it  is  easy  to  make  canals  and  ditches,  and  to  prepare 
the  level  fields  needed  to  utilize  this  water.  A  people  with  no 
knowledge  of  agriculture,  however,  and  with  no  iron  tools, 
cannot  suddenly  begin  to  practise  a  complex  and  highly  devel- 
oped system  of  irrigation.  The  lower  Colorado  fortunately  floods 
broad  areas  every  summer.  While  elsewhere  in  Arizona  and  New 
Mexico,  that  is  in  the  old  Pueblo  area,  summer  rains  cause  simi- 
lar floods  along  the  rivers  or  on  flat  "fans"  of  sand  and  silt. 
Along  the  rivers,  as  on  the  Nile,  the  retiring  floods  leave  the 
land  so  moist  that  crops  can  easily  be  raised.  This  natural 
irrigation  helped  the  Mohave  Indians  to  practise  agriculture 
and  to  rise  well  above  their  kinsmen  not  only  in  Lower  California, 
but  throughout  the  whole  region.  Perhaps  we  may  look  upon 
them  as  a  selected  group  of  people  who  broke  off  from  their  kins- 
men in  other  parts  of  California,  and  by  reason  of  unusual  mental 
abihty  and  certain  favorable  geographical  conditions  were  able 
to  utilize  a  new  cultural  method,  namely  agriculture.  Environ- 
ment, inheritance,  culture— how  closely  the  three  are  intertwined. 

In  this  review  of  civilization  in  America  we  have  considered 
only  a  few  of  the  primitive  tribes,  and  have  not  discussed  those 
most  advanced  in  civilization.  We  have,  however,  seen  enough 
of  the  continent  to  discover  that  the  character  of  the  aboriginal 
Americans  is  not  explained  by  any  one  factor.  That  the  original 
racial  inheritance  with  which  the  different  migrating  bands 
started  from  Asia  still  persists  and  influences  their  descendants, 
seems  probable.  That  certain  qualities  were  intensified,  eradi- 
cated, or  otherwise  changed  while  the  migrants  were  on  their 
way  from  Asia  to  the  different  parts  of  America,  and  while  they 
passed  through  such  environments  as  the  Siberian  pole  of  cold, 
the  American  deserts,  the  great  plateaus,  or  the  tropical  forests, 
seems  equally  probable.  But  on  the  original  inherited  character- 


THE  ANOMALIES  OF  ABORIGINAL  AMERICA  109 


istics  which  have  thus  arisen,  as  described  in  a  previous  chapter, 
there  have  presumably  been  grafted  still  other  characteristics 
arising  from  the  mode  of  Hf e.  People  like  the  Iroquois,  whose  an- 
cestors have  depended  on  a  precarious  hunting  existence  for 
tens  of  thousands  of  years,  cannot  be  expected  to  have  a  character 
like  that  of  the  Haidas,  who  have  long  depended  on  a  fairly  con- 
stant and  easily  available  supply  of  food  which  they  can  procure 
without  migrating.  Nor  can  either  of  these  be  like  the  Pueblo 
Indians,  who  for  many  generations  have  carried  on  agriculture 
by  means  of  irrigation. 

Consider  once  more  what  a  contrast  there  must  be  between 
people  who  practise  agriculture  and  those  who  cannot  practise 
it  either  because  the  climate,  the  vegetation,  the  absence  of  iron 
tools  and  beasts  of  burden,  or  their  own  low  stage  of  culture 
makes  it  impossible.  When  a  race  settles  down  to  agriculture  a 
great  selective  process  takes  place.  It  can  be  seen  to-day  in 
Asiatic  Russia  where  some  of  the  Khirghiz  and  Turkomans  have 
taken  to  farming  since  the  occupation  of  the  country  by  Russia. 
Practically  all  nomads  hate  farming.  But  some  hate  it  worse 
than  others.  The  ones  who  hate  it  most  are  likely  to  be  the  most 
active,  adventurous  spirits,  whereas  those  who  take  to  it  most 
readily  are  the  ones  who  are  predisposed  to  a  sedentary  life,  and 
who  are  least  averse  to  steady  work,  a  thing  which  nomads  and 
hunters  usually  find  extremely  irksome  and  often  impossible. 
Thus  if  the  pressure  of  population  and  the  presence  of  a  favoring 
environment  cause  part  of  a  race  to  adopt  a  sedentary  life,  and 
part  to  remain  as  hunters  or  cattle-raisers,  there  is  likely  to  be  a 
clear-cut  line  of  fission.  As  time  goes  on  the  line  will  presumably 
become  still  clearer,  for  among  the  children  of  those  who  have 
taken  to  farming,  there  is  a  strong  tendency  for  some  to  go 
back  to  the  nomadic  life.  Those  who  thus  return  are  almost 
sure  to  consist  of  two  groups:  first,  the  more  adventurous,  and 
second,  those  who  are  least  competent  to  carry  on  steady  work. 
Moreover,  many  of  those  who  take  to  agriculture  are  almost  sure 
to  cultivate  their  fields  most  carelessly.  The  weediness  and  un- 
kempt character  of  the  farms  of  the  Khirghiz  in  Siberia  are 


110 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


almost  incredible.  This  condition  also  may  indicate  that  a  selec- 
tive factor  is  at  work.  Those  who  are  most  careless  will  not  only 
tend  to  go  back  to  the  old  life,  but  their  children  will  in  many 
cases  be  poorly  nourished,  so  that  an  unusual  number  will  die. 
At  the  end  of  a  hundred  generations  there  must  apparently  be 
a  strong  hereditary  difference  between  the  people  who  have 
taken  to  farming  and  those  whose  main  means  of  livelihood  has 
been  hunting. 

Thus  we  would  sum  up  the  whole  problem  by  saying  that  in 
America,  as  in  the  Old  World,  the  beginnings  of  civilization  took 
place  in  regions  where  the  winters  were  warm  and  the  summers 
hot,  and  where  by  natural  irrigation  or  by  means  of  summer 
rains  it  was  easy  to  raise  crops  with  a  minimum  amount  of  work. 
These  beginnings  took  place  so  long  ago  that  the  climate  was 
cooler  and  more  stormy  than  now.  Because  of  the  difference  in 
the  position  of  the  various  planetary  belts  of  winds,  and  especially 
in  the  southern  margin  of  the  belt  of  westerlies  and  of  cyclonic 
storms  the  area  of  early  civilization  lay  about  ten  degrees  farther 
south  in  North  America  than  in  Asia  and  Africa.  Then,  as  time 
went  on,  early  man  in  America  developed  his  civilization  as  far 
as  was  possible  without  iron  tools  and  beasts  of  burden.  Perhaps 
he  developed  more  rapidly  in  the  Old  World  than  in  the  New 
because  of  a  better  racial  inheritance.  We  have  already  seen 
that  Europe  and  its  glaciations,  and  Asia  and  its  deserts  pre- 
sumably exercised  a  remarkable  selective  effect  upon  the  people 
who  in  prehistoric  times  began  the  development  of  civilization 
in  western  Asia  and  northern  Africa.  The  racial  mixture  which 
happened  to  occupy  the  best  regions  may  also  have  been  more 
favorable  in  the  Old  World  than  in  the  New.  Perhaps  for  that 
reason,  and  perhaps  for  some  other,  the  discovery  of  how  to  smelt 
iron  was  made  in  the  Eastern  hemisphere  and  not  in  the  Western. 

If  iron  tools  and  beasts  of  burden  had  not  become  a  part  of 
man's  cultural  inheritance,  civilization  would  probably  have 
stagnated  in  both  hemispheres.  It  would  have  stagnated  because 
there  seems  to  be  a  certain  level  of  achievement  beyond  which  it 
is  impossible  to  rise  without  iron  tools,  or  at  least  beyond  which 


THE  ANOMALIES  OF  ABORIGINAL  AMERICA  111 


no  race  has  ever  risen.  It  would  also  have  stagnated  or  perhaps 
retrograded  because  as  the  glacial  period  passed  away  the  cli- 
mate of  the  places  where  civilization  first  developed  became 
less  favorable,  while  the  favorable  places  became  those  where 
primeval  forests  are  dense  and  the  grass  takes  the  form  of  sod. 
The  steps  that  were  needed  were  the  discovery  of  how  to  smelt 
iron  and  make  it  into  tools,  and  of  how  to  tame  and  use  animals 
for  draft  purposes.  The  first  discovery  was  made  in  the  Old 
World  and  not  in  the  New.  Perhaps  this  was  mere  accident, 
and  perhaps  it  was  the  result  of  greater  intelligence  in  one  place 
than  the  other.  Fortunate  racial  mixtures,  the  helpful  selective 
effect  of  glaciation  in  Europe,  and  the  harmful  selective  effect  of 
the  migration  of  the  aboriginal  Americans  through  Siberia  and 
Alaska  may  have  had  something  to  do  with  it.  As  to  beasts  of 
burden  the  Americans  were  not  to  blame.  They  had  no  avail- 
able beast,  whereas  the  ox  and  horse  were  both  at  hand  in  Asia, 
as  were  also  the  donkey,  water-buffalo,  sheep,  goat,  and  camel. 
These  propitious  circumstances  helped  the  old  civilization  of 
Eurasia  to  spread  northwestward,  while  that  of  America  stag- 
nated and  died.  The  aborigines  of  the  northeastern  United  States 
were  highly  energetic,  but  the  difficulties  of  agriculture  doomed 
them  to  remain  savage  hunters  almost  indefinitely.  Yet  who 
can  say  what  might  have  happened  had  iron  tools  and  beasts 
of  burden  found  their  way  to  America  before  the  white  man  ap- 
peared on  the  scene? 


CHAPTER  Vni 


THE  ASIATICS  WHO  DWELL  IN  TENTS 

In  our  attempt  to  understand  why  human  character  differs 
from  race  to  race  and  place  to  place,  we  have  thus  far  dealt 
largely  with  primitive  people  of  the  past.  We  have  thereby  ob- 
tained some  idea  of  the  part  which  climatic  and  topographic 
changes,  migration,  racial  mixtures,  human  inventions,  and 
natural  selection  have  played  in  modifying  racial  character.  But 
character  is  influenced  not  only  by  mutations,  racial  mixture, 
and  natural  selection  whereby  new  types  of  inheritance  are  es- 
tablished, but  by  the  direct  effect  of  climate,  food,  occupations, 
and  diseases  upon  people's  energy,  health,  and  activity.  Hence 
we  shall  now  consider  the  daily  life  and  habits  of  certain  chief 
types  among  the  people  of  Asia,  and  shall  attempt  to  analyze  the 
effect  of  that  life  and  of  the  other  factors  such  as  education, 
government,  religion,  and  the  like  upon  natural  selection.  In 
this  we  must  Hmit  ourselves  to  a  few  examples,  for  in  this  book 
we  can  merely  illustrate  certain  great  principles. 

The  herding  of  animals  is  one  of  the  most  important  of  hu- 
man occupations.  It  is  important  as  a  stage  in  the  development 
of  civilization,  and  likewise  as  a  mode  of  life  which  is  still  neces- 
sary if  man  would  occupy  certain  enormous  sections  of  the  earth. 
Civilization,  as  we  have  seen,  may  indeed  rise  to  a  fairly  high 
level  without  the  aid  of  domestic  animals,  as  among  the  Mayas 
of  Central  America.  But  its  higher  development  and  its  spread 
into  many  of  the  most  favorable  regions,  such  as  the  prairies  and 
temperate  forests,  seem  to  have  been  impossible  until  people 
somehow  obtained  domestic  animals  able  to  bear  burdens  and 
draw  the  plow  as  well  as  to  furnish  clothing,  meat,  and  milk. 
It  was  the  good  fortune  of  Asia,  Europe,  and  north  Africa  to 
have  a  long  and  important  stage  of  pastoralism,  whereas  North 

112 


THE  ASIATICS  WHO  DWELL  IN  TENTS  IIS 


America  and  Australia  never  had  such  a  stage,  South  America 
merely  had  a  faint  hint  of  it  in  its  llama-raising  people  among 
the  high  Andes,  and  Africa  south  of  the  equator  probably  had 
few  or  no  domestic  animals  until  a  relatively  late  period. 

The  regions  where  the  pastoral  mode  of  life  still  persists 
must  not  be  thought  of  as  in  a  stage  of  transition.  Although 
pastoraHsm  was  probably  a  step  in  the  evolution  of  the  civiliza- 
tion which  now  dominates  the  earth,  it  is  by  no  means  an  indis- 
pensable precursor  of  high  civilization.  The  ancient  Egyptians 
may  have  begun  to  practise  agriculture  without  first  being  herd- 
ers. Indeed  there  is  much  to  be  said  for  the  idea  that  farmers 
could  domesticate  animals  better  than  could  wild  hunters  who 
had  no  permanent  abiding-place.  Pastoral  nomadism,  as  it  ex- 
ists to-day,  is  generally  a  mode  of  life  which  persists  because  the 
environment  and  the  stage  of  development  of  the  people  make 
any  other  mode  difficult  or  impossible.  Most  nomads  live  in 
deserts  or  among  mountains  where  there  is  an  abundant  growth 
of  grass  at  certain  seasons,  but  where  agriculture  is  for  the  most 
part  precarious.  Because  of  drought,  low  temperature,  or  ex- 
cessive moisture,  the  use  of  the  grass  by  means  of  animals  is  the 
only  sure  means  of  making  the  land  yield  a  living.  Where  the 
grass  is  scanty,  or  lasts  only  a  few  months,  as  in  deserts,  or  where 
it  is  accessible  only  during  a  short  season  free  from  snow,  as  in 
high  mountains,  the  people  who  wish  to  get  a  living  from  it 
must  be  nomads,  travelling  from  place  to  place  with  their 
animals. 

The  great  majority  of  pastoral  nomads  have  many  traits  in 
common.  This  is  likely  to  be  true  even  when  such  people  rep- 
resent reversions  from  a  high  stage  of  civilization.  For  exam- 
ple, during  the  summer  a  good  many  sheep-herders  frequent  the 
high  plateaus  of  the  western  United  States.  The  only  one  of  this 
kind  with  whom  I  ever  stayed  reminded  me  strongly  of  the 
nomads  of  central  Asia.  He  was  overjoyed  to  see  myself  and  my 
companion  because  he  had  seen  no  one  for  several  weeks,  and 
we  brought  news  of  the  outside  world.  His  equipment  consisted 
of  one  knife,  one  fork,  one  spoon,  one  cup,  a  stewpan,  and  a 


114 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


Dutch  oven.  He  set  before  us  a  meal  of  roast  lamb,  bread, 
stewed  apricots,  and  coffee.  The  meat  we  ate  with  our  fingers; 
we  took  turns  in  dipping  the  apricots  from  the  stewpan  with  the 
spoon;  and  we  passed  the  coffee-cup  from  hand  to  hand.  He  was 
an  excellent  host,  and  took  great  pains  to  see  that  our  horses 
were  properly  hobbled  in  a  good  patch  of  grass.  He  likewise  was 
most  solicitous  that  we  have  comfortable  places  in  which  to 
spread  our  blankets  on  the  ground.  I  can  readily  imagine  that 
if  he  and  his  descendants  continued  to  practise  the  nomadic  life 
of  American  sheep-herders  for  a  few  generations  they  might  be- 
come much  like  some  of  the  people  of  Asia. 

Let  us  consider  a  group  of  people  who  have  been  nomads  for 
an  indefinite  period.  One  of  the  most  noteworthy  features  of 
Arabia  is  the  great  uniformity  of  the  habits  and  character  of  all 
its  nomadic  people.  Because  the  country  is  so  dry,  nomadic  pas- 
toralism  is  the  only  mode  of  life  possible  in  the  major  part  of 
the  country.  The  settled  inhabitants,  to  be  sure,  greatly  out- 
number the  nomads  but  they  occupy  a  relatively  small  space. 
An  account  of  some  of  my  own  experiences  is  perhaps  as  good  a 
way  as  any  of  giving  an  idea  of  certain  important  character- 
istics which  stand  out  strongly  in  the  character  of  the  nomads. 

One  day  in  April,  1909, 1  left  my  caravan  and  rode  off  among 
the  gentle  hills  of  the  plateau  of  Moab  to  visit  some  ruins.  The 
caravan  leader  failed  to  halt  at  the  appointed  rendezvous,  and 
my  guide  and  I  lost  the  trail.  A  few  miles  to  the  west  the  plateau 
ended  in  the  steep  escarpment  which  drops  4,000  feet  and  more 
to  the  bitter  blue  brine  of  the  Dead  Sea;  eastward  the  sunset 
light  gave  us  a  fine  view  of  the  gentle  slope  which  descends  by 
insensible  degrees  to  the  great  Syrian  desert,  a  waste  of  gravel 
and  sand.  The  region,  ten  or  fifteen  miles  wide  between  the  es- 
carpment and  the  desert,  forms  a  narrow  strip  of  grassland,  whose 
ownership  is  fiercely  debated  between  settled  farmers  and  wan- 
dering nomads.  In  1909  the  nomads  had  the  upper  hand,  for  the 
rains  of  early  spring  had  failed,  the  grass  had  withered,  the 
springs  had  ceased  to  flow,  and  the  Beduin  had  been  forced  to 
take  refuge  in  any  and  every  place  w^here  they  could  find  a 


THE  ASIATICS  WHO  DWELL  IN  TENTS  115 


scanty  bit  of  herbage  for  their  flocks  and  camels,  and  a  Uttle  water 
to  assuage  their  thirst.  An  hour  or  two  after  sunset  the  barking 
of  dogs  guided  us  to  a  Beduin  encampment,  a  group  of  about 
twenty  long,  low  tents  of  black  haircloth  set  in  an  ellipse  a  hun- 
dred yards  long,  and  lighted  by  small  fires  at  which  the  evening 
meal  had  been  cooked.  With  the  practised  eye  of  the  traveller 
my  guide,  an  Arabic-speaking  soldier  in  the  Turkish  service, 
picked  out  the  tent  of  the  chief  or  sheikh.  One  end  of  the  tent 
was  devoid  of  any  front  wall,  and  was  readily  recognizable  as 
the  men's  quarters  or  guest-room.  It  was  crowded  with  Arabs 
muffled  in  woolen  cloaks  and  clustered  around  a  fire  of  dry  weeds 
whose  intermittent  flames  lighted  up  a  slab  of  limestone  bearing 
the  rudely  scratched  insignia  of  the  tribe  of  Beni  Sakr. 

We  dismounted  silently,  as  men  do  in  a  land  where  no  man 
knows  whether  the  stranger  is  friend  or  mortal  enemy.  The 
Arabs,  grouped  cross-legged  or  asquat  around  the  blaze,  received 
us  without  a  word,  although  the  chief  men  rose  and  motioned  to 
us  to  seat  ourselves  in  places  of  honor.  A  quilt  was  brought  to 
spread  on  the  coarse  woolen  rugs  where  the  rest  were  seated; 
since  I  was  a  foreigner  and  hence  a  guest  of  distinction,  another 
was  rolled  up  so  that  I  might  rest  my  left  elbow  upon  it.  Only 
when  we  were  comfortable  did  conversation  slowly  begin.  At 
first  the  subject  was  roads  and  villages,  but  soon  we  touched 
upon  the  Arab's  perennial  topic,  his  quarrels  with  the  govern- 
ment. As  the  sheikh  told  how  he  and  his  people  had  fought  with 
the  Turkish  soldiers  not  many  years  ago  his  eyes  grew  so  fierce 
and  his  gestures  so  violent,  that  I  should  have  feared  we  would 
be  murdered  had  I  not  known  that  an  Arab  never  does  violence 
to  his  guests. 

"Why  do  you  wear  that  uniform?''  he  said  to  my  guide. 
"You  are  a  good  man,  but  how  I  hate  your  clothes !  Why  does 
the  government  take  taxes  from  poor  Arabs  who  come  from  the 
desert  in  times  of  drought?  Have  not  the  Arabs  the  right  to 
feed  their  flocks  wherever  there  is  grass?  Some  day  soon  the 
Turks  will  see  what  my  people  will  do." 

It  almost  seemed  as  if  his  eyes  shot  fire.  He  little  thought 


116 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


that  in  his  hatred  of  the  government  he  was  simply  reflecting 
his  environment.   Almost  all  nomads  are  hard  to  rule  and  are 
often  at  enmity  with  their  government.  One  reason  is  that  when 
they  have  made  a  raid  or  otherwise  incurred  the  displeasure  of  || 
the  officials,  they  can  easily  slip  away  into  the  desert  and  dis- 
appear. Moreover,  they  live  in  such  small  groups  that  it  is  im-  j 
possible  for  the  government  to  maintain  officials  among  them. 
So  they  have  their  own  patriarchal  form  of  self-government,  | 
and  bitterly  resent  any  attempt  to  force  anything  else  upon 
them. 

While  we  conversed,  green  coffee-beans  had  been  roasted  on 
a  long-handled  iron  spoon.  Now  they  were  vigorously  and  rhyth- 
mically pounded  in  a  large  wooden  mortar.  The  grounds  were 
then  boiled  in  a  copper  coffee-pot,  poured  into  another  and 
boiled  again,  then  back  into  the  first,  and  so  on.  After  about 
half  a  dozen  boilings  a  strong  black  decoction  was  poured  into 
a  little  china  cup  from  which  the  host  drank  first,  to  show  that 
it  was  good— unpoisoned.  Then  this  cup  and  another  circulated 
among  the  guests  who  now  numbered  about  twenty.  Next  the 
evening  meal  was  served,  a  tender  lamb  freshly  killed  and  boiled 
for  our  benefit.  We  pulled  it  to  pieces  with  our  fingers,  as  the 
custom  is  in  the  desert.  With  it  were  thin  sheets  of  unleavened 
bread,  good  not  only  as  food  but  as  scoops  wherewith  to  ladle 
up  sour  milk  and  soft  butter.  This  was  no  ordinary  Arab  meal 
such  as  is  commonly  eaten  in  times  of  drought,  but  a  feast  for 
guests;  so  we  were  offered  still  another  dish,  cracked  wheat 
boiled  with  a  little  fat,  and  eaten  with  the  hands.  In  all  essen- 
tial details  this  meal  was  remarkably  like  the  one  with  the 
sheep-herder  in  Utah. 

When  the  sheikh  was  not  excited  he  was  an  admirable  host. 
Thinking  that  I  might  be  chilly  that  April  night,  with  the  tem- 
perature close  to  forty,  he  thoughtfully  threw  over  my  shoulders 
a  thick  Arab  cape  of  wool.  When  we  went  to  bed  he  took  great 
pains  to  see  that  we  were  warmly  covered,  especially  our  heads. 
Not  till  he  had  seen  the  guide  and  myself,  together  with  two 
Beduin  guests,  comfortably  stretched  on  the  ground  around  the 


THE  ASIATICS  WHO  DWELL  IN  TENTS  117 


ashes  of  the  coffee  fire  and  apparently  asleep  with  our  heads 
resting  on  saddles,  did  he  retire  to  his  own  part  of  the  tent. 

As  the  fire  faded  the  beauty  of  the  clear  moonHt  night  was 
more  and  more  apparent.  The  occasional  faint  bleat  of  a  young 
lamb  or  the  suppressed  bark  of  a  dog  only  emphasized  the  still- 
ness. Then,  suddenly,  the  sound  of  guns  rent  the  air,  dogs  began 
to  bark  wildly,  men  shouted,  children  screamed,  and  the  shrill 
cry  of  women  arose.  The  camp  jumped  to  its  feet  in  a  moment; 
the  men  flung  their  striped  white  and  brown  cloaks  over  their 
shoulders,  slipped  their  feet  into  low  shoes,  if  they  had  any, 
and  gun  in  hand  hastened  away  on  foot  or  on  the  camels  and 
horses  which  had  been  tethered  near  the  tents.  Before  I  could 
put  on  the  clumsy  boots  evolved  by  our  type  of  civilization,  they 
had  gone  off  toward  the  southeast,  followed  by  a  crowd  of  women. 
Then  there  was  silence  once  more;  almost  before  I  understood 
what  had  occurred  the  excitement  had  subsided.  In  the  bright 
moonlight  the  women,  with  queenly  gait  and  haggish  tatooed 
faces,  streamed  back  down  the  hillside  in  their  trailing  garments 
of  dark  blue.  Nothing  unusual  had  happened;  it  was  merely  a 
"ghazzu,'^  or  raid.  The  Howeitat  Arabs,  enemies  of  the  tribe  of 
Beni  Sakr,  and  likewise  suffering  from  the  drought,  had  come  in 
from  the  desert  to  the  region  where  water  and  grass  were  to  be 
found.  That  night  they  raided  their  neighbors  and  drove  off  a 
herd  of  a  hundred  or  more  camels  which  had  been  rounded  up 
at  a  little  distance  from  the  tents. 

To  me  that  raid  was  exciting,  even  though  it  was  not  my 
first  experience  of  the  kind.  I  felt  that  the  raiders  were  guilty 
of  a  great  crime.  Not  so  the  Arabs.  Nothing  about  the  raid  im- 
pressed me  so  much  as  the  attitude  of  the  two  gray-bearded 
Beduin  who  were  my  fellow  guests  that  night.  When  awakened 
by  the  guns,  they  merely  sat  up,  realized  what  had  happened, 
and  lay  down  once  more  to  sleep.  What  was  a  raid  to  them?  A 
mere  part  of  the  day's  work.  It  was  nothing  to  them  if  other 
people's  camels  were  stolen.  Perhaps  their  own  tribesmen  had 
done  the  deed.  But  anyhow,  here  was  no  matter  of  right  or  wrong, 
nothing  demanding  redress.    If  they  should  help  recover  the 


118 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


camels,  they  might  themselves  incur  enmity  and  even  become 
involved  in  a  blood-feud  with  the  raiders.  Perhaps  it  would  be 
their  own  turn  to  be  raided  to-morrow;  then  they  would  exert 
themselves.  Since  raids  were  in  progress,  they  doubtless  had 
their  minds  on  some  in  which  they  themselves  might  take  part. 
Neither  their  help  nor  ours  was  expected  nor  wanted  by  our 
hosts. 

Next  morning  in  the  chill,  damp  air  that  precedes  sunrise  we 
four  guests  caught  and  saddled  our  hobbled  horses  and  rode 
away  without  washing  or  eating,  or  speaking  to  any  one.  All  the 
men  of  the  camp  were  gone,  and  the  women  have  naught  to  do 
with  guests.  Yet  even  in  Arabia,  the  very  heart  of  Moham- 
medanism, the  nomad  women  are  not  secluded  like  their  sisters 
of  the  oases.  They  cannot  be,  for  who  can  wear  a  veil  while 
milking  sheep,  managing  a  camel,  or  taking  down  a  tent?  They 
have  their  separate  part  of  the  tent,  to  be  sure,  but  most  of  their 
work  is  done  unveiled  and  out  of  doors.  This  helps  to  make  them 
more  self-reliant  than  the  village  women.  Still  more  important 
is  the  fact  that  when  their  husbands  go  off  on  raids  or  in  pur- 
suit of  raiders  all  the  responsibility  for  children,  tents,  and 
animals  falls  on  the  women.  Those  who  are  not  self-reliant  are 
not  wanted  as  wives  by  the  bolder  men.  They  fall  to  the  men 
who  shrink  from  raids,  the  stay-at-homes,  who  ultimately  be- 
come villagers.  Hence  it  is  not  strange  that  when  a  nomad  girl 
is  taken  to  a  harem  in  a  village  or  city,  she  and  her  children  are 
generally  dominant.  Often  such  a  woman  dominates  not  only 
the  other  wives  and  their  children  but  her  husband.  From  such 
stock  came  Zenobia,  the  famous  queen  of  Palmyra. 

Let  us  return  to  the  spring  of  1909.  Five  times  that  season  I 
came  directly  in  contact  with  Arab  raids  on  the  border  of  the 
Syrian  desert.  Once  in  Jebel  Druze  I  was  walking  on  foot,  un- 
armed, with  two  companions.  Two  men  on  horseback  with 
rifles  suddenly  appeared  from  behind  a  great  pile  of  stones  and 
demanded  our  money.  Seeing  that  I  was  the  leader  they  con- 
centrated on  me.  I  argued  the  point  and  laughed,  which  seemed 
to  puzzle  them.    For  a  couple  of  minutes  one  robber  silently 


THE  ASIATICS  WHO  DWELL  IN  TENTS  119 


pointed  his  rifle  at  my  head,  while  I  looked  up  the  barrel.  Then 
they  rode  off.  I  judge  that  they  could  not  understand  our  tac- 
tics, for  they  were  used  to  dealing  with  villagers.  Three  raiders 
had  recently  held  up  sixteen  villagers  and  stripped  them  of  prac- 
tically everything  in  that  very  region,  so  we  were  told.  The  vil- 
lager is  a  coward  compared  with  the  son  of  the  desert. 

Another  time  we  were  returning  to  Homs  from  the  ruins  of 
Zenobia's  home  at  Palmyra  in  the  desert.  We  were  driving  in  a 
carriage  which  easily  traversed  the  smooth  expanses  of  gravel 
even  although  there  was  no  road.  At  one  place  we  turned  aside 
for  some  miles  into  the  mouth  of  a  mountain  valley.  After  ex- 
amining the  ruins  of  a  village,  once  well-watered,  but  now  abso- 
lutely waterless,  we  were  ready  to  proceed.  It  appeared  that  if 
we  could  get  the  carriage  over  a  spur  a  mile  or  more  ahead,  a 
detour  of  six  or  eight  miles  could  be  avoided;  and  accordingly  one 
of  our  two  soldiers  was  sent  forward  on  horseback  to  reconnoitre. 
Two  hours  and  a  half  passed  and  he  did  not  return,  so  finally 
the  other  soldier  was  sent  to  find  him.  At  length  the  two  horse- 
men returned  after  another  hour  or  more.  The  first  soldier  looked 
much  disturbed,  and  there  were  empty  spaces  in  his  cartridge- 
belt.  At  first  he  was  uncommunicative,  but  finally  he  told  his 
tale:  "When  I  reached  the  ridge,  I  found  that  the  carriage  could 
cross,  but  there  was  another  ridge  a  little  farther  on.  I  went  to 
look  at  it,  and  found  the  path  too  rocky  for  wheels.  When  I 
turned  back  I  saw  ten  or  twelve  Arabs  down  in  the  valley.  I 
knew  they  were  raiders.  So  I  hid  among  the  rocks.  Then  I  was 
afraid  that  they  had  seen  me  and  would  climb  up  another  way 
and  catch  me;  so  I  got  behind  a  safer  rock  and  fired  eleven  shots 
at  them.  I  did  not  hit  anybody  and  they  went  off.  I  dared  not 
leave  my  hiding-place  tiU  I  saw  my  companion  on  the  other 
ridge." 

The  Arabs  were  raiders,  as  the  soldier  thought,  for  later  we 
heard  of  their  depredations,  but  his  action  in  shooting  at  them 
was  idiotic.  Luckily  they  did  not  know  how  many  of  him  there 
were,  and  so  did  not  attack  him.  If  he  had  killed  any  one  a 
blood  feud  would  have  arisen,  which  would  probably  have  cost 


no 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


the  soldier  his  life  and  might  have  cost  ours.  His  conduct  illus- 
trates the  bitter  hatred  which  prevails  between  the  wandering 
Beduin  of  the  desert  and  the  settled  peasants  of  the  same  stock 
and  language  who  live  in  the  fringe  of  verdure. 

I  could  tell  of  other  raids  that  I  have  experienced  among  other 
kinds  of  nomads.  Once,  for  example,  I  was  eating  lunch  under 
the  mulberry-trees  at  Pertag  beside  the  upper  Euphrates  River. 
A  party  of  mountain  Kurds  drove  off  the  sheep  of  the  village  in 
broad  daylight,  and  all  the  men  went  out  to  recover  them. 
Times  were  hard,  and  the  chief  of  the  Kurds  had  died.  So  every 
man  did  what  was  right  in  his  own  eyes.  I  have  heard  the  Turko- 
mans tell  of  their  raids  before  the  Russians  stopped  them,  and 
I  have  been  warned  of  Afghan  tent-dwellers,  and  have  had  them 
draw  their  guns  on  me.  Such  raids  are  an  estabHshed  part  of 
the  mode  of  life  in  many  regions.  They  differ  from  the  stage- 
coach raids  of  the  frontier  days  in  America  or  from  banditry  in 
China  in  that  they  are  practised  by  the  best  of  the  community, 
men  who  are  looked  upon  as  the  ideal  type,  whereas  the  modern 
highwayman  and  bandit  are  looked  upon  with  contempt.  In 
other  words  the  camel-lifting  raids  of  the  desert  nomads,  like 
the  warlike  forays  of  the  American  Indians,  are  an  estabHshed 
part  of  the  "mores'^  or  tribal  customs  of  those  who  practise 
them,  and  hence  do  not  go  counter  to  the  moral  standards  of 
the  community  as  do  the  acts  of  stage-coach  robbers,  burglars, 
or  bandits  in  settled  communities. 

Let  us  consider  for  a  moment  how  such  mores  have  grown 
up  and  how  they  in  turn  influence  not  only  the  culture  and  train- 
ing of  a  people,  but  its  inheritance.  Picture  to  yourself  the  main 
events  in  the  life  of  an  Arab  nomad  during  the  course  of  a  year. 
In  the  spring  when  the  camels,  goats,  and  sheep  are  giving 
abundance  of  milk  he  lays  up  a  store  of  sour  cheese  and  curds, 
dried  hard  as  the  toughest  hardtack.  Then  when  the  summer 
comes  he  exchanges  his  surplus  animals,  chiefly  the  young  males, 
for  dates,  wheat,  and  rice  grown  in  the  oases  or  in  the  border- 
lands around  the  desert  where  agriculture  is  possible.  A  few 
animals  may  be  saved  for  future  use  as  food,  but  only  the  most 


THE  ASIATICS  WHO  DWELL  IN  TENTS  121 


wealthy  can  afford  to  eat  meat  often.  In  good  years  the  ordinary 
Arab  can  lay  by  enough  food  to  last  himself  and  his  family  until 
the  following  spring.  Yet  even  in  good  years  many  of  the  nomadic 
Arabs  are  unable  to  provide  enough  to  last  later  than  perhaps 
February,  the  time  when  the  rains  ought  to  come  and  when  the 
young  sheep  and  camels  begin  to  be  born,  and  milk  is  normally 
abundant.  But  if  all  goes  well  it  is  possible  to  live  through  the 
spring  on  nothing  but  milk.  The  Arabs  do  this  frequently,  al- 
though they  do  not  enjoy  it.  Doughty,  in  his  vivid  account  of 
Arabia  Deserta,  tells  how  the  Arabs  who  have  long  been  living 
on  milk  pine  for  something  else.  "  Give  us  bread,''  is  their  cry. 
"For  two  months  we  have  drunk  this  vile  milk.  Our  stomachs 
are  empty  and  we  cannot  fill  them.  Let  us  have  something  we 
can  set  our  teeth  into,  something  that  has  substance." 

Suppose  now  that  when  the  time  comes  for  the  young  animals 
to  be  born  and  for  abundant  milk  to  supplement  or  replace  dates 
and  bread,  no  rain  has  fallen.  No  wonder  the  Arabs  are  anxious. 
No  wonder  the  first  question  of  the  tent-dweller  whom  Doughty 
met  was:  "Where  is  the  rain?  Have  showers  fallen  anywhere? 
Is  there  grass  in  the  land  ?  How  far  to  the  place  of  the  shower  ? 
Did  it  extend  wide  over  the  country  ?  Why  does  Allah  withhold 
the  rain  so  long?"  Imagine  the  mental  state  of  people  who 
eagerly  pack  their  tents  and  all  their  crude  belongings  upon 
camels  and  travel  one  or  two  hundred  miles  simply  because  they 
have  heard  that  a  little  shower  has  fallen  over  an  area  no  larger 
than  that  watered  by  a  single  summer  thunder-storm.  Yet  this 
is  a  common  occurrence  in  Arabia.  Often,  indeed,  the  showers 
are  so  scanty  that  the  pools  are  not  filled,  and  the  grass  springs 
up  so  sparsely  that  to  the  eye  of  any  but  the  son  of  the  desert 
it  is  almost  invisible;  and  even  to  him  it  becomes  invisible  as 
soon  as  its  scanty  spears,  two  or  three  inches  high,  wither  in  the 
scorching  sun.  When  such  years  come,  as  they  often  do,  the 
mother  animals  can  find  no  fresh  pasturage;  they  may  subsist 
themselves,  but  they  have  no  milk  for  their  young.  Animal  after 
animal  dies.  The  Arabs  see  that  they  can  lay  by  no  curds  and 
cheese  for  the  winter;  but  that  is  far  from  the  worst.  They  see 


122 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


also  that  the  price  of  dates  and  wheat  will  be  high  because  of  the 
drought,  and  that  they  will  have  no  surplus  animals  to  exchange 
for  food  of  any  kind.  And  worst  of  all  they  see  their  children 
hungry  and  crying  for  food.  This  is  no  overdrawn  picture.  It  is 
what  happens  when  two  or  three  dry  years  come  in  succession. 

What  is  an  Arab  to  do  when  his  camels,  his  sheep,  his  wife, 
his  children,  and  himself  are  all  suffering  the  pangs  of  hunger  ? 
He  cannot  go  off  to  some  other  land  and  get  work.  In  the  first 
place  the  better  adapted  he  is  to  the  nomadic  life  the  more  he 
hates  the  thought  of  steady  work,  and  the  less  adapted  he  is  to 
it  temperamentally.  In  the  second  place  there  is  rarely  any  work 
to  be  had,  for  when  he  is  in  distress  the  settled  regions  near  him 
are  also  usually  suffering  from  drought.  And  finally,  unless  he 
absolutely  gives  up  his  old  life  he  cannot  abandon  or  sell  what 
animals  he  has  left,  but  must  care  for  them  as  the  basis  of  any 
prosperity  for  which  he  may  hope  in  the  future.  The  only  re- 
source under  such  circumstances  is  plunder.  The  man  who  is 
starving  has  little  thought  of  right  or  wrong.  To  have  such 
thoughts  would  seem  to  him  fatal.  If  considerations  of  humanity 
or  any  other  moral  ideas  prevent  him  from  engaging  in  raids 
upon  the  tribes  around  him,  the  doom  of  his  family  may  be 
sealed,  for  his  children  may  die  of  hunger.  Thus  through  the 
thousands  of  years  since  nomads  first  lived  in  Arabia  the  hard 
conditions  of  climate  have  steadily  forced  the  Arabs  to  frame  a 
moral  code  which  condones  violence,  and  have  at  the  same  time 
weeded  out  those  who  withheld  their  hands  from  violence  or 
were  incompetent  in  robbery  and  raids. 

The  man  who  would  succeed  and  who  would  keep  his  chil- 
dren in  health  must  not  only  be  ready  to  commit  depredations 
and  be  utterly  dishonest  according  to  our  standards,  but  must 
also  be  strong  in  the  endurance  of  heat,  thirst,  and  the  weariness 
of  long  rides.  Unfortunately  he  has  little  need  of  steady  in- 
dustry, or  of  strength  to  endure  long  physical  labor.  Laziness, 
according  to  our  definition  of  the  word,  is  no  great  disadvantage 
provided  a  man  is  able  to  summon  up  his  powers  in  a  crisis 
when  the  camels  have  strayed  far  away,  when  they  have  been 


THE  ASIATICS  WHO  DWELL  IN  TENTS  123 


driven  off  by  raiders,  or  when  the  man  himself  goes  on  a  foray. 
Hence  the  Arab  is  lazy  as  well  as  disregardful  of  what  we  call 
common  honesty.  Just  as  he  thinks  of  raids  as  a  part  of  the  or- 
dinary routine  of  life,  so  he  thinks  of  steady  work  as  something 
scarcely  to  be  demanded  even  of  women  and  as  fit  only  for 
slaves.  Shame  enters  the  family  with  the  plow."  Thus  do  the 
Tuaregs,  or  Berber  nomads  of  Algeria,  sum  up  their  idea  of  agri- 
culture, as  Gautier  tells  us  in  The  Geographical  Review  (January, 
192 1).  To  them  the  towns  are  "nauseating.''  Nevertheless,  a 
great  many  nomads  are  gradually  drawn  away  from  the  life  of 
the  wanderer  and  become  peasants.  But  "a  nomad  tribe  ruined 
by  losing  its  camels  and  consequently  its  mobility  enters  on 
sedentary  life  with  rancor  in  its  heart.  It  is  the  supreme  humilia- 
tion, an  irretrievable  loss  of  caste."  (Gautier.)  The  great  his- 
torian Ibn  Khaldun  speaks  of  the  degenerate  descendants  of  an- 
cient nomad  tribes  as  "so  abased  that  they  pay  the  impost." 
The  true  nomad  levies  impost  and  pockets  it. 

Natural  selection  is  very  effective  in  this  process  of  differen- 
tiating the  nomads  from  the  villagers.  Some  nomads  may  go  to 
the  well-watered  lands  as  conquerors,  but  the  ones  who  become 
peasants  are  generally  those  who  either  fail  in  the  struggle  as 
nomads  or  who  have  a  particular  aptitude  for  agriculture.  It 
may  be  that  they  have  not  enough  endurance  and  that  the 
thought  of  having  plenty  to  eat  outweighs  their  dislike  of  steady 
work.  Or  it  may  be  that  by  reason  of  physique  or  temperament 
the  work  itself  is  not  so  distasteful  to  them  as  to  some  of  their 
comrades.  So  they  leave  the  nomads  and  go  to  the  oases  or  to 
the  fringes  of  verdure  surrounding  the  desert.  Thus  through  the 
ages  there  goes  on  a  steady  process  whereby  one  type  of  char- 
acter becomes  fixed  in  the  desert  and  another  is  encouraged  in 
the  places  where  agriculture  prevails. 

The  completeness  with  which  the  activities  of  the  Arabs  are 
controlled  by  the  dry  cKmate  is  illustrated  by  the  fact  that  their 
raids,  like  the  majority  of  human  actions,  are  timed  according 
to  the  earth's  rotation  and  the  inchnation  of  its  axis.  As  a  rule 
the  Beduin  make  raids  upon  one  another  rather  than  upon  the 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


sedentary  population  who  are  protected  by  their  villages.  On 
long  raids  the  plunderers  sometimes  ride  three  or  four  hundred 
miles  to  the  scene  of  operations.  To  be  most  successful  they  need 
camels  to  endure  thirst  and  to  travel  hard  on  little  food,  and 
horses  to  use  in  the  final  dash  when  speed  and  docility  are  re- 
quired in  order  to  round  up  and  drive  off  the  camels  or  other 
animals  selected  as  prey,  or  to  ride  down  escaping  victims.  The 
mares,  however,  which  are  the  only  horses  kept  by  the  Arabs  in 
any  numbers,  cannot  endure  long  marches  without  drinking. 
Accordingly  each  pair  of  Beduin  in  a  well-equipped  party  takes 
a  milch  camel  and  a  mare  which  has  been  taught  to  drink  camePs 
milk.  They  ride  the  camel  on  the  long  marches,  and  where  water 
is  scarce  use  its  milk  to  supply  themselves  and  their  horse  with 
both  food  and  drink.  Only  when  the  camel  foals  are  several 
months  old  can  the  mothers  safely  be  taken  from  them.  Since 
the  young  camels  are  mainly  born  in  February  and  March,  the 
months  of  May  and  June  are  the  great  season  for  raids.  Earlier 
than  this  not  only  do  the  Arabs  hesitate  about  taking  away  the 
mother  camels,  but  the  business  of  taking  care  of  the  young 
animals  is  too  engrossing  to  permit  of  many  raids.  Later,  during 
the  hot,  rainless  summer,  many  springs  and  wells  dry  up,  and 
this  not  only  makes  it  hard  to  travel  across  the  desert,  but 
obliges  the  Arabs,  both  the  plunderers  and  the  plundered,  to 
concentrate  around  the  larger  supplies  of  water.  Raids  thus  be- 
come more  difficult  because  many  people  are  together  and  be- 
cause the  distance  to  be  traversed  from  water  to  water  is  great. 
In  dry  years,  however,  the  season  for  raids  is  greatly  lengthened, 
and  they  occur  almost  everywhere. 

Wherever  we  turn  among  the  Arabs  we  find  habits  and  traits 
which  have  either  originated  because  of  the  desert  environment 
or  have  been  preserved  by  it  through  the  process  of  natural 
selection.  In  addition  to  predatory  habits,  dishonesty,  and  lazi- 
ness, other  traits,  such  as  democracy,  as  I  have  shown  elsewhere, 
are  dependent  upon  climatic  environment.  The  utensils,  orna- 
ments, and  dwellings  used  by  the  different  kinds  of  nomads  are 
very  much  alike.  No  one  who  packs  up  all  his  household  goods 


THE  ASIATICS  WHO  DWELL  IN  TENTS  125 


every  two  or  three  weeks  and  carries  them  on  horses  or  camels 
can  have  large  pieces  of  furniture.  Bedsteads,  bureaus,  tables, 
chairs,  and  similar  paraphernaHa  are  out  of  the  question.  The 
way  to  sleep  is  on  a  thin  mattress,  quilt,  or  felt,  spread  on  the 
ground.  The  way  to  pack  one^s  belongings  is  in  soft  bags  or  small 
boxes  that  can  be  slung  on  the  backs  of  animals.  A  piece  of  crock- 
ery is  a  continual  nuisance  for  it  has  to  be  packed  with  great 
care  at  each  migration,  and  ten  to  one  it  will  be  broken  before 
long  when  some  animal  runs  away.  Iron  pots,  pans,  and  kettles 
are  reduced  to  a  minimum  because  of  their  weight. 

Because  life  is  so  simple  and  because  people  must  carry  all 
their  paraphernalia  with  them  at  each  migration  the  outward 
difference  between  the  rich  and  the  poor  is  reduced  to  a  mini- 
mum. The  tent  of  the  richest  man  may  be  two  or  three  times  as 
large  as  that  of  the  poorest,  but  in  general  style  the  two  are 
identical.  It  is  utterly  impossible  to  have  any  such  contrast  as 
that  which  exists  between  the  palaces  of  our  multimillionaires 
and  the  hovels  or  tenements  of  the  poor.  This  tends  to  make  the 
nomad  democratic.  So,  too,  does  the  fact  that  the  encampments 
are  small,  rarely  more  than  a  dozen  or  twenty  tents,  so  that 
every  one  is  thrown  into  intimate  contact  with  every  one  else. 
Moreover,  the  rich  and  the  poor  alike  realize  that  at  any  time 
they  are  likely  to  lose  everything.  In  a  raid  the  poor  man  who 
has  three  camels  and  the  rich  man  who  has  three  hundred  both 
may  lose  them  all.  This  complete  loss  of  property,  this  levelling 
of  all  grades  of  society  to  the  plane  of  direst  poverty  is  so  common 
that  there  has  grown  up  among  the  Arabs  a  peculiar  kind  of 
generosity.  When  a  man  has  been  robbed  it  is  the  common  cus- 
tom for  all  of  his  immediate  clan  to  contribute  camels  accord- 
ing to  their  means  and  thus  start  him  once  more  toward  pros- 
perity. 

Among  pastoral  nomads  there  is  likewise  great  uniformity  in 
the  dominant  types  of  art.  In  the  business  of  life  the  things  that 
the  nomad  needs  are  wooden  bowls,  skins  in  which  to  store  milk, 
bags,  saddles,  rugs,  quilts,  and  similar  small,  soft,  or  unbreak- 
able articles.  Hence  the  art  of  all  those  people  turns  primarily 


126  THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 

to  the  making  of  clothing  and  of  ornamental  rugs  and  felts  for 
the  floor  and  walls  of  the  tents,  and  ornamental  leather-work 
for  bags,  saddles,  and  the  sides  of  boxes.  Practically  everything 
in  the  way  of  art  and  handicraft  employs  wool  and  leather  as 
the  chief  raw  materials.  Even  wood  takes  a  secondary  place. 

Another  almost  universal  trait  of  nomads  is  hospitahty.  Even 
where  the  nomads  and  the  people  of  the  irrigated  villages  are 
of  the  same  race,  there  is  an  almost  incredible  difference  in  their 
attitude  toward  strangers.  The  tent-dweller  receives  every  one 
who  comes,  gives  him  of  the  best,  and  sends  him  on  his  way  re- 
joicing. The  villager  looks  upon  the  traveller  with  suspicion, 
tries  to  send  him  somewhere  else,  and  at  best  gives  him  a  grudg- 
ing hospitality.  All  this  is  the  inevitable  result  of  the  fact  that 
the  nomad  has  to  wander  and  that  his  life  often  depends  on  the 
hospitality  of  other  encampments.  Suppose  the  animals  stray 
away.  The  man  who  starts  in  pursuit  of  a  stray  animal  rarely 
goes  back  to  the  tents  for  a  supply  of  food,  or  for  an  extra  gar- 
ment, in  spite  of  the  bitterly  cold  weather  which  is  common  in 
many  Asiatic  deserts.  It  is  his  business  to  pursue  the  animal  as 
quickly  as  possible,  even  if  he  has  to  go  a  score  or  more  miles. 
At  nightfall  he  makes  for  the  nearest  encampment,  whether  it 
be  his  own  or  some  other.  Every  one  knows  that  he  may  be  in 
dire  need  of  hospitality  himself  at  any  time,  and  those  who  fail 
in  this  respect  are  quickly  made  to  suffer  in  their  own  hour  of 
need.  The  habit  of  hospitality  has  now  become  almost  instinc- 
tive, if  such  an  expression  is  allowable. 

Among  the  Arabs  and  among  pastoral  nomads  in  general  few 
qualities  are  more  important  than  the  capacity  either  to  lead  or 
to  be  led.  East  of  the  Caspian  Sea,  for  example,  before  the  Rus- 
sians put  an  end  to  such  habits,  the  regular  mode  of  starting  a 
Turkoman  raid  was  for  some  one  to  drive  his  spear  upright  into 
the  ground  and  say:  "I  am  going  on  a  raid.  Who  will  go  with 
me  ?  "  Others  came  forward,  thrust  in  their  spears,  and  said  that 
they  too  would  go.  When  a  raid  is  once  under  way  three  condi- 
tions are  absolutely  essential  to  success:  Some  one  must  lead; 
the  rest  must  obey;  and  each  man  must  have  implicit  confidence 


j  THE  ASIATICS  WHO  DWELL  IN  TENTS  127 

I 

in  his  comrades.  Failure  in  any  one  of  these  respects  may  spell 
not  only  disaster  but  death.  To  the  hunter  or  farmer  it  makes 
little  difference  whether  he  can  lead  other  men  or  not.  Nor  is  it 
essential  that  he  should  obey  on  the  instant.  He  usually  works 
alone  and  depends  almost  entirely  on  himself.  But  when  an  en- 
campment of  the  desert  people  is  raided,  the  only  chance  of  re- 
covering the  animals  is  for  some  one  immediately  to  issue  orders 
I  and  all  the  rest  to  obey.  The  farmers  of  the  oases  and  elsewhere 
are  sometimes  subject  to  raids,  but  not  nearly  so  much  as  are  the 
nomads.  It  is  far  harder  and  more  dangerous  to  raid  a  village 
than  to  raid  a  camp.  Then,  too,  animals — not  grain — are  gen- 
erally what  the  raiders  want. 

Again,  during  the  course  of  a  raid  it  may  happen  time  and 
again  that  the  raiders  are  in  sore  straits.  Often  two  men  ride  a 
camel.  Or  if  each  has  his  own  camel  one  man  may  care  for  sev- 
eral animals  while  the  rest  are  busy  in  other  ways.  If  the  one 
who  has  the  camels  flees  at  sight  of  danger  his  comrades  may 
perish.  If  they  escape,  the  man  who  failed  them  is  fiercely  hated 
and  driven  from  the  camp.  So  necessary  is  it  that  the  comrades 
in  a  raid  or  in  the  chase  after  stray  animals  hang  together  that 
a  nomad  scarcely  dares  come  home  alone  if  some  accident  has 
befallen  his  companions. 

We  have  spoken  chiefly  of  the  Arabs,  but  in  practically  all 
desert  regions  and  among  mountain  nomads,  such  as  many  of 
the  Khirghiz,  almost  the  same  habits  prevail.  Let  us  sum  up 
the  qualities  which  make  a  nomad  successful  and  which  thereby 
enable  him  to  marry  the  finest  girls  in  the  community,  and  to 
bring  up  many  healthy,  sturdy  children.  First  and  foremost 
stands  the  ability  to  exert  himself  strenuously  and  without  stint 
in  an  emergency.  It  matters  little  whether  the  animals  have 
strayed,  have  been  attacked  by  wild  animals,  or  are  threatened 
by  a  sudden  storm  or  flood.  Or  it  may  be  that  the  man  himself 
is  going  on  a  raid  or  his  encampment  is  being  raided.  In  any 
case  he  must  not  spare  himself.  He  must  not  think  of  food, 
drink,  or  his  own  sufferings.  For  a  while  he  must  do  and  dare 
everything,  and  exert  every  ounce  of  his  strength.  After  the  emer- 


128 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


gency  is  over  he  may  be  absolutely  idle.  In  fact  he  generally  is. 
His  wife  and  children  can  do  the  milking  and  care  for  the  animals 
so  long  as  there  is  no  emergency.  Hence,  as  already  stated,  lazi- 
ness in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  word  is  no  disadvantage.  In 
fact  the  man  who  is  good  at  steady  industry  is  very  likely  to  be 
weeded  out  of  the  community  either  because  he  does  not  suc- 
ceed or  because  he  finds  the  sedentary  Hfe  better  adapted  to 
him.  A  second  great  quality  of  the  nomad  is  the  power  of  lead- 
ing, and  a  third  is  the  power  of  being  led.  These  are  perhaps  as 
essential  as  the  capacity  for  sudden  and  violent  exertion.  With- 
out them  a  nomad  camp  would  quickly  disintegrate  and  its 
members  would  perforce  take  to  agriculture  or  become  mere 
hangers-on  in  other  camps. 

Another  fine  quality  of  nomads  is  self-reliance.  The  nomad 
meets  sudden  emergencies  far  oftener  than  does  the  farmer. 
Coupled  with  this  is  the  necessity  of  self-reliance  on  the  part  of 
the  nomadic  women.  Little  by  little  the  type  which  is  not  bold 
and  self-reHant  tends  to  disappear  from  among  the  tent-dwellers. 
Either  their  children  meet  with  accidents,  or  they  themselves 
are  not  wanted  as  wives  by  the  bolder  and  more  energetic  men, 
and  hence  are  likely  to  drift  with  the  less  adventurous  men  into 
the  sedentary  life.  Still  other  qualities,  such  as  hospitality  and 
faithfulness  to  one's  comrades,  are  at  a  greater  premium  among 
nomads  than  among  those  who  live  in  settled  villages,  for  failure 
in  these  respects  is  much  more  likely  to  spell  disaster  to  the 
nomad  than  to  the  farmer.  Thus  through  thousands  of  years,  in 
north  Africa,  Arabia,  central  Asia,  and  to  a  less  extent  in  certain 
other  deserts,  there  has  grown  up  a  type  of  bold,  forceful,  active, 
dominating  wanderers  who  nevertheless  are  lazy  and  have  little 
skill  in  the  handicrafts.  They  are  inherently  different  from 
their  patient,  timid,  and  submissive  cousins  who  have  become 
inured  to  the  quiet  life  of  the  villages,  but  who  are  also  indus- 
trious and  skilful.  The  interplay  between  these  two  types, 
and  the  repeated  conquest  of  one  by  the  other  have  been 
among  the  dominant  factors  of  history. 


CHAPTER  IX 


JEWS,  ARMENIANS,  AND  TURKS 

If  the  ideas  advanced  in  this  book  are  correct,  racial  char- 
acter is  plastic.  Not  only  has  it  changed  repeatedly  in  the  past, 
but  in  many  cases  it  is  still  changing  and  may  alter  greatly  in 
the  future.  The  character  of  the  Jews,  for  example,  seems  to 
have  passed  through  a  gradual  evolution.  Old  traits  still  remain, 
but  new  ones  have  been  developed  or  at  least  have  sprung  into 
prominence.  The  first  Jews  of  whom  we  have  record  were  Israel- 
ite nomads  not  greatly  unlike  the  Arabs  discussed  in  the  last 
chapter.  Jacob's  fear  of  a  raid  on  the  part  of  Esau  was  almost 
identical  with  the  fear  of  the  modern  Arabs  during  periods  of 
scarcity,  such  as  1909.  In  the  book  of  Job  not  only  was  the  hero 
a  rich  nomadic  chief,  but  he  was  raided  repeatedly  under  cir- 
cumstances not  essentially  different  from  those  of  to-day.  Al- 
though some,  at  least,  of  the  Israelites  stayed  for  a  while  in  Egypt, 
they  had  not  lost  the  nomadic  character  when  they  departed 
from  that  country.  The  forty  years  in  the  wilderness  were  appar- 
ently merely  the  normal  wanderings  of  a  tribe  of  Beduin.  We 
are  told  that  Joseph  and  his  brethren  settled  in  Egypt  because 
famine  drove  them  from  a  dry  region  into  lands  that  were  better 
watered. 

Without  going  further  into  this  question  it  seems  fair  to  con- 
clude that  when  the  Hebrews  first  appear  in  history  their  char- 
acter was  much  like  that  of  the  modern  nomadic  Arabs.  For 
example,  Caleb  was  one  of  the  spies  sent  by  Moses  from  Kadesh 
in  southern  Palestine  to  spy  out  the  land  of  Canaan.  He  and  his 
brother  Jerahmeel  are  called  sons  of  Hezron,  which  signifies  "  the 
nomadic  life."  In  the  same  way  we  are  told  that  Caleb's  first 
wife  was  Azubah,  which  means  "an  abandoned  desert  region"; 
Jerioth  or  "tent  curtains"  is  mentioned  as  a  second  wife,  which  is 

129 


130 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


probably  another  way  of  expressing  the  desert  origin  of  the  Jews. 
During  the  period  of  the  Judges  several  stories  reflect  the  habits 
and  characteristics  of  a  desert  people.  When  Sisera  fled  to  the 
camp  of  Heber  he  probably  hid  in  the  women's  part  of  the  tent, 
for  in  no  other  part  would  he  be  screened  from  the  view  of  the 
passers-by.  There  he  was  killed  by  Jael,  perhaps  because  no 
strange  men  may  with  impunity  enter  the  women's  quarters. 

How  far  there  was  a  tendency  for  those  IsraeHtes  who  pos- 
sessed the  more  strictly  nomadic  character  to  drift  back  into 
the  desert  during  the  days  of  the  early  Judges,  when  they  were 
not  yet  well  established  as  farmers,  we  cannot  say.  At  an  earher 
date  Ishmael,  who  "dwelt  in  the  wilderness,"  almost  certainly 
represents  the  type  of  nomad  who  cHngs  to  the  desert.  He  was 
"as  a  wild  ass  among  men;  his  hand  was  against  every  man  and 
every  man's  hand  against  him;  and  he  dwelt  to  the  east  of  all 
his  brethren."  Lot,  on  the  other  hand,  apparently  stands  for  the 
type  to  whom  settled  life  made  the  strongest  appeal,  for  he  chose 
the  cities  of  the  plain  of  Jordan,  "well  watered  everywhere." 
Presumably  this  same  tendency  toward  a  differentiation  in  char- 
acter between  the  adventurous,  active,  nomadic  type  and  the 
more  conservative,  industrious,  agricultural  type  continued  dur- 
ing the  long  period  when  the  Hebrews  were  conquering  Palestine 
and  driving  out  or  mingling  with  the  older  Canaanite  popula- 
tion. 

Then  there  began  another  selective  process  which  is  one  of 
the  main  themes  of  large  sections  of  the  Bible.  In  the  books  of 
Kings,  Chronicles,  and  the  prophets  it  is  described  as  the  lure 
of  strange  gods  and  strange  women.  To  the  geographer  it  is  the 
lure  of  the  great  highways,  the  lure  of  fertility  and  prosperity, 
and  the  menace  of  accessibihty,  that  is,  the  danger  that  arises 
when  people  are  unduly  exposed  to  the  influence  of  the  chance 
passer-by  and  of  the  great  routes  of  travel.  In  most  parts  of 
Palestine  the  lure  and  the  menace  went  so  far  that  the  Israelites 
disappeared.  Only  in  the  rocky,  isolated  little  plateau  of  Judea 
was  there  an  environment  which  enabled  two  tribes  to  resist  the 
lure  and  face  the  menace,  so  that  a  remnant  of  "God's  chosen 


JEWS,  ARMENIANS,  AND  TURKS 


131 


people"  stood  fast.  Hence,  there  and  there  alone,  in  a  tiny- 
plateau  no  more  than  a  day's  walk  in  width,  and  two  days'  walk 
in  length,  the  Hebrews  as  a  race  persisted  and  gave  rise  to  the 
people  who  later  were  called  Jews.  The  rest  of  the  IsraeHtes  are 
the  "lost"  ten  tribes.  It  was  the  tribe  of  Judah  and  its  little 
adjunct,  Benjamin,  that  held  their  own  in  the  relatively  infertile 
plateau  and  thus  gave  the  world  many  of  its  noblest  ideas. 

The  disappearance  of  the  ten  tribes  took  place  partly  because 
they  mingled  with  other  races  whom  they  did  not  completely 
exterminate,  as  is  so  vividly  described  in  the  Bible.  It  also  oc- 
curred partly  because  they  were  in  lands  that  were  open  to 
invasion.  East  of  the  Jordan  in  periods  of  stress  the  nomads  of 
the  desert  swept  in  again  and  again.  The  record  of  this  is  pre- 
served in  vivid  accounts  of  raids  in  the  land  of  Moab.  Elsewhere, 
as  in  GaHlee  and  Samaria,  the  IsraeHtes  were  in  close  and  easy 
contact  not  only  with  the  great  road  from  Egypt  to  Syria  and 
Assyria,  but  with  the  Phoenicians  of  the  Syrian  coast  and  the 
PhiHstines  of  the  plain  of  Sharon. 

The  importance  of  caravan  roads  is  rarely  understood  by- 
Westerners.  To  us  who  travel  on  fast  trains  most  of  the  villages 
through  which  we  pass  are  wholly  unknown.  Thousands  of  peo- 
ple in  scores  of  trains  may  pass  through  a  village  each  day,  and 
yet  the  only  ones  who  affect  its  Hfe  may  be  the  handful  who  get 
on  or  off  the  one  or  two  local  trains  which  stop  there.  But  in  a 
land  where  every  one  travels  on  horses,  camels,  or  donkeys,  or 
else  on  foot,  a  great  road  has  a  very  different  effect  on  the  people. 
Every  caravan  must  stop  each  night,  and  must  frequently  rest  a 
day  or  two.  The  average  distance  traveled  by  a  camel  caravan 
is  not  more  than  fifteen  miles  per  day,  and  even  with  horses 
a  twenty-mile  march  in  one  day  is  the  usual  limit.  So  every 
village  on  or  near  a  caravan  road  is  frequently  called  upon  to 
provide  for  the  wants  of  great  caravans.  Often  the  traveling 
merchants  turn  aside  a  few  miles  to  avoid  the  crowd  at  certain 
points,  or  in  the  hope  of  finding  cheaper  food  or  more  abundant 
grazing.  Every  villager  with  aught  to  sell,  if  he  cannot  find  ready 
sale  in  his  own  home  market,  bethinks  him  of  the  caravan  sta- 


132 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


tions.  He  loads  his  donkeys  with  panniers  of  grapes,  rope  crates 
of  melons,  coarse  bags  of  barley,  or  sheaves  of  half-dried  hay, 
and  wends  his  way  to  the  great  highroad.  A  day's  journey 
thither  and  a  day's  journey  back  is  no  great  matter.  No  part  of 
Lower  Galilee  or  of  Samaria  north  of  Shechem  lies  farther  from  a 
great  caravan  road  than  a  man  might  drive  a  slow  donkey  in  a 
day.  The  Oriental,  even  more  than  his  Occidental  brother,  must 
gossip  and  get  the  news  when  he  waits  for  buyers  or  sits  idle  of 
an  evening.  Thus  in  the  days  of  active  caravan  traffic  the  low 
portions  of  Palestine  between  the  plateaus  at  either  end  were 
permeated  through  and  through  by  outside  influences.  They 
could  not  remain  secluded.  Therefore  the  prophets  wailed  over 
"the  wickedness  of  Samaria";  and  the  northern  province  was 
''GaHlee  of  the  Gentiles." 

Judea,  unlike  Samaria  and  Galilee,  lies  off  the  main  routes  of 
travel.  It  is  rugged,  hard  to  traverse,  infertile,  and  relatively  un- 
desirable. Hence  the  people  of  Judea  were  like  children  living  in 
a  retired  house  among  the  woods,  near  a  great  road,  but  far  back 
out  of  sight  and  sound  of  it.  Those  of  Samaria  were  like  children 
whose  home  stands  close  upon  the  busy  turnpike,  whose  friends 
are  the  teamsters  and  hucksters,  and  whose  playground  is  the 
dust  of  the  street  or  the  vacant  lot  across  the  way.  Sheltered 
among  the  rounded  hills  of  their  plateau,  the  Judeans  were  close 
to  the  other  parts  of  their  Httle  country,  and  yet  apart  in  safety. 
They  felt  the  influence  of  the  highly  varied  districts  round  about 
them  but  retained  their  individuahty.  The  traffic  of  the  world 
passed  on  the  west  and  north,  and  even  on  the  south,  giving  them 
some  knowledge  of  the  busy  Hfe  of  the  great  world,  but  not  really 
entering  into  the  daily  routine  which  is  the  heart  of  human  exist- 
ence. They  shuddered  as  hordes  from  the  eastern  desert  pressed 
over  Moab  on  the  east,  or  the  Negeb  on  the  south,  but  their 
isolation  saved  them  from  the  scourge.  So  for  over  a  millennium 
they  dwelt  in  seclusion  and  developed  noble  ideas  of  God  and 
truth  and  justice,  until  the  greatest  of  men,  a  Judean  in  ancestry 
and  birth,  came  up  from  Galilee,  and,  taking  the  truths  which 
had  been  fostered  and  preserved  in  the  rocky  plateau,  trans- 


JEWS,  ARMENIANS,  AND  TURKS  133 


formed  them  into  the  peerless  rules  of  conduct  which  form  the 
basis  of  Christianity. 

But  why  did  the  Judeans  develop  such  lofty  ideals,  such  a 
stern  moral  fiber,  such  great  strength  of  purpose  ?  It  was  partly 
because  the  ruggedness  and  aloofness  of  the  plateau  isolated  them 
just  enough  to  permit  natural  selection  to  work  with  great  effec- 
tiveness. Because  of  the  physical  character  of  their  homes  the 
Judeans  did  not  mix  freely  with  the  followers  of  strange  gods 
who  surrounded  them.  Yet  always  from  the  beginning  of  their 
settlement  in  the  land  there  was  a  tendency  for  some  to  leave 
their  rugged  home  and  seek  their  fortunes  in  the  richer  regions 
round  about.  Samson  is  a  good  example.  It  was  the  PhiHstine 
women  who  tempted  him  to  come  down  into  the  plain  which 
was  his  undoing.  The  prophets  are  full  of  denunciations  of  the 
Israelites  who  married  heathen  women,  followed  strange  gods, 
and  took  up  heathen  practices.  It  must  be  remembered  that 
although  Judea  seems  a  great  and  potent  center  to  us,  it  was  not 
a  center  of  any  importance  in  the  ancient  world.  It  was  a  mere 
little  backwater  in  the  ebb  and  flow  of  the  great  civilized  nations 
of  Egypt,  Syria,  Assyria,  the  Hittites,  and  others.  It  was  too 
poor  to  be  greatly  desired  by  its  neighbors,  too  rugged  to  be 
easily  conquered,  and  too  difficult  of  passage  and  too  far  away 
from  the  main  routes  to  be  crossed  by  armies  or  caravans.  Hence 
it  was  left  to  itself  like  the  highlands  of  Scotland,  or  like  the 
Alleghany  plateau  in  Kentucky  and  Tennessee.  The  regions 
around  it  including  Samaria  and  the  Philistine  plain  would  by 
ordinary  standards  have  been  counted  much  more  advanced, 
progressive,  and  prosperous. 

So  the  Judeans  were  constantly  tempted  to  go  out  into  the 
civilized  world  around  them,  a  world  which  was  within  sight  from 
hundreds  of  the  roofs  on  which  the  villagers  sit  every  day  toward 
evening  in  the  long,  dry  summer.  The  thing  which  drove  them 
out  was  the  desire  for  gain,  ease,  pleasure,  luxury,  and  culture. 
The  thing  which  kept  them  in  Judea  was  love  of  home,  a  fond- 
ness for  their  mountains  and  hills,  the  lure  of  a  shepherd  life, 
and  especially  the  strong  promptings  of  religious  and  racial 


184 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


loyalty.  If  we  may  judge  by  the  Bible,  the  religious  element 
was  of  uncommon  importance  in  holding  some  Jews  in  Judea 
while  others  drifted  away.  So  it  seems  that  here  in  this  stony 
little  plateau  a  great  process  of  selection  went  on  which  picked 
out  for  preservation  the  people  who  were  tenacious  of  their  race, 
tenacious  of  their  homes,  and,  above  all,  tenacious  of  their  re- 
ligion. Thus  Judah  and  Benjamin  gave  rise  to  a  chosen  people, 
while  the  other  ten  tribes  were  lost  in  the  great  maelstrom  of 
migrations,  wars,  and  surrounding  civilizations. 

During  the  course  of  Jewish  history  the  selective  processes 
did  not  always  work  in  one  way.  For  example,  when  the  king- 
dom of  Judah  was  finally  conquered  by  the  Babylonians  there 
were  several  deportations.  In  each  case  the  tendency  was  to 
carry  away  the  most  influential  and  able  parts  of  the  community. 
This  may  have  markedly  weakened  the  moral  and  intellectual 
fiber  of  the  people  who  remained  in  Judea,  but  some  compensa- 
tion was  perhaps  found  in  further  selection  that  occurred  in  the 
lands  of  the  captivity.  While  the  Jews  were  in  Mesopotamia  a 
great  many  doubtless  gave  up  their  old  religion  and  amalgamated 
with  the  Assyrians.  The  book  of  Daniel  is  a  vivid  account  of  an 
attempt  by  the  Assyrian  authorities  to  force  four  young  men  to 
eschew  their  old  religion  and  accept  that  of  the  people  among 
whom  they  dwelt.  The  book  of  Esther  presents  a  similar  pic- 
ture of  unyielding  racial  loyalty  in  the  face  of  strong  compulsion. 
To  yield  would  have  been  the  easy  course.  Such  a  course  was 
presumably  pursued  by  all  except  those  who  were  most  strong- 
minded  and  most  tenacious  of  their  racial  and  religious  inheri- 
tance. Thus  when  a  brighter  day  arrived  and  there  was  finally 
a  chance  to  go  back  to  Judea,  the  people  who  were  still  called 
Jews  were  a  highly  selected  remnant.  But  the  process  of  choosing 
a  certain  type  as  ancestors  of  the  later  Jews  went  still  farther. 
When  Nehemiah  called  for  volunteers  to  return  to  the  land  of 
their  fathers,  it  was  the  most  religious,  the  most  earnest,  and 
those  most  proud  of  their  race  who  flocked  around  him.  Like  the 
Puritans  of  a  later  time,  those  who  fared  back  across  the  desert 
had  been  picked  because  of  their  religious  as  well  as  racial 


JEWS,  ARMENIANS,  AND  TURKS  135 


zeal.  How  far  their  return  made  up  for  the  deterioration  due  to 
the  earlier  deportations  it  is  impossible  to  say.  This  much,  how- 
ever, seems  clear:  the  whole  episode  of  the  captivity  tended  to 
reinforce  the  previously  strong  selective  process  which  made  the 
Jews  a  pecuHar  people  intensely  devoted  to  their  race  and  re- 
ligion, disregardful  of  the  sneers  and  buffets  of  the  people  around 
them,  and  ready  to  go  their  own  way  and  stick  to  their  own 
faith  no  matter  what  happened. 

It  would  be  interesting  to  trace  the  development  of  the  Jews 
still  farther.  Throughout  their  whole  history  they  have  been 
subjected  to  indignities  and  persecutions  largely  because  of  the 
very  traits  which  make  them  Jews,  the  traits  which  were  first 
selected  by  the  environment  of  the  rocky  plateau,  and  were  later 
intensified  by  captivity.  Simply  because  the  Jew  has  been  either 
forced  or  self-impelled  to  migrate  so  widely,  the  temptation  to 
give  up  his  old  faith  and  his  racial  identity  has  been  peculiarly 
strong.  At  the  same  time  because  the  Jew  has  such  pronounced 
characteristics  and  looks  with  such  disdain  on  other  religions 
the  tendency  to  persecute  him  has  been  great. 

Without  taking  time  to  trace  Jewish  history,  let  us  consider 
what  happens  in  persecutions  such  as  the  pogroms  which  have  been 
so  frequent  in  Russia  even  within  our  own  memory.  According 
to  common  report  two  types  of  people  are  likely  to  suffer.  In 
the  first  place  the  authorities  are  likely  to  connive  at  or  even 
cause  the  death  or  exile  of  any  Jews  who  stand  out  as  leaders  in 
war  or  politics.  To-day,  of  course,  this  tendency  is  passing  away, 
but  we  are  talking  of  what  has  happened  in  the  past.  In  those 
times  a  Jew  who  achieved  eminence  in  either  miUtary  or  politi- 
cal affairs  was  particularly  an  object  of  enmity.  On  the  other 
hand,  if  he  distinguished  himself  in  medicine  or  science,  or  in 
his  own  rabbinical  lore,  he  incurred  no  special  hatred  among 
the  Christians  and  Moslems  who  Hved  around  him.  In  fact,  if 
he  were  a  physician,  for  example,  he  might  be  highly  revered. 
Oftentimes  such  men  were  so  deeply  respected  that  they  were 
carefully  shielded  at  times  of  persecution.  Between  the  political 
and  military  leaders  on  the  one  hand  and  the  scientific  leaders 


136 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


on  the  other  stood  the  merchants.  They  were  hated  because  of 
their  power  and  extortion,  but  were  also  feared  for  the  same 
reasons.  Moreover,  they  were  pecuHarly  able  to  purchase  pro- 
tection. Thus  the  first  kind  of  selection  during  Jewish  persecu- 
tions has  been  to  weed  out  the  active,  aggressive  leaders  who 
tried  to  give  the  Jews  military  power  or  political  unity,  while 
the  capable  merchants  have  suffered  far  less  and  the  leaders 
who  have  benefited  mankind  by  the  arts  of  healing  or  by  scien- 
tific knowledge  have  had  a  still  better  chance  for  preservation. 

Consider  now  what  persecution  has  done  to  the  Jewish  rank 
and  file,  as  contrasted  with  the  leaders.  All  over  the  world  it 
seems  to  be  the  rule  that  the  mobs  who  engage  in  massacres  are 
largely  a  rabble  of  the  baser  sort  intent  on  revenge,  plunder,  and 
excitement.  Such  people  live  in  the  poorer  sections  of  the  cities, 
which  usually  means  that  they  are  near  neighbors  of  the  poorer 
Jewish  quarters.  Those  poorer  Jewish  quarters  as  a  rule  are  the 
first  to  be  attacked.  For  that  reason  and  because  of  the  relative 
poverty  and  incompetence  of  the  inhabitants,  the  Jews  in  those 
parts  of  the  cities  suffer  more  than  do  those  of  the  more  prosper- 
ous quarters.  Not  only  are  they  less  able  to  escape  death,  but 
those  who  survive  often  lose  home,  property,  and  friends,  and 
have  nothing  to  fall  back  on.  Inevitably  many  of  the  people  who 
are  weak  in  mind  and  body  are  weeded  out,  as  are  those  of  less 
tenacious  spirit  who  under  the  stress  of  persecution  give  up  their 
faith.  Moreover,  certain  types  of  Jews  have  a  great  advantage 
under  persecution.  One  such  type  consists  of  people  who  can 
skilfully  dissemble;  another  of  those  who  can  wheedle  their  per- 
secutors into  leniency;  and  a  third  of  those  who  know  how  to 
place  attractive  bargains  before  their  oppressors.  The  farther 
we  go  in  studying  the  way  in  which  oppression  and  persecution 
have  weeded  out  some  types  of  Jews  and  preserved  others,  the 
clearer  it  becomes  that  in  general  the  Jews  who  possess  the  sup- 
posedly typical  traits  of  that  race  are  the  type  best  able  to 
weather  the  storms  of  persecution.  Doubtless  the  training  of 
the  Jews  enters  into  the  matter,  but  that  does  not  alter  the  case 
appreciably.  What  we  are  here  concerned  with  is  the  fact  that 


JEWS,  ARMENIANS,  AND  TURKS  137 


persecution,  oppression,  and  the  indignities  to  which  the  Jews 
have  been  subjected  from  time  out  of  mind  tend  to  place  a  handi- 
cap on  certain  inherent  types  of  character  and  a  premium  on 
the  kind  of  character  which  is  typically  Jewish. 

Let  us  turn  now  to  another  race.  The  Armenians  are  often 
spoken  of  in  the  same  breath  as  the  Jews.  For  thousands  of  years 
their  ancestors  appear  to  have  been  settled  villagers  who  culti- 
vated the  plateaus  and  basins  among  the  mountains  of  Armenia. 
There  they  acquired  something  of  the  tenacity  of  spirit  which 
is  so  often  ingrained  in  highlanders  like  the  upland  Scotch  and 
Swiss  as  well  as  the  Jews.  Among  them  the  traits  that  were 
most  valuable  as  a  means  of  preserving  the  race  were  the  ability 
to  cultivate  the  fields,  to  work  steadily,  and  to  carry  on  the 
common  handicrafts. 

Let  me  tell  some  of  my  experiences  among  the  Armenians. 
One  day  in  company  with  an  Armenian  sheep-dealer  I  was  riding 
on  horseback  across  a  fertile  plain  set  among  the  great  moun- 
tains of  Armenia.  My  host  that  night  was  a  Turk  of  the  more 
prosperous  village  type.  While  the  sheep-dealer  was  tending  the 
horses  my  host  and  I  fell  to  talking  of  the  massacres  in  the  years 
from  1895  to  1897  in  which  perhaps  200,000  Armenians  per- 
ished. "What  kind  of  people  are  these?''  said  the  Turk. 
"Three  years  ago  we  killed  half  of  them  in  this  village,  and 
took  everything  away  from  the  rest.  And  now,''  as  the  Turkish 
idiom  puts  it,  "they  eat  better  than  we  do.  What  can  we  do 
about  it?" 

Unconsciously  that  Turk  was  asking  why  the  inexorable 
process  which  Darwin  called  natural  selection  has  given  these 
people  such  remarkable  unity  and  such  clearly  defined  traits. 
The  answer  is  suggested  in  such  experiences  as  this:  During  the 
four  years  that  I  lived  and  taught  in  Turkey  I  several  times 
visited  the  little  plain  of  Bermaz  south  of  Harput.  The  people 
of  its  dozen  villages  are  fanatical  Moslems  who  are  sometimes 
spoken  of  as  Kurds  and  sometimes  as  Turks.  They  have  the  curi- 
ous custom  of  making  the  sign  of  the  cross  before  their  meals. 
Why?    Because  once  Bermaz  was  inhabited  by  Christian  Ar- 


138 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


menians.  During  a  period  of  massacres  and  persecution  many 
generations  ago,  the  majority  of  the  surviving  villagers  gave  up 
the  struggle  and  "turned  Turk."  Those  who  would  not  become 
Mohammedans  fled  or  were  killed.  The  renegade  Armenians 
who  remained  in  the  villages  tried  to  pattern  their  Hves  after 
the  surrounding  Mohammedans,  but  the  habit  of  years  persisted 
in  the  sign  of  the  cross.  Perhaps  at  first  they  clung  to  it  in  the 
secret  hope  that  some  day  they  might  again  become  Christians. 

I  have  known  other  Armenians  who  gave  up  Christianity. 
One  was  a  professor  in  the  American  college  where  I  taught. 
To  save  himself  and  his  family  from  outrage  and  death  he  agreed 
to  become  a  Moslem,  but  after  the  massacres  were  over  he 
turned  back  to  his  old  faith.  He  was  a  good  man,  a  friend  of 
mine,  and  lived  thereafter  a  useful  and  honored  life  until  he  was 
foully  murdered  during  the  massacres  of  the  World  War.  But 
he  had  less  tenacity  of  purpose,  less  power  of  passive  resistance 
than  most  of  his  fellow  professors  of  the  Armenian  race.  He  was 
not  lost  to  his  race,  for  he  had  the  courage  to  return  to  the  faith 
of  his  fathers  even  while  it  was  still  dangerous  to  do  so.  But 
many  others  who  "turned  Turk"  failed  to  re-enter  the  Armenian 
fold.  Thus  it  has  been  for  centuries.  During  massacre  after 
massacre  a  certain  portion  of  the  Armenian  race  has  separated 
itself  from  the  remainder  and  gone  over  to  the  Turks.  Not  all 
kinds  of  people  have  done  this,  but  only  those  who  had  less  will- 
power than  the  average.  A  strenuous  process  of  natural  selec- 
tion has  gone  on  whereby  those  Armenians  who  have  less  te- 
nacity of  purpose,  less  devotion  to  their  race  and  their  religion, 
less  ability  to  endure  hardship  and  obloquy,  and  even  to  face 
death,  have  gone  out  from  among  the  Armenians  and  become 
part  of  the  Turks.  Always  the  bargain  has  tended  to  raise  the 
average  level  of  determination,  will-power,  and  perseverance 
among  the  Armenians  who  remained  true  to  their  race. 

The  qualities  which  have  thus  been  concentrated  in  the  Ar- 
menians by  hundreds  of  years  of  persecution  sometimes  have  a 
disagreeable  as  well  as  a  good  side.  An  Armenian  boy  once  came 
to  a  friend  of  mine  who  teaches  in  an  American  school  in  Turkey. 


JEWS,  ARMENIANS,  AND  TURKS  139 


The  boy  wanted  not  only  to  be  admitted  to  the  school  but  to 
get  some  help  in  defraying  his  expenses.  He  did  not  appear 
promising  and  my  friend  sent  him  away  unsatisfied.  A  month 
or  so  later  he  came  again,  with  the  same  result.  A  third  time  he 
appeared  with  his  plea,  and  was  so  persistent  that  not  only  did 
he  have  to  be  shown  the  open  door,  but  to  be  given  a  little  push 
to  get  him  out.  A  Turkish  boy  in  the  same  situation  would  have 
hesitated  about  asking  help,  he  would  have  been  polite  and  agree- 
able, and  after  one  refusal  would  never  have  been  heard  from 
again.  But  what  finally  happened?  The  Armenian  boy  came 
again;  he  got  what  he  wanted  because  of  his  much  speaking. 
And  more  than  that,  he  made  good.  Crude  as  he  was,  there 
was  sterling  stuff  in  him.  He  was  laughed  at  by  the  other  boys, 
and  his  teachers  were  alternately  vexed  and  amused  by  his  lu- 
dicrous blunders,  but  he  worked  intently,  and  finally  won  the 
respect  of  his  mates  and  teachers,  and  proved  that  it  was  worth 
while  to  educate  him.  He  was  the  normal  product  of  a  process 
of  natural  selection  which  puts  a  tremendous  premium  on  per- 
sistence. 

Still  another  kind  of  natural  selection  has  helped  to  give  the 
Armenians  their  peculiar  character.  It  is  estimated  that  about  a 
million  Armenians  were  driven  south  into  the  Syrian  desert 
during  the  World  War.  I  have  heard  a  high-bred  Armenian  girl 
tell  the  story  of  that  deportation  to  a  committee  of  Congress. 
She  brought  tears  to  the  eyes  of  those  seasoned  politicians. 
With  superb  self-control  she  related  how  she  was  driven  from 
home  at  the  age  of  twelve  by  a  band  of  rough  Turkish  soldiers; 
how  her  father  had  already  been  carried  off  and  presumably 
killed  by  the  Turks;  how  her  brother  and  uncle  were  taken  from 
her;  and  she  and  her  mother  were  left  unprotected.  Some  of  the 
few  remaining  Armenian  men  were  shot  almost  within  sight  of 
the  women  and  children  who  heard  the  screams  of  the  wounded. 
Then  the  helpless  survivors  were  forced  onward  over  rough 
mountain  trails  until  their  bodies  ached  with  weariness,  hunger, 
and  thirst;  their  limbs  sank  under  them,  and  they  fainted  from 
utter  exhaustion.    After  a  week  of  such  travel  the  girl  was  sold 


140  THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 

for  sixty  cents  (I  think  that  was  the  sum)  to  a  Kurdish  chief, 
and  was  taken  to  his  harem  along  with  other  girls.  They  tried 
to  make  her  become  a  Moslem,  but  she  would  not  renounce 
Christianity.  They  tortured  and  killed  another  young  woman 
in  her  presence  to  make  her  yield,  but  she  would  not.  Then, 
when  she  was  unconscious  from  blows,  they  tattooed  her  face 
with  great  blue  marks  and  said:  "We  have  made  a  Moslem 
of  her."  At  last  there  came  a  day  when  she  could  stand  it  no 
longer.  Jumping  from  a  window,  she  fled  along  a  mountain 
path.  But  she  miscalculated  her  time;  some  one  saw  her,  and 
a  band  of  horsemen  gave  chase.  With  shouts  and  jeers  they 
tied  her  by  a  rope  to  the  tail  of  a  horse  and  dragged  her  back, 
bruised  into  unconsciousness.  And  still  she  clung  to  Christianity 
and  to  her  race,  until  at  length  a  British  force  arrived  and  freed 
her.  If  a  girl  between  the  ages  of  twelve  and  fifteen  can  have 
such  tenacity  and  courage,  is  it  any  wonder  that  the  Armenians 
are  one  of  the  most  tenacious  races  on  the  face  of  the  earth? 
She  was  only  one  of  thousands  who  suffered  similarly.  It  was 
the  ones  most  strongly  endued  with  her  quahties  who  escaped 
from  captivity  and  came  back  to  their  own  people  to  be  the 
mothers  of  the  Armenians  of  the  future.  And  this  same  thing 
has  happened  not  only  within  the  present  decade,  but  time  after 
time  in  the  past. 

We  have  spoken  of  the  selection  of  moral  quahties  which  is 
a  feature  of  persecutions,  massacres,  and  deportations,  but  there 
is  likewise  a  physical  and  mental  selection.  Among  the  milHon 
Armenians,  more  or  less,  who  were  driven  into  the  Syrian  desert 
during  the  World  War,  about  a  quarter  drifted  back,  chiefly 
through  Aleppo.  There  they  were  cared  for  by  the  American 
Red  Cross.  Doctor  Lambert,  who  was  at  Aleppo  two  years  and 
who  had  charge  of  the  medical  work  for  a  year,  has  written  a 
significant  report  on  post-war  medical  conditions  among  the 
refugees.  The  returning  sufferers  had  been  half  starved  and  half 
frozen;  they  had  suffered  ahnost  intolerably  from  the  heat  of 
summer  and  the  unmitigated  attacks  of  vermin.  Many  were 
not  only  weak  but  sick.  Yet  the  physicians  were  continually  im- 


JEWS,  ARMENIANS,  AND  TURKS  141 


pressed  by  the  organic  soundness  of  the  stricken  refugees.  The 
'  weaklings  had  been  relentlessly  picked  out  for  destruction. 
Although  no  exact  figures  are  available,  it  seems  almost  certain 
that  the  mentally  weak  were  destroyed  or  otherwise  lost  to  the 
Armenian  race  even  more  effectively  than  the  physically  weak. 
When  the  Armenians  were  driven  from  their  homes  almost 
without  warning,  those  who  were  mentally  most  alert  went 
out  best  prepared.  They  knew  how  to  wheedle  their  captors 
into  giving  them  a  chance  to  procure  food  and  shelter,  while 
the  stupid  merely  angered  their  savage  herdsmen  and  brought 
blows  and  violence  upon  themselves.  The  mentally  dull  were 
likewise  the  easiest  to  persuade  into  giving  up  their  religion. 
Having  once  become  Moslems  they  were  less  likely  than  their 
more  quick-witted  kinsmen  to  return  to  their  old  faith  and 
race  when  better  times  at  length  arrived.  Among  the  children 
and  especially  the  girls  who  were  carried  to  Moslem  houses,  it 
was  the  quick-witted,  the  resourceful,  and  the  tenacious  who 
ultimately  escaped.  By  processes  such  as  these,  during  one 
dire  massacre  after  another,  the  dross  has  been  consumed  and 
the  gold  refined.  Thus  natural  selection,  combined  with  other 
circumstances,  has  produced  in  the  Armenians  a  character 
closely  similar  to  that  of  the  Jews. 

But  mark  another  feature  of  this  process  in  both  Jews  and 
Armenians.  Almost  on  the  very  day  when  the  Congressmen 
shed  tears  over  the  story  of  the  bravery  of  an  Armenian  girl,  I 
heard  some  young  Americans  berate  a  highly  educated  and 
highly  competent  young  Armenian,  an  American  citizen,  be- 
cause he  alone  of  a  group  of  a  dozen  associates  had  failed  to 
i  enter  the  army  during  the  World  War.  No  ties  of  family  or  kin- 
dred held  the  Armenian  back,  he  was  physically  fit,  and  the  fate 
of  his  own  people  was  at  stake.  He  stayed  at  home,  as  all  his 
comrades  believed,  because  he  was  afraid.  Is  this  consistent 
with  the  character  of  the  race  as  illustrated  by  the  girl?  I  think 
it  is.  Both  the  girl  and  the  man  had  an  unusual  tenacity  and 
capacity  for  passive  resistance.  But  the  man,  and  perhaps  the 
girl,  lacked  the  sort  of  aggressive  boldness  which  is  character- 


142 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


istic  of  the  soldier.  This  is  in  harmony  with  all  the  later  history 
of  the  Armenians  and  Jews.  Both  races  seem  to  be  deficient  in 
mihtary  quahties,  and  especially  in  the  power  of  military  and 
poHtical  organization.  As  a  leading  Armenian  professor  once 
said  to  me:  ^^We  want  our  own  government,  but  I  am  not  sure 
how  long  we  could  run  it  unaided.  We  do  not  trust  each  other." 
What  he  really  meant  was  that,  although  the  Armenians  are  un- 
usually competent  in  certain  Hnes  such  as  business  and  many 
scientific  and  Hterary  pursuits,  they  have  relatively  Httle  capac- 
ity for  pohtical  as  well  as  mihtary  leadership.  The  reason,  in 
part  at  least,  seems  to  be  that  for  a  thousand  years  the  mihtary 
and  pohtical  leaders  have  been  the  first  to  suffer  at  times  of 
persecution. 

Now  contrast  the  Turks  with  the  Armenians.  Almost  every 
one  who  knows  the  two  races  intimately  agrees  that  the  Turk, 
so  long  as  he  is  under  control,  is  far  easier  to  get  along  with  than 
the  Armenian.  He  is  more  hospitable,  more  courteous,  more 
suave,  less  assertive,  less  likely  to  make  a  sharp  bargain.  Most 
of  the  time  he  is  a  mild,  gentle  sort  of  person,  a  dehghtful  host, 
who  seems  never  to  have  anything  to  do  except  look  after  the 
interests  of  his  guests.  But  there  is  another  and  more  important 
phase  of  the  matter.  If  one  wants  a  good  carpenter,  a  good 
mason,  a  good  accountant,  or  a  good  business  man,  only  rarely 
does  one  employ  a  Turk  if  an  Armenian  is  available.  And  if 
one  makes  a  bargain  with  the  Turkish  Government,  one  may  be 
almost  sure  that  nothing  but  constant  watchfulness  and  prod- 
ding will  cause  it  to  be  carried  out.  Moreover,  the  Turkish  peasant 
is  by  no  means  industrious  in  the  fashion  of  the  Armenian.  Put 
the  two  side  by  side  and  soon  there  almost  inevitably  arises  the 
condition  already  expressed  in  the  Turkish  idiom:  "The  Ar- 
menians eat  better  than  we  do." 

Compare  this  with  a  case  which,  though  perhaps  extreme,  is 
in  many  respects  typical  of  the  Turkish  peasant.  Before  the 
World  War  a  German  company  was  installing  an  irrigation  sys- 
tem whereby  to  bring  the  water  of  Lake  Bey  Shehr  to  the  plain 
of  Konia.  The  Turkish  peasants  looked  askance  at  the  work  of 


JEWS,  ARMENIANS,  AND  TURKS  143 


the  foreigners,  but  one  day  one  of  them  was  impressed  by  the 
arguments  of  a  German  engineer. 

"When  we  turn  the  water  onto  your  fields,"  said  the  engineer, 
"you  won't  have  any  more  poor  crops  and  hard  times.  You'll 
get  four  times  as  much  grain  as  now." 

The  peasant  thought  deeply  for  a  few  minutes.  Then  he 
stood  up,  adjusted  his  fez,  and  gave  voice  to  a  brilliant  idea: 

"Do  you  know  what  111  do  when  that  day  comes?  I'll  sell 
three-fourths  of  my  land,  and  cultivate  only  a  quarter.  Then 
I'll  only  have  to  work  a  quarter  as  hard  as  I  do  now." 

If  the  Armenians  are  really  so  much  more  competent  than 
the  Turks,  why  have  they  for  hundreds  of  years  been  so  com- 
pletely at  the  mercy  of  these  ruthless  masters?  The  answer,  I 
believe,  lies  largely  in  the  selective  power  of  the  original  modes 
of  life  of  the  two  races,  plus  the  further  selection  that  has  gone 
on  through  massacres  and  otherwise  since  they  have  been  in 
contact.  The  Armenian  has  for  untold  centuries  been  a  tiller 
of  the  soil  and  a  villager.  For  him  the  qualities  that  have  made 
it  possible  to  bring  up  large  families  in  health  and  comfort  have 
been  steady  industry,  skill  in  agriculture,  good  artisanship,  and 
business  acumen.  Since  there  has  been  little  restriction  of  fami- 
lies, success  along  these  lines  has  meant  that  parents  have  brought 
many  children  to  maturity,  whereas  lack  of  success  has  meant 
poverty  and  poor  health  so  that  great  numbers  of  the  children 
have  died  in  childhood. 

Among  the  Turks,  on  the  contrary,  there  has  been  no  such 
premium  on  the  substantial  qualities  which  tend  to  develop  a 
strong,  capable  middle  class.  From  time  immemorial  until  they 
finally  settled  in  Asia  Minor  the  Turks  were  nomadic  keepers  of 
sheep,  camels,  and  horses.  They  had  no  special  need  of  steady 
industry,  of  skill  as  artisans,  of  ability  in  agriculture,  or  of  ca- 
pacity for  business.  Those  quahties  did  not  help  in  supporting 
wives  and  children.  If  a  nomad  had  the  capacity  to  lead  a  raid 
successfully,  and  to  direct  the  pursuit  when  wolves  stampeded 
the  herds,  or  if  he  obeyed  his  leader  implicitly  at  such  times,  he 
had  a  far  greater  chance  of  success  than  if  he  was  steadily  in- 


144 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


dustrious,  or  had  the  qualities  which  make  a  good  carpenter 
or  a  good  trader.  The  nomad  must  be  able  to  ford  mountain 
streams,  face  the  leopard,  or  endure  hunger,  thirst,  and  fatigue 
during  a  raid  or  a  hunt  for  stray  animals.  The  rest  of  the  time 
he  may  be  utterly  idle  and  yet  be  successful  and  prosperous. 

In  Elliot's  Turkey  in  Europe,  one  of  the  most  penetrating 
books  ever  written  on  the  races  and  problems  of  the  Near  East, 
a  striking  passage  sets  forth  the  idea  that  the  Turk  is  still  a 
nomad.  He  never  seems  to  feel  that  he  is  permanently  settled. 
At  least  he  acts  as  if  that  were  the  case.  If  he  wants  a  sheet- 
iron  stove  in  his  house,  he  does  not  take  the  trouble  to  build  a 
chimney,  or  even  to  carry  the  pipe  to  a  window.  He  simply  knocks 
a  hole  in  the  wall,  sticks  the  pipe  through,  stuffs  the  cracks  with 
rags  to  keep  out  the  wind,  and  lets  it  go  at  that.  What  is  the  use 
of  bothering  to  do  more  ?  To-morrow  it  may  be  the  will  of  Allah 
that  we  move  on. 

All  through  the  Turkish  mentality  there  can  be  traced  the 
old  nomadic  life.  For  instance,  the  Turk,  as  I  have  said,  is  a 
mild,  pleasant  man  at  most  times,  but  push  him  beyond  a  cer- 
tain point  and  he  becomes  a  fiend  incarnate.  When  aroused  to 
attack  his  Christian  neighbors,  or  to  fight,  he  does  it  with  a 
complete  abandon  which  makes  him  most  terrible.  This  is  per- 
haps merely  a  remnant  of  the  old  spirit  whereby  the  nomad 
would  sit  idle  for  day  after  day,  and  then  undergo  almost  in- 
credible exertions  and  privations  during  the  short  period  of  a 
raid,  or  more  often  a  search  for  stray  animals. 

Again,  there  is  no  middle  class  of  Turks  comparable  in  size 
or  quahty  with  that  of  the  Armenians.  One  reason  is  that 
when  the  Turks  came  to  AnatoHa  from  central  Asia  they  spHt 
into  three  strongly  contrasted  sections:  a  smaU  ruling  class; 
those  who  continued  to  be  nomads;  and  those  who  became 
farmers,  which  happened  largely  because  they  were  not  suffi- 
ciently competent  to  maintain  a  position  in  either  of  the  other 
classes.  Another  reason  for  the  absence  of  a  strong  Turkish 
middle  class  is  that  in  receiving  people  from  other  races,  includ- 
ing the  Armenians,  the  Turks  have  generally  gotten  either  the 


JEWS,  ARMENIANS,  AND  TURKS  145 


worst  or  the  best  of  the  bargain,  but  have  rarely  exchanged  on 
equal  terms.  It  has  been  the  weaker  and  more  incompetent 
Christians  who  have  succumbed  to  the  urge  of  Mohammedanism, 
but  it  has  been  the  finest  and  most  attractive  girls  who  have 
been  taken  permanently  into  the  harems  of  the  Turkish  leaders. 

At  first  thought  it  might  be  said  that  the  strong  middle  class 
of  the  Armenians  ought  to  have  given  them  the  upper  hand. 
But  here  appears  another  factor.  Not  only  have  leaders  of  the 
poHtical  and  mihtary  type  been  killed  off  unmercifully  among 
the  Armenians  during  massacres,  but  the  farming  mode  of  life 
does  not  tend  greatly  toward  the  production  of  such  leaders. 
Thus  the  Armenians  were  relatively  weak  in  this  respect  before 
the  arrival  of  the  Turks,  and  have  grown  weaker  with  the  lapse 
of  time.  Among  nomads,  on  the  contrary,  as  we  saw  in  an  earlier 
chapter,  success  and  even  preservation  depend  largely  upon  the 
quality  of  leadership.  And  that  is  where  the  Turks  are  strong. 
They  came  to  Turkey  as  bands  of  nomads,  the  leaders  and  the 
led.  The  leaders  became  the  rulers,  they  took  to  themselves 
wives  from  among  the  best  of  the  native  races,  they  strengthened 
their  racial  stock.  Their  main  road  to  success  and  thus  to  large 
harems  and  many  children  was  through  mihtary  and  political 
leadership. 

The  poUtical  leadership  often  takes  merely  the  form  of  play- 
ing off  one  party  or  one  power  against  another,  but  nevertheless 
it  is  very  real.  Consider  the  events  of  recent  history.  The  sultans 
have  often  been  inefficient,  but  it  is  surprising  to  see  how  fre- 
quently they  have  had  quahties  like  those  of  the  crafty  Abdul 
Hamid  which  somehow  kept  them  on  top  when  by  all  the  ordi- 
nary laws  of  the  game  they  ought  to  have  sunk.  Turkey  has 
been  called  the  Sick  Man  of  Europe  until  we  are  tired  of  the 
phrase.  But  that  sick  man  has  kept  the  upper  hand  for  a  cen- 
tury. After  the  World  War  he  defeated  the  Greeks,  kept  all 
Europe  at  bay,  and  for  a  time  at  least  made  himself  the  only 
one  of  all  the  v/arring  nations  which  came  out  a  marked  gainer 
by  reason  of  a  decade  of  war.  All  through  the  period  after  the 
war,  just  as  in  the  earlier  years,  the  Turks  have  had  leader  after 


146 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


leader— not  great  men^  perhaps,  but  competent  enough  to  hold 
their  people  together,  outwit  the  statesmen  of  Europe,  and  main- 
tain armies  in  the  field  when  any  other  nation  would  have  been 
likely  to  give  up  in  absolute  bankruptcy.  The  Armenians,  on 
the  contrary,  have  had  no  real  leader  for  many  generations. 

Here  then  is  where  the  matter  stands  to-day.  When  fighters 
like  the  Turks  who  know  how  to  lead  and  how  to  be  led,  and 
who  are  temporarily  capable  of  enormous  exertion,  meet  men 
Hke  the  Armenians,  accustomed  to  steady  industry,  but  unused 
to  being  led,  not  given  to  surges  of  sudden  activity,  and  lacking 
military  leadership,  the  result  is  certain.  The  side  which  is  usu- 
ally counted  the  more  valuable  from  the  standpoint  of  civih- 
zation  goes  down  before  the  side  which  is  pecuHarly  adapted 
to  primitive  war.  Ever  since  the  first  encounter  of  the  two  races 
the  disadvantage  of  the  Armenians  has  increased.  During  or- 
dinary times  the  Turk,  because  of  his  nomadic  nature,  neglects 
the  details  of  government,  business,  and  every  other  occupation. 
The  Armenian  gradually  gains  power.  Then  the  Turk  rouses 
himself  and  tries  to  regain  by  violence  what  he  has  lost  by  sloth. 

The  much-persecuted  Armenians  are  peculiarly  homogeneous, 
peculiarly  distinct  in  racial  character,  and  peculiarly  strong  in 
racial  coherence.  They  are  extraordinarily  persistent,  patient, 
and  tenacious  even  to  the  point  of  being  disagreeable.  They  have 
great  capacity  in  business  and  in  the  handicrafts  and  arts.  They 
have  no  mean  standing  in  the  more  intellectual  pursuits.  They 
are  conspicuously  free  from  criminal  inclination  and  the  ten- 
dency to  become  a  public  charge.  And  with  all  this  they  are  of 
a  strong,  tough,  enduring  physique.  These  high  qualities  have 
been  bred  in  the  race  by  centuries  of  agricultural  life  and  of  the 
most  cruel  persecution  that  can  well  be  imagined.  But  unfor- 
tunately by  reason  of  lack  of  one  special  type  of  genius  this  sturdy, 
self-reliant,  middle-class  people  are  a  prey  to  the  Turks  with 
their  capable  military  and  political  leaders  and  their  relatively 
stupid,  docile  lower  class  who  can  easily  be  aroused  to  fight  like 
their  nomadic  ancestors.  So  the  Armenians,  who  under  a  wiser 
government  might  have  been  the  soHd  backbone  of  Turkey,  her 


JEWS,  ARMENIANS,  AND  TURKS  147 


essential  middle  class,  are  wanderers  on  the  face  of  the  earth, 
seeking  a  home  in  which  they  can  rally  under  the  leadership  which 
is  their  sorest  need.  If  the  Turks  and  Armenians  were  of  one 
religion  and  could  form  a  single  race,  that  race  would  apparently 
possess  a  peculiarly  strong  combination  of  qualities.  It  would 
have  a  docile  peasantry,  partly  Armenian  but  containing  a  larger 
proportion  of  Turks,  a  peasantry  not  highly  intelligent  or  ex- 
tremely active,  but  good-tempered  and  easy  to  get  along  with 
so  long  as  it  was  treated  justly.  There  would  likewise  be  a  strong 
middle  class,  largely  Armenian,  very  industrious  and  with  good 
mental  capacities.  And  there  would  be  strong  leadership  furnished 
by  Armenians  in  the  lines  of  business,  science,  and  most  of  the 
professions,  and  by  Turks  in  military  and  political  lines.  To-day, 
by  their  expulsion  of  the  Armenians,  the  Turks  seem  definitely 
to  have  put  an  end  to  the  prospect  of  such  a  race,  at  least  for 
a  long  time. 


CHAPTER  X 


CYCLES  OF  CHINESE  HISTORY 

The  history  of  China  consists  of  a  repeated  and  dramatic 
cycle  of  invasion,  migration,  progress,  decay,  anarchy,  and  again 
invasion.  The  invaders  practically  always  have  come  from  the 
northwest  or  north,  that  is,  from  the  deserts  of  Turkestan  and 
Mongolia,  or  from  Manchuria.  The  first  invaders  may  have  been 
the  original  Chinese,  but  as  to  that  we  have  no  certain  knowledge. 
The  later  invaders  have  been  Hiung-nu,  Mongols,  Tartars,  and 
Manchus,  and  have  been  either  nomadic  keepers  of  animals,  or 
the  descendants  of  such  nomads.  "There  is  excellent  ground," 
as  Parker  says  in  his  vivacious  history  of  China,  "for  believing 
that  the  Scythians,  Huns,  and  Hiung-nu  were  practically  re- 
shuffles of  one  and  the  same  assemblage  of  people— the  Turks 
and  Mongols  of  later  date."  The  Manchus  belong  to  this  same 
group. 

As  Parthians,  Mamluks,  Mongols,  Seljuk  and  Ottoman  Turks,  to  leave 
the  lesser  breeds  unnamed,  the  distant  congeners  of  the  Manchus  have  not 
only  invaded  but  repeatedly  controlled  all  the  civilized  nations  of  the  con- 
tinent. The  history  of  China  cannot  be  properly  understood  unless  due 
notice  is  taken  of  the  impact  of  her  northern  neighbors  from  the  period  of 
the  great  Ch'in  [249  B.  C],  to  recent  times,  nor  can  we  afford  to  neglect  the 
fact  that  her  own  great  dynasties  and  governing  element  have  come  from 
those  northern  provinces  which  are  chiefly  peopled  by  descendants  of  a 
Tartar-Chinese  intermixture.    (F.  W.  Williams.) 

In  spite  of  great  walls  and  armies  the  settled  Chinese  have 
never  been  able  to  keep  these  competent  barbarians  of  the  desert 
out  of  China  for  more  than  a  few  hundred  years.  Time  after 
time  they  have  swooped  down  upon  the  agricultural  Chinese 
and  overwhehned  them.  The  greatest  of  such  disasters  (or  were 
they  blessings?)  have  occurred  at  times  when  unusually  severe 

148 


CYCLES  OF  CHINESE  HISTORY 


149 


and  prolonged  periods  of  increasing  aridity  appear  to  have  pre- 
vailed in  central  Asia;  for  example,  in  the  third  century  before 
Christ,  the  fourth  and  fifth  of  the  present  era,  and  again  in  the 
twelfth  and  thirteenth.  Thus  the  stress  of  economic  want  and 
the  capacity  for  leadership  which  we  have  found  to  be  character- 
istic of  nomads  have  combined  to  cause  the  desert  peoples  to 
conquer  China. 

In  China  itself  the  periods  of  invasion  appear  to  have  been 
times  of  internal  chaos.  Droughts  there  as  well  as  in  the  deserts 
apparently  co-operated  with  floods  and  other  natural  disasters 
and  with  internal  degeneration  due  to  other  causes  to  reduce  the 
Chinese  to  a  state  of  almost  hopeless  anarchy.  At  such  times  the 
Chinese  of  the  north  have  been  under  the  twofold  compulsion 
of  foreign  invasion  and  economic  distress.  The  natural  result 
has  been  that  many  have  migrated  southward  or  southeastward. 
Sometimes,  without  doubt,  such  migrations  have  also  been  im- 
pelled by  the  desire  to  obtain  new  and  more  fertile  lands  or  to 
acquire  the  wealth  of  more  prosperous  people.  But  on  the  whole 
the  outstanding  fact  is  that  when  famines  and  barbarian  in- 
vaders have  afflicted  north  China,  the  Chinese  have  streamed 
out  toward  the  south.  Wave  after  wave  of  migration  has  surged 
outward,  first  from  the  original  Chinese  centres  far  up  the 
Hoang-ho  near  its  great  southwestward  elbow  in  eastern  Shensi, 
and  later  from  all  the  northern  provinces.  Not  till  almost  the 
time  of  Christ,  perhaps  two  thousand  years  after  the  beginning 
of  recorded  Chinese  history,  did  these  waves  finally  reach  the 
coast  near  Canton. 

In  the  north  the  places  left  vacant  by  the  migrants  were 
filled  by  barbarian  invaders,  who  promptly  adopted  the  ad- 
vanced culture  of  the  Chinese  and  soon  mingled  with  them  to 
form  a  new  and  more  virile  race.  Most  of  the  Chinese  dynasties 
have  either  been  genuine  foreigners  or  else  of  mingled  Tartar- 
Chinese  stock.  For  instance,  "from  309  to  439  A.  D.,  there  was 
a  bewildering  succession  of  Hiung-nu,  Tungusic,  Tibetan,  Tibeto- 
Tungusic,  migrated  Tungusic,  and  rebel  Chinese  ^Dynasties' 
ruling  in  various  parts  of  the  north.'^    (Parker.)    Only  in  581 


150 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


A.  D.,  did  a  pure  Chinese  dynasty  rule  both  the  north  and  the 
south  and  it  almost  certainly  had  a  large  admixture  of  Tartar 
or  Hiung-nu  blood  from  earlier  migrations.  Again  for  three  hun- 
dred years  prior  to  the  Ming  dynasty  (1368  A.  D.)  the  Peking 
plain  was  in  Tartar  hands.  The  Mings  were  the  first  native 
Chinese  dynasty  to  rule  north  China  for  four  hundred  and  fifty 
years.  Counting  all  these  foreign  dynasties  together,  it  appears 
that  the  northern  part  of  China  has  probably  been  ruled  by 
avowed  foreigners  for  longer  periods  than  by  real  Chinese,  while 
most  of  the  so-called  Chinese  rulers  have  probably  had  a  good 
deal  of  the  blood  of  the  northern  deserts. 

Coincident  with  the  early  stages  of  barbarian  rule  in  north 
China,  the  Chinese  migrants  to  the  south  and  southeast  have 
advanced  into  regions  peopled  by  primitive  aborigines.  At  first 
this  happened  in  the  Yangtse  valley,  and  then  farther  and  farther 
south  until  Canton,  Yunnan,  and  the  island  of  Hainan  were 
reached.  In  later  times  this  same  process  of  migration  has  car- 
ried the  southeastern  Chinese  to  Formosa,  Indo-China,  Java, 
and  the  Malay  peninsula,  where  their  type  of  culture  would 
probably  have  become  dominant  had  it  not  met  the  equally  ac- 
tive culture  of  Europe.  In  the  southerly  migrations  the  Chinese 
have  intermarried  relatively  little  with  aborigines  and  often  have 
exterminated  them.  Nor  have  the  invaders  adopted  anything  of 
importance  in  the  culture  of  the  aborigines  upon  whom  they  have 
forced  themselves,  thus  reversing  the  conditions  in  regions  where 
the  northern  barbarians  forced  themselves  upon  the  Chmese.  It 
is  not  strange,  therefore,  that  time  after  time  "the  true  Chinese 
were  not  ...  to  be  found  in  Old  China,  but  in  all  those  parts 
which,  as  immigrants,  their  ancestors  from  Old  China  had  pop- 
ulated." (Parker.) 

After  a  cycle  of  Chinese  history  has  passed  through  the  stages 
of  invasion,  anarchy,  and  migration,  it  generally  enters  a  stage 
of  progress.  Again  and  again  this  has  happened  under  the  bril- 
liant leadership  of  an  invading  dynasty  as  in  the  case  of  the  Mon- 
gols and  Manchus.  One  of  the  most  significant  facts  in  Chinese 
history  is  the  extent  to  which  the  regions  and  periods  where  in- 


CYCLES  OF  CHINESE  HISTORY  151 


vaders  have  been  dominant  have  been  characterized  by  new 
ideas,  inventions,  and  noteworthy  steps  in  the  progress  of  civiUza- 
tion.  It  seems  not  improbable  that  the  selective  action  of  mi- 
gration has  helped  to  bring  into  north  China  successive  groups 
of  unusually  competent  people  who  have  been  important  agents 
in  producing  the  upward  swing  in  the  successive  cycles  of  his- 
tory. 

The  Manchus  furnished  an  excellent  example  of  such  in- 
vaders. Their  "decadence — apparently  an  inevitable  result  of 
their  contact  with  a  higher  culture — should  not  bHnd  us  to  the 
extraordinary  success  of  their  great  performance."  (Williams.) 
They  conquered  not  only  all  Manchuria  and  China  proper,  but 
MongoHa,  Turkestan,  Tibet,  and  Korea.  They  were  accepted 
as  suzerains  in  Nepaul  south  of  the  great  mountains  on  the  north- 
ern flank  of  India,  and  in  Indo-China  where  Siam  listened  to 
the  authority  of  Peking,  while  Burmah  and  Annam  were  among 
the  tribute-bearers.  They  even  crossed  the  sea  and  took  posses- 
sion of  Formosa. 

As  a  land  power — the  Manchus  [were]  even  more  solidly  established 
than  the  Mongols; — for  although  the  immediate  successors  of  Jenghiz 
commanded  the  personal  attendance  before  their  desert  throne  of  Russian, 
Armenian,  and  Persian  princes,  the  most  powerful  Mongol  Emperor,  Kublai, 
really  ruled  in  an  effective  sense  over  the  Eighteen  Provinces  alone,  and  was 
at  perpetual  loggerheads  with  his  vassal  relatives  of  Persia,  Mongolia,  and 
Manchuria;  moreover,  the  Mongols  were  not  the  intellectual  or  literary 
equals  of  the  Manchus,  and  never  had  either  the  same  prudence  or  the 
same  financial  grasp  of  the  country's  resources.  (Parker.) 

Even  in  their  latest  days  the  Manchus  produced  truly  great 
personages  like  the  famous  Empress  Dowager,  in  whose  old  age 
and  weakness  the  dynasty  finally  collapsed.  No  thoughtful  per- 
son can  view  the  new  summer  place,  built  by  this  empress  after 
the  inexcusable  destruction  of  the  old  summer  place  by  the 
English  and  French  in  i860,  without  feeling  that  people  who  can 
plan  and  execute  so  magnificent  a  piece  of  landscape-gardening 
are  extremely  capable.  The  workmanship,  to  be  sure,  is  in  many 
places  shoddy,  but  parts  are  fine  and  the  general  conception  is 


152 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


splendid.  In  the  same  way  the  old  Chinese  literary  examinations 
may  be  a  poor  way  in  which  to  choose  officials,  but  success  in 
those  examinations  certainly  required  an  unusual  power  of  con- 
centration, unusual  determination,  and  many  other  high  mental 
qualities.  If  the  Manchus  had  not  possessed  those  qualities  in 
considerable  measure  we  should  scarcely  find  large  numbers  of 
them  holding  high  Chinese  literary  degrees.  Yet  in  1910,  at  the 
end  of  the  old  regime,  among  410  major  officials  who  held  such 
degrees,  50  are  recorded  as  Manchus  and  3  as  members  of  the 
Imperial  Clan. 

The  history  of  the  Manchus  suggests  that  they  acquired  their 
unusual  ability  at  least  in  part  through  natural  selection.  Of 
course,  it  must  be  recognized  here,  as  in  every  other  case,  that 
before  there  can  be  selection  there  must  be  differences  among 
which  to  select — ^mutations  or  deviations  from  the  normal,  to 
speak  biologically.  And  those  mutations  or  deviations  may 
trend  in  a  specific  direction  so  that  evolution  pursues  a  definite 
course,  or  they  may  be  induced  by  environmental  conditions  as 
to  which  we  are  still  ignorant.  That,  however,  Hes  beyond  the 
scope  of  our  present  inquiry.  We  simply  accept  the  fact  that 
the  people  of  any  given  group  may  differ  widely,  and  hence 
some  may  be  selected  by  their  physical  or  social  environment 
or  by  their  mode  of  life  for  preserv^ation  and  others  for  destruc- 
tion. 

The  first  that  we  hear  of  the  Manchus  is  in  the  begiiming  of 
the  seventh  century.  Under  the  name  Kitans,  which  is  appar- 
ently the  origin  of  Marco  Polo's  Cathay,  they  invaded  north 
China.  At  the  beginning  of  the  tenth  century  these  same  Kitans, 
although  driven  out  after  their  first  inroad,  estabhshed  them- 
selves as  a  ruling  dynasty.  Two  centuries  later  they  were  over- 
thrown by  another  alHed  dynasty,  the  Nuchin  or  Nuchens,  the 
direct  ancestors  of  the  Manchus.  A  century  or  so  later  the  Nu- 
chens were  expelled  from  China  by  the  Mongols  under  Genghiz 
Khan.  Then  for  three  centuries  they  remained  ahnost  unknown 
in  southeastern  Manchuria,  a  wild  barbarous  people,  but  pos- 
sessed of  great  vigor  and  ability.  In  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth 


CYCLES  OF  CHINESE  HISTORY 


15S 


century  a  chief  named  Nurhachu  came  into  power  and  rapidly 
established  a  Manchurian  kingdom  which  eventually  conquered 
China. 

For  our  present  purpose  the  most  significant  fact  about  the 
Manchus  seems  to  be  the  long  period  of  struggle  and  migration 
during  which  they  necessarily  underwent  a  rigid  natural  selec- 
tion. The  Tartar  ancestors  of  the  Manchus  appear  to  have 
been  pastoral  nomads  for  thousands  of  years.  Their  wandering 
life,  with  its  sudden  calls  for  exertion  and  co-operation,  as  ex- 
plained in  a  previous  chapter,  apparently  gave  them  full  measure 
of  that  power  of  leadership  which  we  see  so  strongly  in  Arabs, 
Mongols,  and  Turks,  as  well  as  Manchus,  and  which  may  have 
been  evolved  in  the  ancestors  of  the  Nordics  under  similar  con- 
ditions. When  the  ancestors  of  the  Manchus  invaded  China  as 
Kitans  and  Nuchens  they  again  apparently  suffered  selection, 
especially  when  they  were  ejected  under  the  Mongols.  Just  how 
they  migrated  back  to  their  old  home  in  Manchuria  we  do  not 
know,  but  judging  by  modern  examples  it  was  quite  surely  the 
ablest  and  most  energetic  who  returned.  Many  of  the  leaders 
were  doubtless  killed,  but  on  the  other  hand  it  is  almost  uni- 
versally true  that  in  such  cases  the  weaker,  less  efficient,  and 
more  submissive  among  a  conquered  people  remain  in  their  old 
homes.  It  is  the  people  with  initiative  and  individuality,  as  well 
as  with  physical  and  mental  vigor,  who  refuse  to  endure  humilia- 
tion, and  are  willing  to  suffer  the  loss  of  their  property  and  the 
hardships  of  migration  in  order  to  escape  from  their  conquerors. 
It  was  probably  such  people  who  retired  to  Manchuria  after  the 
Mongol  conquest.  And  it  was  the  most  competent  and  active 
of  their  descendants  who  founded  the  great  Manchu  dynasty. 
Nurhachu,  their  great  leader, 

though  he  never  entered  China,  stands  as  an  exponent  of  the  highest  quali- 
ties of  his  race,  a  creative  genius  not  only  in  strategy  but  in  politics,  the 
founder  of  a  great  tradition  capably  maintained  for  two  centuries  by  his 
descendants,  the  establisher  of  a  line  of  monarchs  which  have  been  surpassed 
by  no  other  ruling  house  during  an  equal  period  in  China.  Yet  they  suc- 
ceeded through  sheer  force  of  character,  as  the  Ottomans  have  succeeded 


154 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


during  a  much  longer  period  in  western  Asia,  in  dominating  a  people  that 
were  superior  to  them  in  every  important  quality  except  that  of  leader- 
ship.   (F.  W.  Williams.) 

In  the  case  of  the  Manchus,  as  in  that  of  other  similar  con- 
querors, we  find  an  interesting  interplay  between  ability  on  the 
part  of  the  invaders  and  natural  disasters  acting  upon  them  and 
upon  the  people  whose  lands  they  invade.  We  also  find  an  inter- 
play with  more  strictly  human  causes  such  as  the  degeneracy  of 
the  rulers  by  reason  of  luxury  and  dissipation,  and  the  weaken- 
ing of  the  people  by  internal  dissensions  and  rivalry.  Here  is 
what  F.  W.  Williams  says  of  the  period  of  the  Manchu  invasion : 

The  internal  condition  of  the  Chinese  empire  had  become  desperate 
under  a  long  series  of  famines  and  rebellions  which  had  utterly  paralyzed 
its  economic  resources  and  brought  about  a  general  anarchy.  It  is  impos- 
sible to  decide  whether  under  such  loosely  organized  agencies  as  that  of 
China  the  general  prevalence  of  distress  is  a  cause  or  a  consequence  of 
political  disturbance.  When  thickly  populous  agricultural  communities  are 
reduced  to  starvation  the  people  will  inevitably  break  up  into  robber  bands 
and  prey  upon  each  other  to  the  confusion  of  all  civil  administration.  No 
government  can  reduce  the  disorder  unless  provisions  can  be  obtained  to 
satisfy  the  needs  of  those  made  desperate  by  want;  but  a  bad  govern- 
ment may  by  its  inefficiency  aggravate  the  starving  people  and  succumb 
to  the  forces  of  disruption  thus  let  loose.  It  is  notable  that  in  the  history 
of  China  no  great  upheaval  has  occurred  without  its  concomitant  of  famine. 
In  the  third  decade  of  the  seventeenth  century  the  northern  provinces  were 
visited  by  an  unusually  severe  drought  which  was  so  badly  met  by  venal 
officials  that  multitudes  took  to  the  mountains  and  attacked  the  roads 
and  villages.  In  addition  to  these  natural  causes  weakening  authority  in  an 
imperfectly  articulated  domain,  increased  taxation  and  recurring  levies  of 
troops  to  meet  the  Manchus  began  in  1621  to  arouse  angry  opposition  in 
the  western  provinces.  Revolts  broke  out  which  were  painfully  and  only 
partly  subdued.  By  1631  the  robber  bands  throughout  all  the  inland  prov- 
inces had  swelled  to  great  armies  under  redoubtable  captains,  whose  suc- 
cesses encouraged  the  able-bodied  to  enlist  under  their  banners  and  live 
upon  the  spoil  of  captured  cities.  At  the  end  of  another  decade  Li  Tsu- 
cheng,  a  Shansi  leader,  after  many  vicissitudes,  had  become  the  greatest 
of  them  all,  and  with  an  army  composed  of  nearly  a  million  needy  adven- 
turers he  was  swarming,  in  1641,  over  the  famine-stricken  province  of 
Honan  toward  Peking.  Despite  the  impotence  of  the  imperial  government 
in  this  score  of  years  of  carnage  it  is  remarkable  that  the  various  rebel 
armies  met  with  obstinate  resistance  in  many  cities.  There  was  no  s}^te- 


CYCLES  OF  CHINESE  HISTORY 


155 


matic  opposition,  yet  owing  to  the  indomitable  spirit  in  defending  their 
own  which  characterizes  the  Chinese  people,  as  well  as  the  lack  of  organiza- 
tion among  the  rebels,  the  agony  was  long  continued.  The  contrast  between 
the  Chinese  rebel  Li  and  the  Manchu  Nurhachu  is  suggestive  as  typical 
of  the  differing  genius  of  two  races.  It  has  often  been  said  that  the  Chinese 
were  conquered  because  they  were  unwarhke.  They  showed,  on  the  contrary, 
a  persistent  fighting  eagerness  both  before  and  after  the  Manchu  irruption 
that  ranks  them  among  the  martial  people  of  the  world.  They  failed  both 
in  rebellion  and  in  defense  because  they  could  produce  no  leader  capable 
of  consolidating  and  fixing  an  orderly  system  of  control.  The  Manchus 
succeeded,  though  they  had  to  borrow  and  adapt  the  system  of  their 
enemy,  because  they  know  how  to  make  themselves  obeyed. 

In  the  normal  cycle  of  Chinese  history  the  stages  of  anarchy, 
invasion,  and  migration,  which  we  have  just  been  discussing, 
are  followed  by  a  stage  of  progress.  In  the  case  of  the  Manchus 
we  shall  say  no  more  about  this  latter  stage  because  we  have 
already  dwelt  on  it  for  the  purpose  of  emphasizing  the  great 
capacity  of  that  northern  dynasty.  There  remains  for  discussion 
therefore  only  the  stage  of  decay.  The  facts  as  to  the  recent  de- 
cay of  China  are  too  well  known  to  need  repetition.  When  the 
Manchus  first  ascended  the  Dragon  Throne  in  the  middle  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  China  felt  a  wave  of  energy;  this  seemed 
to  culminate  toward  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century  when 
Chinese  sway  had  reached  its  greatest  modern  expansion.  China 
was  then  "The  Middle  Kingdom,'*  the  center  of  the  Chinese 
world.  But  even  at  that  time  degeneration  was  already  under 
way.  I  shall  not  dwell  on  it,  for  every  one  knows  that  it  has 
now  gone  so  far  that  China  is  politically  impotent.  Worse  than 
this,  she  is,  or  at  least  has  seemed  to  be,  almost  asleep.  To-day 
the  constant  questions  among  the  well-wishers  of  the  Flowery 
Kingdom  are :  When  will  China  wake  up  ?  Does  the  old  ability 
still  exist  ?  It  certainly  seems  to  be  still  existent  among  the  Chi- 
nese leaders,  for  intellectually  they  compare  favorably  with  those 
of  other  races.  Moreover,  many  of  those  leaders  are  actively  and 
wisely  trying  to  awaken  China.  In  some  lines,  such  as  education, 
they  are  certainly  succeeding,  for  in  few  countries  is  the  desire 
for  modern  learning  keener  than  in  China.  Yet,  somehow,  it 
still  seems  to  the  sympathetic  foreigner  that  there  is  stagnation. 


156 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


The  China  of  to-day,  to  be  sure,  is  by  no  means  the  China  of 
fifty  years  ago.  But  the  Japan  of  to-day,  the  Europe  of  to-day, 
and  the  America  of  to-day  are  perhaps  still  less  the  same  as  those 
of  fifty  years  ago.  Has  the  change  in  China  been  as  great  as  in 
the  other  countries?  How  much  real  change  in  fimdamental 
character,  regardless  of  external  appearances,  has  there  been  in 
any  of  these  regions?  Are  the  other  great  nations  progressing 
so  rapidly  that  in  spite  of  some  progress  on  her  part  the  differ- 
ence between  them  and  China  is  increasing  rather  than  dimin- 
ishing ? 

I  cannot  answer  these  questions.  The  answer  depends  partly 
upon  whether  China  is  still  in  the  stage  of  degeneration  which 
has  often  formed  so  sad  a  part  of  her  historic  cycle.  It  is  a  com- 
mon habit  to  attribute  China's  retrogression,  and  that  of  almost 
every  other  country,  to  a  decline  in  the  caliber  of  her  rulers  and 
leaders  by  reason  of  wealth,  luxury,  bad  training,  and  vice.  That 
these  factors  played  an  important  part  among  the  Manchus  can 
scarcely  be  doubted,  as  is  made  clear  by  Backhouse  and  Bland 
in  their  Annals  and  Memoirs  of  the  Court  of  Peking. 

It  seems  to  me,  however,  that  certain  great  biological  facts 
are  of  even  deeper  import.  The  significance  of  the  intrusion  of 
able  people  from  the  north  has  been  realized  by  many  thought- 
ful students  of  China;  but  few  have  appreciated  the  fact  that 
after  a  process  of  selection  has  given  a  country  an  unusually 
able  dynasty,  the  absence  of  further  selection  and  the  prevalence 
of  intermarriage  with  stocks  less  highly  selected  causes  a  ten- 
dency toward  reversion  to  the  normal  type.  Still  fewer  reahze 
that  under  certain  conditions  which  frequently  prevail  in  China 
there  may  be  a  rapid  elimination  of  the  more  able  people,  espe- 
cially where  overpopulation  and  famine  prevail.  One  of  the  great- 
est factors  in  the  decline  of  China  seems  to  have  been  the  gradual 
deterioration  of  the  people  of  north  China  as  a  whole  and  the 
increasing  premium  placed  by  famine  and  overpopulation  upon 
passive  quahties  of  economy,  industry,  patience,  and  endurance 
rather  than  upon  active  leadership.  When  a  cycle  of  Chinese 
history  cuhninates  in  especially  severe  famines,  internal  anarchy, 


CYCLES  OF  CHINESE  HISTORY 


157 


and  barbarian  invasions  an  enormous  extermination  of  the  less 
competent  parts  of  the  population  takes  place.  The  remnant 
who  survive  or  who  migrate  back  into  the  depopulated  areas^ 
and  whose  descendants  repeople  the  country,  are  apparently 
of  distinctly  greater  ability  than  the  mass  of  people  who  swarmed 
in  every  corner  during  the  stages  when  degeneration  was  grad- 
ually taking  place.  Moreover,  because  the  population  is  rela- 
tively scanty,  these  capable  people  have  unusual  opportunities— 
the  opportunities  that  are  characteristic  of  a  new  land.  They 
likewise  tend  to  be  relatively  well-fed  and  healthy,  for  over- 
population usually  means  poor  food  and  poor  health.  When  at 
last  a  cycle  turns  full  swing  and  the  land  settles  down  under  new 
leaders  selected  for  their  ability,  the  relative  competence  of  the 
masses  of  the  people  and  the  opportunities  due  to  freedom  from 
the  curse  of  overpopulation  make  it  possible  for  the  genius  of 
the  leaders  to  inaugurate  a  period  of  progress. 

Thus  the  cycles  of  Chinese  history  run  their  course.  Again 
and  again  they  are  interrupted  by  minor  cycles  and  by  all  sorts 
of  accidental  events  such  as  the  birth  of  men  of  genius,  the  in- 
troduction of  foreign  ideas,  or  contact  with  new  people.  Never- 
theless, the  cycle  seems  to  be  a  fundamental  fact  in  Chinese  his- 
tory, and  likewise  in  that  of  many  other  countries,  although  of 
course  in  greatly  modified  form.  It  seems  to  be  so  important, 
and  also  to  be  so  little  understood  that  I  shall  explain  it  in  de- 
tail as  it  applies  to  China.  The  part  that  especially  requires  ex- 
planation is  the  decline  of  abiHty  which  begins  even  while  prog- 
ress is  still  being  made,  and  which  culminates  in  anarchy  and 
wholesale  depopulation. 


CHAPTER  XI 


NORTH  VERSUS  SOUTH  IN  CHINA 

At  the  present  stage  in  the  last  cycle  of  Chinese  history  one 
of  the  most  notable  features  is  the  anomalous  contrast  between 
the  north  and  the  south.  This  contrast  seems  to  show  the  results 
of  degeneration  in  north  China  under  the  influence  of  adverse 
natural  selection  so  clearly  that  I  shall  attempt  to  explain  it 
fuUy.  In  the  course  of  the  explanation  we  shall  find  facts  that 
bear  on  the  whole  course  of  the  historic  cycles.  One  of  the 
strangest  facts  about  China  is  that  the  northern  and  southern 
parts  of  that  country  invert  the  usual  roles.  In  most  parts  of  the 
world  a  region  in  low  latitudes  is  less  progressive  than  a  corre- 
sponding region  in  higher  latitudes,  provided  the  high  latitudes 
are  not  so  cold  that  life  becomes  difficult.  This  is  true  in  Europe, 
western  Asia,  India,  and  North  America.  It  is  equally  true  in 
the  southern  continents,  where  Argentina  and  Chile  lead  South 
America,  and  South  Africa  leads  Africa.  But  in  China  the  op- 
posite is  true:  the  south  is  progressive  and  the  north  backward. 
Except  where  Europeans  have  recently  settled,  no  region  within 
twenty-five  degrees  of  the  equator  probably  shows  so  much  real 
progress  as  south  China,  a  fact  which  goes  far  to  show  that  the 
Chinese  are  one  of  the  world's  most  able  races.  But  between 
thirty-five  degrees  and  forty  degrees  from  the  equator  there  is 
perhaps  no  region  save  central  Asia  so  backward  as  north 
China. 

The  Chinese  themselves  have  long  recognized  the  difference 
between  the  south  and  the  north.  The  people  of  the  south,  they 
say,  are  fond  of  travel,  quick  to  grasp  new  ideas,  eager  to  learn, 
easy  to  persuade,  ready  to  change  their  habits,  fiery  in  action, 
and  prone  to  adopt  radical  ideas  in  poHtics.  Those  of  the  north 
are  fond  of  home,  slow  to  accept  new  ideas,  steadfast  of  purpose, 

158 


NORTH  VERSUS  SOUTH  IN  CHINA 


159 


hard  to  convince  against  their  better  judgment,  tenacious  of 
old  habits,  slow  to  act  but  very  sure,  and  prone  toward  conser- 
vatism in  politics.  Those  who  are  not  so  friendly  to  the  Chinese 
say  that  the  southerners  are  clever,  but  unstable,  unrehable, 
and  likely  to  lose  their  heads,  while  the  northerners  are  imutter- 
ably  slow  and  stupid,  but  relatively  honest. 

No  one  can  study  China  with  care  without  seeing  that  there 
is  much  truth  in  these  statements.  It  was  the  south  which  led 
the  revolution  in  191 1,  and  forced  the  retirement  of  the  emperor. 
In  its  radical  zeal  the  south  imposed  a  republican  form  of  govern- 
ment upon  a  country  which  is  supremely  unfit  for  such  a  form  by 
reason  of  its  almost  complete  absence  of  any  feeling  of  public 
responsibiHty.  Yet  so  far  as  there  is  any  such  feeling  of  respon- 
sibility, it  is  largely  found  in  the  south,  or  at  least  among  people 
of  southern  origin.  On  the  other  hand,  it  was  the  north  which 
supported  the  old  regime.  The  northerners  tried  to  put  the  em- 
peror back  on  the  throne,  and  failing  that  they  converted  the 
republic  into  the  most  conservative  type  of  oligarchy.  Of  course 
the  south,  also,  is  highly  conservative  according  to  Western  stan- 
dards, but  here  we  are  speaking  in  relative  terms  in  order  to  bring 
out  the  contrast  between  the  two  sections.  Speaking  in  those 
same  terms  the  south  is  rich,  extravagant,  pleasure-loving,  gen- 
erous, and  immoral;  while  the  north  is  poor,  frugal,  serious- 
minded,  miserly,  and  moral.  But  these  words  must  not  be 
interpreted  in  terms  of  our  civilization  but  of  that  of  China. 

This  contrast  between  the  two  sections  shows  itself  in  many 
ways.  For  example,  the  southerners,  especially  the  people  of 
Canton  and  the  surrounding  coastal  districts  as  far  as  Fuchow 
and  even  Chekiang  are  prone  to  travel.  In  the  aggregate  miUions 
of  them  have  gone  to  foreign  countries  and  are  found  in  Singa- 
pore, the  Malay  States,  Java,  Formosa,  America,  and  many  other 
parts  of  the  world.  The  northerners  migrate  somewhat,  to  be 
sure,  but  only  to  Manchuria  and  Mongolia,  where  they  are  still 
practically  in  their  own  country  and  can  return  home  at  frequent 
intervals.  Moreover,  the  southerners  engage  in  large  business 
aSairs  both  at  home  and  abroad,  which  is  rarely  true  of  the 


160 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


northerners.  In  the  Malay  Peninsula,  Java,  Formosa,  and  other 
parts  of  the  East  Indies  many  of  the  leading  business  men  are 
Chinese  who  own  plantations  of  sugar,  rubber,  tea,  coffee,  and 
the  like,  and  who  often  have  large  interests  in  tin  mines,  sugar- 
mills,  and  other  profitable  ventures. 

A  conversation  which  I  had  at  Shanghai  with  a  Chinese  busi- 
ness man  illustrates  one  phase  of  the  matter.  He  was  born  near 
Canton,  lived  there  till  the  age  of  fourteen,  and  then  went  to 
Australia  with  one  English  pound  in  his  pocket  for  spending 
money.  For  twenty-five  years  he  did  business  in  AustraHa,  but 
did  not  like  it  because  no  matter  how  successful  he  might  be,  he 
was  still  a  Chinese  and  was  not  treated  with  respect  or  on  terms 
of  equality  by  other  business  men.  So  he  came  back  to  China 
and  established  a  large  store  which  has  a  high  reputation  among 
foreigners.  It  sells  all  sorts  of  goods,  both  foreign  and  Chinese, 
at  fair  prices  and  of  standard  quahties.  When  this  merchant 
started  his  store  his  more  important  assistants,  such  as  heads  of 
departments,  were  picked  indiscriminately  regardless  of  where 
they  came  from,  and  consisted  about  equally  of  men  from  the 
Shanghai  and  Canton  districts.  But  little  by  httle  a  change  has 
taken  place,  and  the  great  majority  are  now  Cantonese.  The 
reason?  Simply  because  the  Cantonese,  so  the  merchant  says, 
are  more  competent  and  at  least  as  reliable  as  the  others,  although 
honesty  is  not  a  strong  point  in  either  group.  So  far  as  that  par- 
ticular quality  is  concerned,  the  people  of  Shantung  are  more 
honest  than  either  the  Canton  or  Shanghai  people.  But  why 
are  none  employed  here?  They  are  too  slow  and  stupid.  And 
then  this  merchant,  who  is  successfully  employing  European 
standards  of  fair  dealing  and  uniform  quahty  of  goods,  went  on 
to  deplore  the  fact  that  none  of  the  Chinese  seem  to  care  for 
anything  except  what  they  personally  can  get.  They  do  not  even 
think  far  enough  into  the  future  to  reahze  that  strict  honesty 
and  devotion  to  pubhc  as  well  as  private  good  would  pay  them 
personally  in  the  long  run. 

Another  evidence  of  the  greater  activity  of  the  southerners 
than  of  the  northerners  is  seen  in  the  Chinese  leaders  whom  I 


NORTH  VERSUS  SOUTH  IN  CHINA  161 


was  fortunate  enough  to  meet.  I  tried  to  meet  as  many  as  pos- 
sible, but  it  did  not  at  first  occur  to  me  to  make  an  analysis  of 
where  they  came  from.  Among  seven  Chinese  leaders  with  whom 
I  dined  or  otherwise  spent  considerable  time  in  Peking,  one  was 
from  that  city,  but  was  a  Manchu,  five  were  from  the  coastal 
regions  south  of  the  Yangtse  River,  and  one  I  am  not  sure  about. 

A  much  better  method  of  testing  the  matter  was  suggested 
to  me  by  Mr.  Price  of  the  American  Embassy,  who  lent  me  an 
oflicial  list  of  the  higher  metropolitan  and  provincial  ofiicials  in 
October,  1910,  just  before  the  revolution.  From  this  list  I  have 
taken  all  the  men  who  held  the  Chinese  degrees  which  are  trans- 
lated as  "licentiate,"  "provincial  graduate,"  and  "metropolitan 
graduate."  This  of  course  excludes  most  of  the  mihtary  officers 
who  were  appointed  by  favor  and  not  by  means  of  the  rigid 
old-fashioned  Chinese  examinations. 

In  addition  to  Manchus  (50),  Mongols  (15),  and  Chinese 
Bannermen  (14),  who  were  surprisingly  numerous  among  the 
degree-holders,  there  were  324  from  the  eighteen  provinces  of 
China  proper.  The  distribution  of  these  324  is  extraordinarily 
uneven  in  proportion  to  the  population  of  the  various  districts 
whence  they  originally  came.  In  Kansu,  for  example,  there  was 
only  one  high  officer  for  every  10,000,000  inhabitants,  whereas 
in  Chekiang,  the  coastal  province  south  of  Shanghai,  there  were 
39.7.  A  glance  at  the  accompanying  map  (Figure  5)  shows  that 
among  the  six  northern  provinces  only  Chihli,  in  which  Peking 
is  located,  gave  rise  to  more  than  7.1  of  these  highly  educated 
officials  per  10,000,000  people.  Among  the  six  southern  provin- 
ces, on  the  contrary,  none  had  less  than  9.6,  while  among  the 
central  provinces  the  three  on  the  coast  had  very  high  per- 
centages of  leading  officials,  while  those  in  the  interior  had  low 
percentages.  Chihli  is  probably  somewhat  abnormal  because 
many  able  men  from  other  provinces  have  come  to  Peking  from 
time  to  time  during  the  course  of  the  centuries,  and  thus  have 
given  that  city  a  group  of  competent  people  such  as  do  not  ex- 
ist in  the  outlying  parts  of  the  province.  Barring  the  exceptional 
case  of  Peking,  Figure  5  seems  to  suggest  that  in  general  the  kind 


16f 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


of  ability  which  enables  men  to  pass  the  severe  Chinese  examina- 
tions of  the  old  style,  and  then  to  obtain  high  official  positions  in 
the  face  of  keen  competition,  is  least  conmion  in  the  northwest 
and  increases  toward  the  southeast.  Of  course  a  much  larger 
body  of  facts  is  needed  before  this  can  be  regarded  as  proved, 
but  inasmuch  as  the  place  of  origin  of  the  officials  agrees  with 
a  vast  amount  of  evidence  of  other  kinds,  we  may  feel  fairly  sure 
of  our  ground. 

The  difference  between  the  south  and  north  of  China  is  ob- 
vious in  many  other  ways  which  are  detected  much  more  easily 
than  is  the  distribution  of  men  of  ability.  For  example,  in  the 
streets  of  Canton  one  sees  many  women  of  all  ages.  At  certain 
hours  the  streets  are  crowded  with  school  girls  as  well  as  boys. 
Very  pretty  they  look,  with  their  loose  white  waists,  black  divided 
skirts  coming  a  little  below  the  knee,  and  white  stockings  and 
low  shoes.  Their  fair  round  faces,  only  faintly  yellow  under  the 
smoothly  combed  black  hair  which  hangs  down  in  a  long  braid 
behind,  are  often  pretty,  and  show  quite  charming  dimples  when 
they  smile.  As  they  walk  along  and  talk  together  one  notices 
that  they  smile  frequently.  Among  the  older  women,  also,  the 
majority  are  quite  light  in  complexion,  unless  tanned  by  the  sun, 
and  have  on  the  whole  the  appearance  of  leading  lives  that  are 
by  no  means  wholly  unhappy.  Many,  though  not  all,  of  the  older 
ones  toddle  along  on  the  pitiful  stumps  of  what  would  have  been 
feet  if  they  had  not  been  cruelly  bound  in  childhood.  Among 
women  perhaps  thirty  to  forty  years  of  age  many  have  remark- 
ably small  feet,  but  not  the  little  stumps  of  the  older  women. 
They  were  fortunate  enough  to  have  their  feet  unbound  while 
still  girls.  But  among  the  younger  women  not  one  has  unnatur- 
ally small  feet. 

Look  now  at  the  Cantonese  men.  How  many  have  queues  ? 
You  will  have  to  hunt  some  time  to  find  one,  although  a  few  still 
survive.  How  about  rags?  Practically  none.  Beggars?  Only  a 
few,  and  those  not  especially  persistent  or  disagreeable.  The 
great  majority  of  the  people  look  relatively  well  fed,  comfortable, 
and  happy — at  least  according  to  Chinese  standards.  They  walk 


FIG.  5.     BIRTHPLACES    OF    HIGH    OFFICIALS    IN  CHINA. 
Number  of  holders  of  high  literary  degrees  among  officials  in  1910  per  10,000,000  inhabitants. 


NORTH  VERSUS  SOUTH  IN  CHINA 


163 


alertly  compared  with  most  of  the  people  who  live  in  equally 
low  latitudes,  for  Canton  is  within  the  tropics.  And,  although 
they  work  slowly  and  spend  much  time  in  sitting  down  and 
waiting,  and  still  more  in  apparently  deliberating  how  they  shall 
work,  they  are  a  remarkably  industrious  people  in  view  of  their 
climate.  The  women,  as  in  so  many  tropical  countries,  seem  to 
work  harder  than  the  men,  and  one  sees  them  manning  the  in- 
numerable boats,  rowing  hard  against  the  tide,  or  walking  under 
heavy  loads  balanced  at  the  ends  of  poles  across  their  shoulders. 

Now  come  to  Tsinan,  the  capital  of  Shantung.  Scarcely  one 
woman  is  seen  where  ten  were  visible  in  Canton.  No  such  groups 
of  pretty  school-girls  go  laughingly  along  the  narrow  streets. 
The  women  of  Shantung  are  kept  secluded :  the  home  is  still  con- 
sidered the  place  for  them  by  the  conservative  men  of  Shantung. 
Those  whom  one  sees  on  the  streets,  whether  rich  or  poor,  are 
generally  of  darker  complexion  than  are  the  Cantonese,  as  is 
true  of  the  men  also.  And  the  women  and  girls  are  not  so  pretty 
or  bright-looking  as  their  Cantonese  sisters.  The  American  ladies 
in  the  missionary  schools  at  Peking  say  that  on  the  whole  the 
fairest,  prettiest,  and  most  alert  Chinese  girls,  although  not 
necessarily  those  with  the  best  minds,  come  from  the  south,  or 
at  least  from  families  which  have  migrated  to  the  capital  from 
the  south.  Moreover,  the  women  whom  one  sees  in  Tsinan  prac- 
tically all  have  tiny  feet,  and  many  of  the  girls,  even  the  little 
ones,  are  still  being  tortured  in  this  old-fashioned  way.  As  for 
queues,  as  soon  as  I  thought  of  the  matter  I  began  to  count. 
Among  the  first  hundred  men  whom  I  met  exactly  half  had  braids 
down  their  backs  or  coiled  under  their  hats,  while  the  other  half 
had  short  hair.  If  I  had  gone  into  the  villages,  so  I  was  told,  I 
should  have  found  90  per  cent  of  the  men  wearing  queues.  They 
are  certainly  conservative,  these  people  of  Shantung.  And  yet, 
curiously  enough,  they  are  physically  far  finer  people  than  those 
of  the  south.  They  are  big  men  and  women  with  fine  sturdy 
frames  and  with  the  appearance  of  strength  and  vigor.  No,  not 
vigor,  for  only  a  part  appear  vigorous.  One  sees  in  the  northern 
streets  many  more  signs  of  disease  and  suffering  than  in  the  south. 


164 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


Rags,  too,  become  a  noticeable  feature,  and  beggars  a  perfect 
pest.  Go  to  a  place  like  the  famous  Sacred  Mountain  of  Tai 
Shan,  where  is  the  temple  of  Confucius,  a  few  score  miles  south 
of  Tsinan.  The  beggars  swarm  like  flies :  they  follow  one  for  miles 
up  the  great  rocky  road  that  leads  to  the  mountain- top;  they 
crowd  upon  one,  displaying  their  sores,  pressing  their  stomachs 
in  a  ghastly  fashion  to  indicate  their  hunger. 

It  certainly  seems  anomalous  to  find  these  conservative  peo- 
ple in  a  province  that  once  was  the  very  heart  of  Chinese  progress. 
Previous  to  perhaps  300  B.  C,  Shantung  was  the  home  of  Con- 
fucius and  Mencius,  the  center  from  which  culture  radiated  in 
all  directions.  So  far  as  climate,  diseases,  and  man's  physical 
health  and  vigor  are  concerned.  Shantung,  with  its  cold  ^bracing 
winters,  seems  to  have  a  distinct  advantage  over  Canton  with 
its  many  months  of  damp  heat  during  the  summer.  The  foreign- 
ers who  live  in  the  northern  parts  of  China  sometimes  have  hard 
things  to  say  of  the  dust-storms  in  winter  and  the  damp  heat  in 
summer,  but  on  the  whole  they  rarely  complain  much  of  the  cli- 
mate, while  those  who  live  from  Shanghai  southward  are  always 
talking  about  its  debiHtating  effect. 

Another  curious  fact  about  China  is  that  although  the  southern- 
ers are  more  progressive  than  the  northerners,  the  northern  cities 
have  become  more  Europeanized  than  the  southern.  Tientsin 
and  Peking  not  only  have  large  areas  where  the  streets  are  quite 
European  in  aspect,  but  enjoy  the  advantages  of  electric  tram- 
lines. Most  of  the  other  northern  cities  have  a  considerable  net- 
work of  modern  roads  where  jinrikishas  and  automobiles  can  ply 
freely.  But  in  the  south  some  ports  as  important  as  Fuchow  and 
Swatow  have  only  a  few  miles  of  streets  fit  for  motor-cars  or  even 
jinrikishas.  In  Amoy,  up  to  the  time  of  my  visit  in  1923,  there 
was  not  a  single  wheeled  vehicle  except  a  few  garbage-carts. 
One  reason  for  this  difference  between  north  and  south  is  said 
to  be  that  southern  officials  have  come  to  the  north  and  have 
been  open  to  foreign  influence.  It  is  certainly  true  that  southern 
officials  have  held  most  of  the  important  positions  in  the  north 
aside  from  those  held  by  the  Manchus  and  Mongols,  but  that 


NORTH  VERSUS  SOUTH  IN  CHINA  165 


has  also  been  the  case  in  the  south.  I  am  incHned  to  think  that 
the  north  owes  its  more  rapid  Europeanization  in  part  to  the 
fact  that  China  is  to-day  undergoing  an  invasion  which  in  some 
respects  is  like  the  old  barbarian  invasions.  The  invaders  possess 
much  more  than  the  average  abiHty  of  their  respective  races, 
and  they  enjoy  better  health  and  hence  have  more  energy  and 
initiative  in  the  north  than  in  the  south.  In  other  words,  among 
these  chosen  invaders  the  conditions  are  just  as  one  would  ex- 
pect on  the  basis  of  climate;  the  north  progresses  more  rapidly 
than  the  south.  But  among  the  main  mass  of  the  people  other 
factors  cause  the  south  to  go  ahead  of  the  north. 

The  chief  of  these  other  factors  is  commonly  said  to  be  the 
longer  contact  of  the  south  than  of  the  north  with  Europe.  Al- 
most every  one  whom  I  asked  in  China  expressed  this  view,  and 
one  can  find  it  in  books  by  the  score.  I  doubt  its  truth,  however, 
for  several  strong  reasons.  First,  if  the  duration  of  contact  with 
Europe  were  the  cause  of  the  relatively  progressive  character  of 
the  southern  Chinese,  why  did  those  same  Chinese  spread  into 
other  lands  and  show  their  present  spirit  of  enterprise  long  before 
they  ever  came  in  contact  with  Europe,  as  we  learn  from  many 
old  Chinese  sources  ?  Again,  the  people  of  Ceylon  have  been  in 
contact  with  Europe  far  longer  than  have  the  southern  Chinese, 
but  they  are  not  so  progressive  and  competent  and  do  not  travel 
so  widely  and  actively.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Japanese  have 
not  been  in  contact  with  Europe  nearly  so  long  as  the  southern 
Chinese,  but  they  are  far  more  progressive.  Again,  in  Man- 
churia, especially  the  northern  part,  the  Chinese  are  said  to  be 
the  most  progressive  and  active  in  any  part  of  China.  Even  at 
Mukden  I  felt  an  atmosphere  of  life  and  activity  such  as  I  did 
not  feel  in  any  other  Chinese  city.  Harbin  is  said  to  show  the 
same  thing  to  a  still  higher  degree,  and  the  regions  north  of  that 
most  of  all.  But  these  regions  have  had  little  contact  with 
Europe  aside  from  Russia,  and  Russian  influence  amounted  to 
little  until  the  Manchurian  section  of  the  Trans-Siberian  railway 
was  completed  in  190 1.  If  we  compare  the  progressiveness  of 
Ceylon,  the  Malay  peninsula,  south  China,  north  China,  Japan, 


166 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


and  Manchuria  with  the  length  of  time  they  have  been  in  con- 
tact with  Europe,  we  find  no  consistent  relation  between  the  two 
conditions.  European  influence  can  scarcely  account  for  the 
difference  between  the  north  and  the  south  of  China. 

When  I  persuaded  people  in  China  that  this  last  statement 
is  true,  they  generally  tried  to  explain  the  pecuHarities  of  the 
two  parts  of  China  by  racial  mixture,  the  southerners  being 
supposed  to  have  Malay  blood  and  the  northerners  more  Mongol 
and  Manchu  blood.  There  is  certainly  some  truth  in  this  so  far 
as  the  facts  of  racial  mixture  are  concerned.  In  the  south  one 
sees  many  Chinese  with  broad,  flat  noses  and  an  almost  negroid 
appearance.  Many  also  are  quite  dark  as  if  with  Malay  blood 
or  perhaps  an  admixture  of  Dixon's  Proto-Negroid  or  Proto- 
Australoid  races.  But  nobody  has  produced  any  evidence  to 
show  that  such  a  mixture  causes  mental  alertness.  The  Chinese 
in  whom  these  departures  from  the  normal  type  are  strongest 
are  the  peasants  and  coolies.  The  upper  classes,  those  who  give 
character  to  the  country,  are  quite  light,  lighter  than  the  people 
of  the  north.  As  I  looked  at  them,  especially  the  clerks  and  the 
women  and  girls  who  had  not  been  tanned  by  the  sun,  I  repeat- 
edly said  to  myself:  "These  people  are  not  really  colored.  They 
are  scarcely  even  yellow.  Look  at  that  pale  face  and  those 
cheeks  with  pink  in  them."  Apparently  the  part  of  the  popula- 
tion which  gives  southern  China  its  distinctive  character  is  the 
most  purely  Chinese. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  undoubtedly  true  that  the  northern 
Chinese  contain  more  Mongol  and  Manchu  blood  than  do  their 
southern  cousins,  and  the  amount  of  such  blood  may  be  consid- 
erable. But  even  if  there  is  much  Mongol  and  Manchu  blood 
there  is  no  assurance  that  this  would  make  the  northerners  dull 
and  stupid.  On  the  contrary,  the  invading  Mongols  and  Manchus, 
as  we  have  already  seen,  are  relatively  capable  and  vigorous  peo- 
ple, as  appears,  for  example,  from  the  number  who  have  received 
the  literary  degrees  among  the  officials  in  the  Hst  discussed 
above.  Even  at  the  supposedly  Chinese  game  of  studying  and 
remembering  ancient  Hterature  the  Mongols  and  Manchus  are 


I 


NORTH  VERSUS  SOUTH  IN  CHINA 


167 


by  no  means  to  be  despised.  Hence,  while  1  do  not  question  the 
importance  of  racial  mixture  in  altering  human  character,  I  do 
not  see  any  clear  proof  that  this  is  the  reason  why  the  south  of 
China  is  relatively  progressive,  the  north  backward,  and  the 
far  north  in  Manchuria  again  progressive. 

Another  strong  argument  against  the  idea  that  southern 
China  owes  its  peculiar  character  either  to  European  influence 
or  to  racial  mixture  is  found  in  the  Hakkas.  The  Hakkas  are  a 
peculiar  people,  purely  Chinese  as  that  term  is  now  used.  They, 
live  to  the  number  of  10,000,000  or  more  in  the  rugged  moun- 
tains one  or  two  hundred  miles  northeast  of  Canton  and  west 
gf  Fuchow.  Their  name  means  "guest  people"  or  "strangers." 
They  are  also  sometimes  called  by  a  term  which  means  "wild 
old  women,"  the  word  wild  being  used  in  the  sense  of  barbarous. 
If  you  ask  a  coolie  or  even  a  merchant  in  Canton  or  Swatow 
about  the  Hakkas  he  will  probably  say  that  they  are  a  barbarous, 
degraded  set  of  people,  little  better  than  bandits,  who  take  no 
care  of  their  women  and  who  are  a  danger  to  every  one  else. 
But  inquire  further,  and  you  hear  that  in  Singapore,  Siam, 
Formosa,  and  the  Dutch  East  Indies  the  Hakka  coolies  are  con- 
sidered especially  competent.  In  Canton  the  native  coolies  fear 
them  because  they  come  down  from  their  upland  home  and 
supplant  the  less  competent  Cantonese.  The  Hakka  merchants 
come  down  likewise.  In  Swatow  there  are  said  to  be  about 
15,000  Hakkas,  and  this  number  includes  many  of  the  most 
prominent  business  men.  A  similar  condition  prevails  in  Can- 
ton. Across  the  seas  the  same  is  true,  for  they  are  great  wander- 
ers. The  leader  of  the  great  Taiping  rebellion  was  a  Hakka,  as 
the  general  who  seems  to  be  squeezing  Sun  Yat  Sen  out  of 
Canton  while  these  words  are  being  written  is  another  Hakka. 
The  fact  is  that  the  Hakkas  are  an  uncommonly  able  people 
who  little  by  little  are  moving  out  of  their  mountain  home  and 
displacing  the  coastal  people  to  the  south  and  east  of  them.  That 
why  they  are  feared  and  reviled. 

Talk  to  the  Europeans  who  have  lived  among  the  Hak- 
kas.  It  was  my  privilege  to  hsten  to  several  missionaries  who 


168 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


have  been  among  them — and  missionaries  are  ahnost  the  only 
foreigners  who  really  know  the  Chinese  in  their  own  homes. 
All  these  missionaries  were  essentially  agreed.  One  of  them  was 
Mr.  Spiker,  who  has  lived  among  the  Hakkas  and  also  in  Swa- 
tow  and  Shantung,  and  has  travelled  widely.  "The  Hakkas," 
said  he,  "are  the  cream  of  the  Chinese  people."  He  and  the 
others  back  up  this  opinion  with  good  reasons.  For  instance,  the 
Hakkas  are  almost  the  only  real  Chinese  who  take  daily  baths 
and  have  never  practised  foot-binding.  Their  women  not  only 
are  unusually  pretty,  but  are  held  in  unusual  respect.  The  free- 
dom which  they  are  allowed  is  presumably  interpreted  by  the 
Cantonese  as  lack  of  care  for  them.  This  does  not  mean  that 
their  standards  of  morality  are  like  ours,  for  that  is  true  nowhere 
in  China.  Moreover,  in  south  China  there  is  much  greater  lax- 
ity than  in  north  China,  which  seems  to  accord  with  the  con- 
ditions of  climate.  Among  the  Hakkas,  the  point  to  be  empha- 
sized is  merely  that  the  women  are  comparatively  free  and 
influential,  and  are  not  ground  down  by  the  terrible  laws  of 
custom  so  strenuously  as  in  other  parts  of  the  country. 

Another  notable  fact  among  the  Hakkas  is  the  prevalence 
of  education.  In  their  central  district  it  is  said  that  about  80 
per  cent  of  the  men  can  read  and  write,  a  greater  percentage 
than  in  any  other  part  of  China.  At  the  present  time  in  their 
main  town  of  Kia-Ying,  which  is  only  a  little  place  with  10,000 
or  20,000  people,  there  are,  if  I  remember  rightly,  some  3,000 
pupils  in  what  are  known  as  middle  schools,  that  is,  above  the 
primary  grades.  At  any  rate  they  gather  there  from  the  Uttle 
villages  for  many  miles  around  to  such  an  extent  that  almost 
nowhere  else  in  China  do  so  many  pupils  come  from  so  small 
a  population.  Again  the  Hakkas, 

more  fearless  and  self-reliant  than  the  town  dwellers,  have  all  the  love  of 
liberty  which  characterize  mountaineers  the  world  over.  They  were  the 
last  to  surrender  to  the  Manchus  and  twice  strove  to  throw  off  their  yoke, 
first  under  the  Taiping  chief  and  again  [in  the  present  century]. — It  would 
not  be  easy  to  find  an  inland  district  where  the  people  are  as  well  housed 
as  they  are  in  Meichau  (Kia-Ying).  The  artisans  of  Hing-Ning  are  as 
skilful  as  any  in  China.  (Campbell.) 


NORTH  VERSUS  SOUTH  IN  CHINA  169 


The  Hakkas,  as  we  have  seen,  are  a  purely  Chinese  race, 
practically  unmixed  with  other  elements,  unless  it  be  with  an 
early  Mongolic  element  long  ago  in  north  China.  They  live  re- 
mote from  the  sea  and  far  from  European  influence.  Yet  among 
them,  more  than  among  almost  any  other  group  of  Chinese,  one 
finds  the  highest  development  of  those  qualities  which  cause 
south  China  to  be  more  progressive  than  north  China.  Since 
neither  racial  mixture  nor  contact  with  foreigners  can  be  called 
upon  to  explain  the  high  development  of  these  qualities,  it  seems 
illogical  to  call  upon  those  conditions  to  explain  the  lesser  de- 
velopment of  the  same  qualities  in  Canton  and  other  coastal 
regions  a  few  hundred  miles  away.  Moreover,  in  northern  Man- 
churia among  people  who  originally  came  from  backward  Shan- 
tung and  Chihli  we  again  find  a  remarkable  development  of  these 
same  progressive  qualities.  There,  too,  neither  racial  mixture 
nor  foreign  contact  seems  to  offer  an  explanation.  In  the  next 
chapter  we  shall  consider  the  one  great  factor,  a  beneficent 
natural  selection,  which  appears  to  explain  the  qualities  held 
in  common  not  only  by  these  two  sets  of  people,  but  by  the  other 
progressive  people  of  south  China,  and  perhaps  by  the  Chinese 
of  Shantung  in  the  golden  age  of  Confucius,  six  or  seven  centuries 
before  Christ. 


CHAPTER  XII 


THE  SCOURGE  OF  FAMINE 

The  part  played  by  famines  and  economic  distress  in  Chinese 
cycles  of  progress  and  decay  has  been  suggested  in  a  previous 
chapter.  These  same  conditions  appear  to  play  a  dominant  part 
in  the  contrast  between  the  progressive  south  and  Manchuria 
on  the  one  hand,  and  the  backward  north  on  the  other.  The 
famines  and  distress  have  apparently  played  their  part  by  select- 
ing certain  types  of  people  for  destruction,  preservation,  or 
migration,  thereby  leaving  an  incompetent  residue  in  many  parts 
of  the  north  and  sending  competent  people  to  the  cities  where 
they  die  off,  and  to  Manchuria,  south  China,  and  other  outlying 
but  relatively  progressive  provinces.  In  this  chapter,  let  us  see 
how  the  famines  exert  their  selective  influence,  leaving  their 
effect  upon  character  to  the  next. 

Terrible  famines  are  common  in  north  China,  but  rare  in 
Manchuria  and  almost  unknown  in  south  China.  In  north  China 
the  rainfall  is  concentrated  largely  in  a  few  summer  months;  a 
delay  in  its  arrival  means  that  crops  can  begin  growth  only  in 
fields  that  are  irrigated.  If  growth  is  delayed  till  July,  as  often 
happens,  and  if  July  is  dry,  practically  nothing  can  be  reaped 
from  the  unirrigated  fields.  This  practically  never  happens  in 
the  south,  where  the  rainfall  is  less  strictly  concentrated  in  the 
summer  months,  and  only  rarely  in  Manchuria,  where  the  tem- 
perature is  lower  so  that  evaporation  is  less,  while  the  chance 
of  showers  in  the  spring  and  autumn  is  greater  than  in  north 
China. 

In  north  China  great  floods  are  another  common  cause  of 
famine.  They  are  likely  to  occur  in  the  same  regions  and  at  the 
same  general  periods  as  droughts,  for  a  dry  climate  commonly 
has  torrential  rains  when  the  long  droughts  finally  break.  The 
high  barren  character  of  the  mountains,  their  denudation  of  for- 

170 


THE  SCOURGE  OF  FAMINE 


171 


ests,  the  torrential  nature  of  the  rains,  and  the  extraordinary 
flatness  of  the  vast  plains  all  combine  to  increase  the  ravages  of 
floods.  Nowhere,  during  many  years  of  travel,  do  I  recall  a 
more  vivid  impression  of  the  absolute  levelness  of  the  plains. 
For  hundreds  of  miles  scarcely  a  billow  breaks  the  dead  mo- 
notony. When  the  rain  falls  heavily  day  after  day,  as  often  hap- 
pens in  midsummer,  the  water  may  form  a  vast  sheet  a  foot  or 
so  deep  even  without  the  help  of  the  rivers.  But  the  rivers  are 
likely  to  break  loose  and  add  to  the  disaster.  They  are  heavily 
loaded  with  mud  because  of  the  steepness  and  barrenness  of  the 
mountains,  and  many  of  them  flow  on  a  level  with  the  plain  or 
even  above  it,  being  kept  in  place  by  dikes.  Only  a  moderate 
flood  is  needed  to  cause  them  to  spill  over  and  carry  devasta- 
tion and  famine  for  scores  of  miles  on  either  side. 

Sometimes  human  selfishness  makes  the  floods  still  more 
disastrous.  North  of  Tsinan  in  Shantung,  for  example,  some 
roughly  parallel  canals  have  been  built  at  intervals  of  perhaps 
ten  miles  to  carry  surplus  water  from  the  Grand  Canal  to  the 
sea  during  floods.  In  normal  times  the  canals  are  not  needed 
and  their  heads  are  closed.  Such  strips  of  good  soil  are  very 
valuable,  for  farm  land  is  worth  perhaps  two  hundred  gold  dol- 
lars an  acre,  which  is  as  much  as  one  or  two  thousand  dollars 
would  be  with  us.  Naturally  the  officials  do  not  overlook  such 
an  opportunity  for  filling  their  pockets.  They  cultivate  the 
canal  bottoms,  and  make  a  very  good  thing  of  it.  When  a  flood 
comes,  they  are  not  at  all  disposed  to  give  up  so  great  a  source 
of  profit,  especially  as  other  sources  are  sure  to  diminish.  So  for 
centuries  they  have  done  what  they  did  in  192 1,  namely,  keep 
the  heads  of  the  canals  closed.  The  inevitable  result  is  that  the 
Grand  Canal  overflows  its  banks  in  many  places  and  floods  the 
surrounding  plain.  Thus  within  the  canals  the  official  fields  are 
protected  by  dikes,  while  in  the  broad  surrounding  areas,  a  hun- 
dred times  as  extensive,  vast  shallow  lakes  are  formed  which 
kiU  the  crops  of  hundreds  of  thousands  of  wretched  villagers. 
Such  an  event  is  thoroughly  Chinese,  for  one  of  the  greatest 
weaknesses  of  China  is  selfishness:  yet  curiously  enough  that 


172 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


same  selfishness,  as  we  shall  see,  seems  to  be  an  inevitable  means 
of  self-defense  against  the  famines. 

Where  the  rivers  break  loose,  the  floods  not  only  spoil  the 
crops  but  ruin  the  mud  villages.  One  would  think  that  in  areas 
liable  to  flood  all  the  houses  would  be  built  on  mounds  high 
enough  to  be  safe  no  matter  how  much  the  water  might  rise. 
But  that  is  not  the  case  even  in  our  own  country,  and  even  less 
in  China.  Consider  the  circumstances.  Floods  are  frequent. 
When  the  people  come  back  after  a  flood  they  are  desperately 
poor,  the  land  must  be  restored  as  we  shall  shortly  see,  the  crops 
must  be  planted,  and  new  houses  must  be  built.  Every  moment 
is  precious.  There  is  no  time  to  build  mounds  for  houses;  that 
would  take  much  labor,  especially  as  the  famine-stricken  people 
rarely  have  any  beasts  of  burden  to  help  them.  Doubtless  they 
tell  themselves  that  when  a  happier  day  arrives  they  will  build 
new  houses  safely  perched  on  mounds,  but  that  day  never 
comes;  and  after  a  year  or  two  without  another  flood  a  false  sense 
of  security  begins  to  prevail. 

Another  little  item  deserves  mention  in  this  connection. 
The  Chinese  plains  are  so  densely  populated  and  the  people  are 
so  near  the  brink  of  starvation  even  in  ordinary  years  that  few 
of  the  peasants  can  afford  to  lose  a  single  square  yard  of  their 
fields.  To  build  mounds  for  houses  would  involve  stripping  the 
fields  of  soil  or  else  digging  holes  so  deep  that  they  would  be 
filled  with  water  much  of  the  time.  In  either  case  good  land 
would  be  wasted,  and  that  would  mean  hungry  mouths.  We 
who  live  in  a  land  where  there  is  always  a  large  surplus,  have 
not  the  faintest  idea  of  the  miseries  and  the  constant  anxiety 
that  result  from  overpopulation  and  a  low  standard  of  living. 

Let  us  picture  what  happens  when  the  rains  descend,  the 
plains  become  water-logged,  and  the  rivers  burst  their  banks. 
Little  by  little  the  water  rises  around  the  villages.  By  the  time 
it  is  a  foot  or  two  deep  all  hope  for  the  crops  is  gone.  Then  the 
houses  begin  to  be  in  danger.  Made,  as  they  generally  are,  of 
mud  bricks  that  have  merely  been  dried  in  the  sun,  the  walls 
soon  become  soft.  Then  it  is  only  a  matter  of  days  before  the 


THE  SCOURGE  OF  FAMINE 


173 


heavy,  thatched  roofs  press  the  mushy  walls  out  of  shape  and 
the  whole  house — the  whole  village — collapses.  Such  utter  de- 
struction of  villages  is  ahnost  the  rule  in  most  of  the  areas  sub- 
ject to  floods  by  the  rivers.  Dikes  around  the  villages  sometimes 
help  for  a  time,  but  the  inertia  of  the  Chinese  allows  such  dikes 
to  fall  into  disrepair.  Moreover,  that  selfishness  which  is  so 
strongly  developed  among  them  makes  it  difficult  to  secure  co- 
operation in  the  attempt  to  keep  the  dikes  in  repair  when  there 
is  no  immediate  threat  of  flood.  Thus  in  flood  after  flood,  for 
hundreds  of  years,  millions  of  people  have  lost  their  crops,  while 
hundreds  of  thousands  have  also  lost  their  homes  and  all  their 
worldly  goods.  Practically  all  of  them  ultimately  lose  also  their 
animals,  for  they  have  to  sell  them  to  buy  food. 

Many  of  the  millions  who  are  thus  in  danger  of  starvation 
become  "wanderers."  That  word  looms  large  in  China  to-day, 
as  it  has  for  two  thousand  years.  Those  who  have  lost  houses 
as  well  as  crops  become  wanderers  at  once.  Those  whose  houses 
are  safe  may  have  some  store  of  food  remaining  and  may  also 
be  able  to  salvage  a  little  from  the  drowned  fields.  Hence  they 
stay  at  home  at  first,  although  winter  sees  many  of  them  also 
on  the  road.  In  many  cases  the  wandering  is  prolonged.  After 
the  fields  have  been  flooded  they  do  not  dry  quickly.  Many 
remain  wet  until  the  dry  season  is  well  under  way  in  the  autumn, 
and  then  of  course  it  is  too  late  to  plant  any  crop,  even  cabbages, 
before  cold  weather  sets  in.  In  this  fact  Hes  one  of  the  reasons 
why  famines  are  so  much  worse  in  the  north  than  in  the  south. 
From  the  Yangtse  valley  southward  some  kind  of  crops  can  be 
raised  even  in  winter. 

Even  when  spring  arrives  the  sufferers  from  flood  in  north 
China  are  often  unable  to  raise  crops.  In  many  cases  the  stand- 
ing water  dissolves  the  large  percentage  of  alkali  which  the  soil 
contains.  When  the  water  finally  dries  up,  this  is  left  as  a  whit- 
ish deposit  on  the  surface.  People  with  higher  skill  might  devise 
a  way  to  wash  it  out,  but  to  the  Chinese  it  is  an  insuperable 
obstacle.  The  only  remedy  is  to  wait  until  nature  redistributes 
the  alkali  and  once  more  makes  the  land  fit  for  cultivation. 


174 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


Hence  the  people  whose  land  becomes  alkaline  may  be  forced 
to  remain  as  wanderers  for  years.  Still  another  group  shares  the 
same  fate.  These  are  the  people  whose  lands  happen  to  lie  in 
the  main  path  pursued  by  a  river  as  it  breaks  its  way  through 
the  dikes  and  flows  off  in  a  new  course.  After  the  flood  has 
abated,  such  a  course  is  often  marked  by  a  broad  band  of  newly 
deposited  fine  sand  which  may  have  a  width  of  several  miles 
in  the  case  of  the  Hoang  Ho.  Sometimes  the  sand  is  only  inches 
deep,  but  elsewhere  there  may  be  feet.  In  no  case  is  it  fit  for 
the  great  majority  of  crops.  If  the  sand  is  only  a  few  inches 
deep  it  may  be  turned  under  and  mixed  with  the  old  soil.  That 
is  a  very  laborious  process,  especially  for  people  without  domes- 
tic animals.  Moreover,  when  it  is  completed  the  soil  is  not  so 
rich  and  productive  as  formerly,  and  hence  can  feed  fewer  mouths. 
In  other  cases  a  greater  depth  of  sand  forces  the  returning  peas- 
ants either  to  dig  it  off  bodily  from  part  of  the  fields  and  deposit 
it  upon  other  parts,  or  else  to  plant  fruit-trees  or  some  other 
relatively  unproductive  crop  which  will  grow  in  the  sandy  silt, 
but  which  yields  relatively  little  food.  Hence  some  mouths  are 
unprovided  with  food,  and  people  must  still  wander  unless  they 
have  already  died.  Such  injury  to  the  fields  by  floods  is  by  no 
means  confined  to  China,  although  elsewhere  it  rarely  produces 
such  dire  results.  For  example,  Mr.  R.  V.  P.  Coleman  tells  me 
that  in  the  potato-growing  Kan  valley,  in  which  flows  the 
Kansas  River  west  of  Kansas  City,  the  spring  floods  sometimes 
deposit  a  layer  of  sand  so  deep  as  to  spoil  the  potato-fields  for 
two  or  three  seasons.  The  sand  may  cover  the  bottom-lands  to 
a  width  of  five  or  ten  miles. 

The  great  scourges  of  overpopulation  and  famine  seem  to 
have  prevailed  in  China  intermittently  for  over  two  thousand 
years.  A  Httle  tale  told  by  Doctor  Wilder  of  Peking  may  give 
some  inkling  of  how  the  pressure  of  population  weighs  China 
down  to-day.  Not  far  from  Peking  a  considerable  number  of 
villages  do  not  expect  to  raise  food  enough  to  support  themselves 
more  than  perhaps  nine  or  ten  months  even  in  good  years. 
Their  land  is  not  sufficient,  or,  to  put  it  in  another  way,  they 


THE  SCOURGE  OF  FAMINE 


175 


have  allowed  their  numbers  to  increase  too  rapidly.  After  the 
crop  is  harvested  in  the  autumn  these  wretched  people  complete 
all  the  preparations  for  the  agriculture  of  the  next  year  and  then 
prepare  to  leave  home.  In  each  house  is  placed  enough  grain  for 
seed,  and  enough  to  support  life  while  the  spring  work  is  being 
done  and  before  the  earhest  crops  can  be  relied  upon  for  further 
food.  When  all  the  rest  of  the  food  is  consumed,  the  houses  are 
sealed  up  with  mud  bricks  filling  the  doors  and  windows.  Then 
the  houses  are  simply  left  unguarded.  The  villagers  fare  forth 
in  the  bitter  winter  weather  to  other  more  prosperous  towns 
and  villages.  They  would  work  if  they  could,  but  there  are 
twenty  men  in  China  during  the  winter  for  every  job,  no  matter 
how  trivial  or  disagreeable.  They  have  no  alternative  except  to 
beg,  steal,  rob,  and  even  commit  raids,  or  else  to  migrate.  But  for 
this  last  alternative  they  seem  to  be  too  conservative.  Hence 
they  eke  out  a  miserable  existence  until  spring,  and  then  go  back 
to  their  villages,  sure  that  they  will  find  the  houses  unopened. 
That  is  the  most  curious  feature  of  the  story.  So  common  is 
this  degree  of  poverty,  and  so  well  recognized  is  the  need  of  wan- 
dering, that  it  is  a  point  of  honor  in  all  that  region  not  to  break 
into  a  sealed  house.  You  may  steal  on  the  road,  you  may  enter 
a  house  that  is  occupied,  you  may  dig  through  walls  in  other 
places,  and  you  may  commit  banditry,  but  you  must  not  enter  a 
house  that  is  sealed.  I  tell  the  story  as  it  was  told  me  by  Doctor 
Wilder,  a  man  who  knows  China  as  only  a  missionary  of  many 
years*  standing  can  know  it.  He  adds  that  an  investigation  dur- 
ing a  recent  famine  made  it  seem  probable  that  the  people  of 
these  villages  are  as  a  whole  subnormal  mentally.  They  are  little 
more  than  morons,  apparently.  This  is  not  surprising.  Even 
without  the  adverse  selection  which  I  shall  shortly  mention, 
the  constant  underfeeding  from  earliest  infancy  must  stunt  them 
in  mind  and  body. 

Such  conditions  are  nothing  new.  Here  is  a  quotation  from 
one  of  the  many  authors,  cited  in  her  Economic  History  of  China 
by  Miss  Mabel  Ping-Hua  Lee,  who,  by  the  way,  is  one  of  the 
few  Chinese  women  who  have  taken  the  degree  of  doctor  of 


176 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


philosophy  in  America.  The  following  passages  are  given  sub- 
stantially as  they  occur  in  her  excellent  doctor's  dissertation. 
The  first  one  dates  from  the  year  1530  A.  D.,  as  nearly  as  I  can 
ascertain,  and  was  written  by  an  official  in  Shensi  who  made  a 
journey  to  Anhwei  a  hundred  or  more  miles  west  of  Shanghai, 
and  then  to  Yunnan  in  the  far  southwest.  From  the  seventh 
month  onward,  he  says,  that  is,  from  the  time  when  the  early 
crop  is  usually  harvested, 

I  saw  that  the  rice  [millet?]  crop  had  been  almost  entirely  eaten  by 
worms,  especially  in  such  places  as  Shensi  and  Honan.  When  I  passed 
through  Tung  Kwon  (in  Shensi)  I  noticed  that  there  was  no  late  rice  left 
for  harvest.  The  wandering  people  filled  all  the  roads.  Once  in  a  great 
while  I  saw  people  who  were  harvesting  something.  Quite  delighted,  I 
made  inquiry,  but  found  that  they  were  simply  harvesting  a  kind  of  grass. 
There  are  two  kinds  of  grass,  one  called  Mein  Poon  (soft  grass)  and  the 
other  Tzu  Poon  (thread  grass).  Both  can  be  used  to  make  noodles,  and  the 
hungry  people  have  depended  upon  these  grasses  as  food  for  five  years 
already.  I  tasted  them  myself,  and  found  that  the  grass  stung  my  mouth, 
upset  my  stomach,  and  caused  discomfort  for  days.  How  can  we  possibly 
describe  all  the  bitter  and  exhausting  conditions  which  the  poor  (literally, 
the  small  people)  have  to  endure ! 

The  famine  here  referred  to  was  presumably  due  to  drought 
rather  than  flood.  That  is  the  commonest  cause  of  famine  in 
Shensi.  Moreover,  as  a  rule,  it  is  only  the  dry  famines  which 
last  year  after  year.  The  famines  due  to  floods  are  much  more 
complete  and  severe  while  they  last,  but  the  same  district  is 
rarely  afflicted  two  years  in  succession.  Moreover,  during  such 
years  the  fields  in  the  neighbormg  areas  too  high  to  be  flooded 
are  likely  to  produce  good  or  even  unusual  crops.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  famines  due  to  drought  are  rarely  so  complete  as  the 
flood  famines  and  do  not  destroy  the  houses  or  injure  the  land. 
But  they  often  come  year  after  year  and  affect  vast  areas,  as 
in  the  case  cited  above,  where  the  famine  had  already  lasted  five 
years.  The  most  unfortunate  places  are  those  where  famines 
due  to  drought  and  flood  alternate,  and  that  unfortunately  has 
been  the  fate  of  considerable  portions  of  north  China.  That  is 


THE  SCOURGE  OF  FAMINE 


177 


why  China  has  probably  suffered  more  from  famine  than  any 
other  country  in  the  world,  not  even  excepting  India. 

In  order  to  appreciate  the  effect  of  famines  upon  racial  char- 
acter it  is  necessary  to  realize  how  numerous  and  how  devas- 
tating these  terrible  scourges  have  been.  One  of  the  worst  series 
of  early  famines  occurred  about  two  hundred  years  before  Christ. 
At  the  beginning  of  the  Han  dynasty,  according  to  Miss  Lee's 
translation: 

One  load  of  rice  was  sold  for  5000  (cash?).  Human  flesh  was  eaten  and 
more  than  half  the  population  perished.  Then  Kau-tso  (the  first  Han  Em- 
peror) allowed  the  people  to  sell  their  sons  in  order  to  go  and  get  food  at 
Tso  Hou  (Szechuan). 

A  hundred  years  later,  after  various  other  famines,  the  arable 
land  had  largely  passed  into  the  hands  of  rich  landowners,  just 
as  happened  in  Italy  at  the  same  time  for  the  same  reasons. 
Each  period  of  famine  caused  many  of  the  poor  to  mortgage 
their  land,  and  ultimately  the  rich  "ate  it  up." 

As  a  result  the  rich  possess  land  from  field  to  field,  while  the  poor  have 
not  even  enough  to  accommodate  the  point  of  an  awl. — ^At  this  time  Shan- 
tung suffered  famine  from  the  Yellow  River  trouble,  the  harvest  being  poor 
for  several  years.  Sometimes  the  people  even  ate  one  another.  This  was 
prevalent  over  an  area  of  two  or  three  thousand  li  (700  to  1000  miles). 
The  Emperor  pitied  them  and  permitted  the  hungry  people  to  travel  to 
get  food  from  places  along  the  Kiang  and  Wai  Rivers.  And  they  might 
stay  in  these  places  if  they  so  desired.  There  was  a  great  flood,  and  the  people 
who  died  from  starvation  in  Kwang  Tung  (Shansi,  Shensi,  Chihli)  amounted 
to  thousands.  So  an  edict  was  issued  ordering  the  transport  of  grain  (millet) 
from  Pah  Sauh  (Szechuan)  to  Kiang  Ling  (Hopeh),  and  the  hungry  people 
were  allowed  to  go  to  get  provisions  in  the  region  of  Kiang  Wei  (Yangtse 
and  Wei  Rivers — Kiangsu,  Anhwei,  Kiangsi,  Honan,  Hupeh,  etc.). 

Half  a  centuiy  later,  that  is,  about  48  B.  C: 

On  account  of  a  poor  harvest,  the  suffering  people  were  exempted  from 
taxes.  Also  ponds,  lakes,  gardens,  reservoirs  were  lent  to  the  poor.  [This 
suggests  that  the  famine  was  due  to  drought.]  On  account  of  a  great  flood 
in  Kwan  Tung  (Shansi,  Honan,  Shantung,  Chihli)  grain  and  money  were 
transported  from  other  countries  to  save  the  people  in  Kwan  Tung. 


178 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


The  accounts  of  what  happened  about  i6o  A.  D.  throw  an 
interesting  Hght  on  the  conservatism  which  by  that  time  had 
begun  to  be  prominent  among  the  Chinese  peasants. 

There  was  a  famine  in  the  state  of  Tsi  (Shansi  and  Chihli)  and  the  peo- 
ple ate  human  flesh.  So  the  different  states  and  counties  were  ordered  to 
relieve  the  poor  and  weak. 

A  government  adviser  at  that  time  said: 

At  present  in  the  states  of  Tsing,  Hsu,  Yen,  and  Chi  the  population  is 
dense  and  the  fields  are  narrow,  so  that  the  people  cannot  get  sufficient 
provisions.  But  [in  certain  other  regions]  the  population  is  sparse  and  many 
fields  are  left  vacant  and  uncultivated.  As  a  rule  the  natural  tendency  of 
the  small  (poor)  man  is  to  be  satisfied  with  his  native  land,  and  to  weigh 
carefully  the  advisability  of  moving.  He  prefers  to  suffer  hunger  where  he 
is,  rather  than  go  to  some  more  happy  land.  So  the  government  ought  to 
remove  to  the  unoccupied  country  those  poor  people  who  cannot  make  a 
living  by  themselves. 

This  little  comment  on  the  unwillingness  of  the  Chinese  peasants 
to  change  their  homes  should  be  remembered.  It  helps  to 
explain  their  present  poverty  and  backwardness. 

Time  and  again  in  the  old  records  one  finds  accounts  of  other 
hideous  practices  as  well  as  cannibalism.  About  297  A.  D.: 

There  was  a  famine  in  Kwan  Chung  (Shensi)  and  the  price  of  rice  was 
as  high  as  10,000  cash  per  load.  So  an  edict  was  issued  that  those  wishing 
to  sell  their  relatives  would  not  be  prohibited  by  the  government. 

The  pitiful  thing  about  it  all  is  that  the  same  troubles  keep 
recurring.  In  one  of  the  hundreds  of  accounts  of  famine  we  read 
that  about  575  A.  D.: 

Many  people,  carrying  the  young  and  supporting  the  old,  wander 
around  with  grass  shoes.  Having  already  lost  their  own  occupation  [pre- 
sumably because  they  have  sold  their  land  under  the  stress  of  famine], 
they  have  fallen  into  the  class  of  people  without  work.  And  with  the  com- 
ing of  famine  and  plague,  they  cannot  but  wander  and  leave  their  native 
places. 


THE  SCOURGE  OF  FAMINE 


17Q 


Shortly  afterward,  in  6i6  A.  D.,  a  brief  period  of  prosperity 
and  of  increase  in  population  came  to  an  end,  and 

people  began  to  leave  their  work  and  flock  to  the  cities,  and  so  were 
unable  to  provide  for  themselves.  At  first  people  took  the  bark  of  trees 
for  food.  Then  gradually  they  used  leaves.  When  both  of  these  became 
exhausted,  they  cooked  soil  and  bran  into  flour.  Finally  they  ate  human 
flesh. 

Elsewhere  we  read  that  when  bran,  chaff,  bark,  and  leaves 
were  exhausted,  the  people  stayed  their  stomachs  with  a  kind  of 
clay.  For  a  few  days  the  clay  gave  a  feeling  of  comfort,  but 
soon  those  who  ate  it  fell  dead.  At  the  end  of  this  period,  about 
620  A.  D.,  two-thirds  of  the  population  had  perished  (or  per- 
haps migrated)  in  the  areas  infested  by  famine.  This,  too,  like 
the  second  century  before  Christ,  was  a  time  when  the  countries 
around  the  Mediterranean  also  suffered  terribly  from  famine. 

Throughout  the  long  and  painful  record  of  Chinese  famines 
there  is  constant  evidence  of  an  attempt  on  the  part  of  the 
government  to  combat  these  dire  disasters.  Often,  but  not  always, 
the  attempt  was  prompted  largely  by  the  desire  to  improve  the 
curtailed  revenues.  For  instance,  about  700  A.  D.: 

The  wandering  people  left  their  native  places  for  a  long  time;  so  public 
income  and  savings  are  lacking.  The  land  is  left  barren  and  uncultivated, 
so  we  must  immediately  establish  relief  work  to  help  the  farmers  to  restore 
their  farms.  In  case  there  is  any  unoccupied  property  which  was  formerly 
taxable,  or  any  deserters  and  fugitives  from  military  stations,  all  are  to  be 
excused  and  not  investigated,  and  all  are  to  be  relieved  from  taxes.  Those 
who  ought  to  go  home  but  are  so  poor  that  they  cannot  afford  to  do  so  will 
be  given  provisions  for  the  trip  so  that  they  can  reach  their  native  places. 

No  matter  what  the  government  might  do,  however,  the 
rich  constantly  "ate  up'^  the  poor,  for  every  famine  gave  them 
a  new  opportunity.  About  990  A.  D.: 

The  shoots  of  the  millet  grew  several  feet  long  this  year,  but  for  a  great 
many  previous  years  many  crops  did  not  give  good  harvests.  Rich  people 
speculated,  while  the  poor  had  to  pay  double  the  amount  of  their  debts. 
Even  though  there  be  occasionally  a  rather  good  harvest  [this  seems  to  have 
been  a  comparatively  prosperous  period],  the  rich  collect  their  loans  urgently. 


180 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


Thus  the  earnings  of  the  poor  are  gone  before  they  can  pay  their  rent  and 
taxes.  The  government  therefore  prohibited  the  rich  from  charging  more 
than  ICO  per  cent  interest  on  loans  of  wheat,  rice,  or  money. 

If  loo  per  cent  becomes  the  legal  maximum  for  interest  dur- 
ing a  relatively  prosperous  period,  imagine  the  conditions  during 
a  time  of  frequent  famine. 

Within  a  century  or  two  after  this  comfortable  period  there 
came  another  bad  period,  the  worst  apparently  in  Chinese  his- 
tory. About  1050  or  1060  A.  D.: 

South  of  Kiang  Wai  there  was  great  drought  in  the  spring.  In  some 
places  even  the  wells  and  springs  were  dried  up;  oxen  and  other  animals 
died  from  thirst,  and  no  chickens  or  dogs  were  left.  As  a  result  all  nine 
kinds  of  farms  (that  is,  all  kinds)  lost  their  occupation  and  the  people  are 
all  complaining  of  hardship. 

Again: 

Even  parents,  sons,  and  brothers  cannot  protect  one  another.  And  all 
the  widows,  widowers,  orphans,  and  single  persons  cannot  support  them- 
selves. All  the  strong  have  wandered  and  moved  away;  and  the  weak 
have  died.  The  reason  why  conditions  are  so  bad  is  because  of  floods  and 
drought;  and  the  reason  why  there  are  so  many  floods  and  droughts  is 
that  the  Yin  and  Yang  are  not  in  harmonious  relations. 

The  Yin  and  Yang  are  the  two  great  principles  of  nature, 
which,  according  to  the  Chinese,  control  all  natural  events. 
When  they  are  in  harmony  the  world  is  at  rest;  when  they  are 
out  of  harmony  all  sorts  of  disasters  occur. 

From  this  time  onward  the  conditions  in  China  grew  worse 
and  worse  for  nearly  two  centuries.  The  worst  is  summed  up 
in  what  seems  to  be  rather  a  harmless  statement  dating  from 
about  1 185  A.  D.: 

The  strength  of  the  people  in  the  southeast  has  broken  down  and  de- 
teriorated, and  even  in  the  families  of  the  middle  class  there  are  no  savings 
for  more  than  a  few  months  ahead.  .  .  .  The  states  of  Su,  Hu,  Shen,  and 
Show  (Kiangsu  and  Chekiang)  used  to  have  floods  only  once  in  a  while, 
but  now  they  frequently  suffer  disasters. 

The  significance  of  all  this  lies  in  the  fact  that  hitherto  the  rec- 
ords of  famine  have  all  come  from  northern  regions,  chiefly  in 


THE  SCOURGE  OF  FAMINE 


181 


the  Hoang  Ho  valley;  now  the  famine  area  has  expanded,  and 
both  drought  and  flood  afflict  the  provinces  around  the  mouth 
of  the  Yangtse  and  even  as  far  south  as  Fucho^/. 

Because  of  these  conditions  an  imperial  officer  in  1206  re- 
ports that: 

The  escaping  and  deserting  families  have  become  more  and  more 
numerous,  and  the  return  of  the  land  tax  has  become  shorter  and  shorter. 

And  then  follows  one  of  those  strangely  short-sighted  com- 
ments with  which  the  pages  of  history  fairly  bristle: 

Both  the  government  officials  and  the  conunon  people  all  feel  the  grav- 
ity of  the  situation  more  and  more  each  day,  and  no  one  seems  to  know 
what  has  actually  been  the  source  of  the  trouble.  Some  district  officers, 
who  are  well  aware  of  the  general  alarming  conditions,  have  the  idea  of 
correcting  the  boundaries  of  the  fields.  This  of  course  would  make  the 
small  families  feel  somewhat  relieved,  but  the  huge  (rich)  families  would 
feel  very  agitated  about  the  process. 

The  government  actually  tried  to  restore  the  fields  to  their 
rightful  owners,  "correcting  the  boundaries,"  as  they  put  it. 
But  seven  years  later  we  read  that: 

In  case  the  harvests  are  very  good  we  might  be  fortunate  enough 
not  to  have  much  trouble.  But  if  the  year  should  be  bad,  several  dozens 
of  the  tenants  would  group  themselves  together  to  rob  the  merchants  and 
farmers  in  the  neighborhood.  Sometimes  they  even  murder  people,  and 
some  such  cases  are  already  on  record.  So  I  am  afraid  that  these  are  the 
great  sources  of  trouble  in  the  years  of  famine.  If  we  (the  government) 
can  clear  up  these  places  so  as  to  give  them  no  room  to  gather  together, 
it  will  be  one  of  the  best  poHcies  to  stop  the  evil  of  robbery  and  theft  in  a 
quiet  way. 

In  a  certain  sense  this  official  was  right.  What  China  needed 
then  and  now  was  room.  She  has  far  too  many  people.  But  in  a 
country  which  is  subject  to  recurrent  natural  disasters,  it  is  the 
common  practice  to  attribute  the  difficulties  to  the  system  of 
land-tenure.  That  has  been  done  in  ancient  Italy,  in  Ireland, 
in  Mexico,  and  in  many  other  countries.  But  so  long  as  hard 
times  and  famines  recur,  and  so  long  as  there  are  many  years 


182 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


when  the  actual  products  of  the  farms  are  insufficient  to  main- 
tain the  accustomed  standards  of  Hving,  no  form  of  land-tenure 
will  ever  bring  prosperity.  Under  such  conditions  the  poor 
inevitably  mortgage  their  lands,  their  services,  or  their  own 
selves  to  the  rich,  and  no  amount  of  lawmaking  will  prevent 
it.  The  only  remedies  are  to  overcome  the  vagaries  of  nature 
by  means  of  irrigation,  drainage,  roads,  and  ultimately  the  pre- 
diction of  the  seasons  far  in  advance,  and  especially  to  limit  the 
population,  so  that  in  good  years  it  may  lay  by  a  large  surplus 
to  tide  it  over  the  bad  years  that  are  sure  to  come.  Where  a 
trouble  is  due  to  the  irregularities  of  nature,  mere  changes  in 
land-tenure  and  taxation  are  only  temporary  pain-killers,  not 
fundamental  remedies. 

How  bad  the  conditions  became  in  China,  in  spite  of  all  the 
laws,  is  obvious  from  this  account  of  the  period  from  1208  to 
1234  A.  D.: 

Although  there  were  natural  disasters  (floods,  etc.)  and  serious  drought 
in  the  previous  periods,  the  conditions  in  those  days  were  never  so  bad  as 
to-day.  At  present  the  granaries  and  treasuries  are  empty  and  the  pro- 
visions are  not  enough  for  a  month's  supply.  One  sen  is  sold  at  1,000  (cash?) 
and  the  price  is  still  increasing  without  limit.  Even  the  rich  have  been  de- 
stroyed; nine  out  of  ten  families  have  died  from  starvation;  and  some  have 
gathered  to  drown  themselves  in  the  Yangtse.  In  the  villages  and  lanes 
people  gather  to  criticise  the  government  officials,  and  the  complaints  among 
the  soldiers  are  too  severe  to  be  heard.  The  condition  is  serious.  And  it 
appears  right  in  the  heart  of  the  city  of  great  crowds  (the  capital)  [which 
was  then  at  Nanking,  or  Hangchow,  both  being  royal  residences].  The 
territory  of  Chehsi  (Chehkiang)  is  the  region  where  rice  is  supposed  to  be 
collected  [it  is  one  of  the  most  productive  regions  in  all  China],  but  now  the 
red  land  (that  is,  dry,  untilled  fields)  covers  1,000  H.  The  people  in  the  Wei 
region  (Anhwei,  along  the  Wei  River)  are  wandering  away  and  deserting 
their  homes  continuously,  carrying  their  babies  and  wandering  on  the 
roads.  They  wish  to  find  homes,  but  there  is  no  such  place  for  them;  so 
they  simply  wander  until,  tired  out  and  exhausted,  they  wait  for  death. 

I  have  dwelt  on  these  famines  because  they  are  one  of  the 
greatest  of  all  facts  in  Chinese  history.  But  I  have  not  men- 
tioned a  tithe  of  those  that  are  recorded.  At  no  time  does  China 
ever  seem  to  have  been  free  from  them  for  more  than  a  few 


THE  SCOURGE  OF  FAMINE 


183 


score  years,  unless  it  be  in  the  very  early  periods,  the  golden 
age.  The  worst  periods  seem  to  have  been  (i)  the  third  and 
second  centuries  before  Christ,  (2)  the  fourth  and  fifth  cen- 
turies after  Christ,  (3)  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries, 
and  (4)  the  sixteenth  century.  Other  periods,  however,  have  been 
almost  equally  bad,  and  it  is  not  yet  possible  to  speak  positively. 

Each  great  period  of  famines,  as  was  stated  in  a  preceding 
chapter,  seems  to  have  been  accompanied  by  another  great 
affliction,  due  probably  to  the  same  climatic  cause.  This  other 
affliction  took  the  form  of  barbarian  invasions  from  the  north. 
In  the  first  of  the  periods  mentioned  above,  the  invasions  were 
so  serious  that  the  Great  Wall  was  built,  bit  by  bit,  and  finally 
joined  into  a  single  magnificent  structure  about  214  B.  C.  In 
the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries  the  Tartars  invaded  China  again, 
and  swarmed  over  all  the  northern  portion.  During  the  twelfth 
and  thirteenth  centuries  the  same  thing  happened  once  more, 
ending  in  the  Mongol  domination.  Finally  in  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury there  began  a  movement  of  the  northern  barbarians  which 
culminated  in  the  conquest  of  China  by  the  Manchus.  Appar- 
ently each  of  the  great  movements  of  nomads  from  the  north 
was  stimulated  if  not  actually  caused  by  repeated  periods  of 
deficient  rainfall  and  consequent  distress  in  those  northern 
regions.  Needless  to  say  the  southward  raids  of  the  fierce  desert 
tribes  added  enormously  to  the  sufferings  which  China  was  al- 
ready undergoing  by  reason  of  its  own  floods  and  droughts. 
Small  wonder  that  in  China  there  have  almost  always  been  hun- 
dreds of  thousands  of  wanderers,  while  at  frequent  intervals 
miUions  have  suffered  for  lack  of  food. 


CHAPTER  XIII 


THE  SELECTION  OF  THE  CHINESE 

In  every  Chinese  famine  thousands,  or  often  millions  of 
people  perish.  They  may  not  die  of  hunger,  but  they  die  of 
something  else.  During  the  famine  due  to  the  flood  of  192 1, 
Mr.  Torrey  of  Tsinan  was  distributing  reHef. 

"Have  any  people  died  of  hunger?''  he  asked  in  a  village 
where  there  were  at  the  time  perhaps  300  people. 

"No,"  was  the  answer,  "we  have  food  here." 

As  a  matter  of  fact  they  had  for  months  been  subsisting 
largely  on  chaff  mixed  with  just  enough  grain  to  support  life, 
but  they  had  "food"  according  to  their  definition.  Then  the 
missionary  put  his  question  in  another  way. 

"How  many  people  died  during  those  ten  cold  days  that  we 
had  a  week  or  two  ago?"  That  had  been  a  very  bitter  period, 
with  high  winds  and  the  thermometer  near  zero. 

"Sixty,"  was  the  answer.  Those  people  had  not  actually 
died  of  hunger,  but  they  had  died  of  other  diseases  and  of  ex- 
posure because  prolonged  undernourishment  had  sapped  their 
vitahty.  That  is  the  way  it  is  in  every  famine.  Our  problem  is 
to  determine  what  kind  of  people  die  under  such  circumstances. 
Do  any  special  qualities  of  character  tend  to  cause  death,  or  to 
prevent  people  from  dying  ? 

Two  other  similar  questions  must  be  answered.  Innumerable 
people,  as  we  have  seen,  wander  from  their  homes  in  every 
famine.  Some  die,  some  settle  elsewhere,  and  some  finally  come 
back  to  the  old  homes  either  the  year  after  the  famine  if  they 
are  fortunate  and  the  famine  is  mild,  or  many  years  later  if  the 
famine  is  severe  or  if  their  lands  have  been  injured.  What  kind 
of  people  belong  to  each  of  these  groups?  What  effect  does 
natural  selection  have  in  differentiating  the  character  of  those 

184 


THE  SELECTION  OF  THE  CHINESE  185 


who  ultimately  remain  in  the  old  home  and  those  who  perma- 
nently find  homes  elsewhere? 

It  needs  no  demonstration  to  show  that  the  first  effect  of  a 
Chinese  famine  is  to  kill  the  people  who  are  physically  weak. 
Any  organic  disease  is  almost  sure  to  be  intensified  and  ulti- 
mately to  prove  fatal  under  the  stress  of  insufficient  food,  ex- 
posure, and  mental  strain.  Hence  we  should  expect  to  find  that 
the  Chinese  are  a  pecuHarly  sound  and  sturdy  race.  Such  seems 
to  be  the  case  by  general  consent,  especially  in  the  north  where, 
as  we  have  seen,  the  people  of  Shantung  and  the  other  famine 
districts  are  physically  much  superior  to  the  quicker  and  more 
alert  people  of  the  south,  where  famines  are  rare  or  unknown. 
Nevertheless  in  the  north  one  sees  more  sores,  more  deformity, 
and  more  minor  defects  than  in  the  south.  At  least  that  is  how 
it  appeared  to  me,  and  physicians  whom  I  consulted  seem  to 
think  likewise.  This,  however,  may  merely  be  the  result  of  the 
malnutrition  which  is  so  common,  and  which  must  have  a  most 
serious  effect  upon  many  of  the  young  children. 

Another  selective  effect  of  the  famines  would  obviously  seem 
to  pertain  to  the  qualities  of  thrift  and  economy.  The  family 
which  consistently  denies  itself  in  order  to  lay  by  a  little  surplus 
is  far  more  likely  to  survive  than  is  the  one  which  uses  up  all 
its  resources  as  fast  as  they  become  available.  During  two  thou- 
sand years  of  famine  it  seems  safe  to  say  that  the  ancestors  of 
practically  every  Chinese  now  living  must,  time  and  again,  have 
passed  through  crises  when  habits  of  thrift,  economy,  and  even 
parsimony  gave  them  a  decided  advantage  over  their  neighbors, 
in  whom  such  habits  were  less  strongly  developed.  The  wasteful 
and  extravagant  must  have  been  killed  off  so  relentlessly  that 
to-day  wastefulness  is  almost  eliminated  in  China.  Even  in  the 
south  this  is  true,  for  the  Chinese  ancestors  of  the  southerners 
all  came  from  the  north,  and  apparently  had  been  subjected  to 
many  famines  before  they  finally  reached  a  land  where  famine  no 
longer  troubles  them.  Yet  in  them  the  elimination  of  extrava- 
gance would  scarcely  be  as  complete  as  in  the  north.  Moreover, 
since  there  has  been  no  such  severe  elimination  of  the  extrava- 


186 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


gant  in  later  times,  it  is  scarcely  to  be  expected  that  the  spirit 
of  economy  and  frugality  should  be  as  highly  developed  in  the 
south  as  in  the  north.  And  that  is  just  what  we  find.  Yet  accord- 
ing to  our  standards  even  the  southerners  carry  their  economies 
to  a  senseless  limit.  Chinese  business  men  who  have  been  trained 
abroad  criticise  their  own  selves  because  they  are  so  anxious  to 
save  that  they  often  fail  to  invest  their  earnings  as  profitably  as 
they  might,  and  thereby  retard  their  own  success. 

This  same  quality  of  providing  for  a  rainy  day  accounts  in 
part  for  the  constant  "squeeze"  which  is  so  disagreeable  a  part 
of  life  in  China.  So  anxious  are  the  Chinese  to  lay  hold  of  some- 
thing to  ward  off  the  evil  day  of  scarcity  that  they  cannot  wait 
for  the  legitimate  fruits  of  their  labor.  Therefore  they  extract 
their  percentage  from  everything  that  passes  through  their 
hands,  regardless  of  the  fact  that  if  they  did  not  do  this  their 
trustworthiness  would  tend  to  bring  them  much  higher  and  more 
profitable  positions.  In  the  same  way  the  officials  begin  to  feather 
their  nests  the  moment  they  assume  office.  In  them,  as  in  the 
vast  majority  of  Chinese,  the  tendency  to  save  for  a  rainy  day 
appears  to  be  an  inborn  trait  which  they  cannot  withstand  ex- 
cept with  painful  struggles.  Moreover,  throughout  the  long  cen- 
turies of  famine,  there  has  been  a  premium  on  the  capacity  to 
grab  what  can  be  gotten  at  once,  regardless  of  consequences. 
Never  can  one  be  sure  when  a  famine  will  come,  and  only  among 
a  few  of  the  extremely  rich  is  there  any  assurance  that  they, 
too,  may  not  be  plunged  into  the  ranks  of  the  hungry  and 
empty. 

Economy  and  thrift  are  virtues,  but  they  easily  pass  into 
parsimony  and  selfishness.  Now  selfishness  and  self-centeredness, 
which  perhaps  are  the  same,  are  among  the  most  prominent  and 
most  regrettable  quahties  of  the  Chinese.  And  they  too,  like  a 
strong  physique  and  the  spirit  of  rigid  economy,  seem  to  have 
become  inherent  in  the  race,  ingrained  qualities  innate  in  the 
germ  plasm.  They  are  innate  because  in  the  past  those  who 
showed  the  spirit  of  altruism  and  self-sacrifice  have  often  paid 
the  penalty  with  their  lives.    Let  me  explain  this  more  fully. 


THE  SELECTION  OF  THE  CHINESE 


187 


Here  is  a  family,  or  rather  a  household,  of  fifteen  souls.  At  its 
head  is  the  grandfather,  and  it  includes  three  sons  and  their 
wives  and  children.  That  family  has  food  enough  to  last  for  a 
hundred  days,  but  it  will  be  a  hundred  and  fifty  days  before  any 
large  amount  of  food  can  again  be  hoped  for  from  nature.  Sup- 
pose that  several  other  households  are  in  the  same  plight.  If 
any  one  of  those  famiUes  gives  anything  to  the  others  it  merely 
diminishes  its  own  chances  of  living.  If  it  gave  largely  it  would 
doom  itself  to  prompt  destruction.  It  is  not  as  though  one  could 
give  at  one  time  and  one  at  another.  That  happens  in  a  com- 
munity where  the  disasters  are  limited  to  individuals  or  to  small 
groups,  and  not  where  whole  provinces  suffer  at  the  same  time. 

This  is  not  all  that  can  be  done  by  sheer  selfishness  and  sheer 
indifference  to  the  sufferings  of  others.  Another  important  re- 
source lies  in  seUing  the  children,  especially  the  girls,  and  also 
the  young  wives.  So  the  elders  in  families  such  as  we  have  de- 
scribed look  over  the  family  and  decide  that  if  the  prettiest  young 
wife  and  the  pretty  eleven-year-old  daughter  are  sold  they  will 
yield  enough  to  tide  the  rest  of  the  family  through  the  famine. 
But  one  family,  being  kind  of  heart,  yields  to  the  entreaties  of 
the  girls,  and  they  are  not  sold.  A  few  weeks  or  months  later 
that  family  has  reached  the  limit  of  its  endurance.  The  beams 
from  the  house  have  been  sold,  for  they  are  the  only  part  that 
will  bring  anything.  The  bedding  has  been  sold  even  from  under 
the  children,  and  the  air  is  already  showing  the  nip  of  winter. 
A  few  more  clothes  can  be  sold,  a  little  more  food  can  be  ob- 
tained by  begging,  but  that  is  all.  Only  three  possibilities  re- 
main, provided  the  girls  are  not  sold.  One  is  for  the  whole  family 
to  take  to  the  road  as  beggars  or  bandits;  the  others  are  death 
and  cannibaHsm.  If  such  a  family  is  gifted  with  a  little  more 
than  the  usual  degree  of  sensitiveness  it  may  decide  to  follow 
the  example  of  a  family  whose  tale  I  heard  from  a  missionary. 
When  the  last  scanty  meal  had  been  eaten,  the  father  tied  all 
the  family  together  with  a  rope,  including  himself  and  even  the 
dog;  then  all  threw  themselves  into  the  river  and  perished.  In 
another  case,  the  head  of  the  house  sold  the  last  rags  of  bedding, 


188 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


bought  a  little  food  and  some  poison.  "One  last  good  meal/' 
said  he,  "  and  then  we  will  wander  forth/'  But  he  put  the  poison 
in  the  food  and  they  all  died  together.  These  are  not  imaginary 
instances:  they  are  things  that  actually  happened  in  a  recent 
famine.  That  famine  was  by  no  means  so  severe  as  hundreds 
that  have  preceded  it,  and  it  was  greatly  mitigated  by  the  fact 
that  now  there  is  a  railroad  in  the  district,  while  organized  rehef 
on  a  large  scale  was  administered  by  the  Red  Cross.  Yet  two 
such  instances  and  many  more  cases  of  suicide  came  to  the  knowl- 
edge of  a  single  missionary.  How  many  other  such  cases  there 
must  have  been  that  he  did  not  hear  of,  and  how  vastly  many 
more  in  the  hundreds  of  past  famines ! 

But  the  family  which  was  callous  to  the  entreaties  of  its 
daughters  and  young  wives  survived.  The  ruthless  sacrifice  of 
the  flower  of  the  family  saved  the  rest.  Thus  it  has  ever  been. 
For  more  than  two  thousand  years  the  sale  of  children,  some- 
times boys,  but  chiefly  girls,  has  been  one  of  the  well-recognized 
means  of  survival  in  famine.  Often  it  has  been  declared  legal 
by  imperial  enactment.  And  in  every  such  famine  complete 
selfishness  appears  to  have  been  one  of  the  qualities  that  have 
given  people  the  greatest  prospect  of  survival.  In  the  last  anal- 
ysis the  man  who  fends  for  himself  alone  has  been  most  likely 
to  survive.  But  here  another  factor  enters  into  the  matter.  Sel- 
fishness may  go  too  far.  By  utter  renunciation  of  all  claims  upon 
him  a  man  may  insure  his  own  survival,  but  if  he  abandons  wife 
and  children  he  also  goes  far  toward  insuring  that  his  kind  shall 
perish  from  the  face  of  the  earth.  Of  course  he  may  marry  again, 
but  unless  he  is  unusually  competent  his  poverty  is  likely  to 
prevent  it  for  some  time.  Moreover,  even  if  he  marries  again, 
his  family  as  a  whole  and  hence  his  type  in  future  generations 
is  not  likely  to  be  so  numerous  as  is  that  of  the  family  where  the 
whole  household  sticks  together  and  the  majority  are  saved  by 
the  ruthless  sacrifice  of  a  few.  It  is  even  possible  that  rutliless- 
ness  may  go  so  far  that  one  member  of  the  family  is  not  sold 
but  is  actually  used  as  food  by  the  others.  Certain  it  is  that  can- 
nibahsm  has  occurred  again  and  again.  The  outstanding  fact  is 


THE  SELECTION  OF  THE  CHINESE  189 


that  utter  selfishness  helps  to  cause  a  family  to  survive  in  times 
of  famine,  provided  a  man  makes  his  family  and  not  himself  the 
unit. 

As  I  write  this  I  wonder  whether  it  can  be  possible  that  the 
selective  power  of  famines  can  be  so  potent  and  can  have  given 
an  hereditary  impulse  toward  such  a  complex  group  of  character- 
istics. But  this  much  is  quite  clear,  the  characteristics  which 
we  actually  find  in  the  Chinese,  especially  the  northern  Chinese, 
seem  to  be  precisely  the  ones  that  ensure  survival  in  times  of 
famine.  The  selection  of  such  people  for  survival  during  two 
thousand  long  years  in  generation  after  generation  can  scarcely 
fail  to  have  had  a  strong  influence  upon  the  hereditary  complex 
of  the  people.  A  certain  type  of  temperament  must  have  tended 
to  become  fixed  among  the  Chinese,  even  though  social  customs 
may  have  determined  the  details  of  how  that  temperament  would 
act  in  a  given  crisis. 

Let  us  return  a  moment  to  the  children  and  young  women 
who  are  sold.  It  may  seem  to  the  reader  that  I  have  exaggerated 
the  importance  of  this.  But  recall  how  often  it  is  mentioned 
in  the  records.  Note  also  what  happened  in  the  last  famine. 
When  the  foreign  reHef  workers  finally  checked  up  the  popula- 
tion which  survived  after  the  famine  they  found  that  the  number 
of  young  girls  as  compared  with  the  rest  of  the  population  indi- 
cated a  shortage  of  something  like  40,000  or  50,000.  In  other 
words,  at  least  that  number  appear  to  have  been  disposed  of 
so  that  they  had  been  removed  from  the  famine  area.  During 
the  famine  they  could  be  bought  anywhere.  A  missionary  who 
bought  some  in  order  to  save  them,  paid  from  $2  to  $5  per  head 
in  Mexican  money.  A  homely  girl  could  be  bought  for  a  dollar 
in  American  money,  and  ordinarily  attractive  ones  for  $2.50; 
while  the  prices  of  really  pretty  girls  ran  up  as  high  as  a  hundred 
dollars  in  gold.  Inasmuch  as  this  happened  in  a  famine  where 
relief  was  supplied  on  a  large  scale,  what  must  have  happened 
in  far  worse  famines  in  the  past?  It  is  obvious  that  during  the 
hundreds  of  famines  the  number  of  girls  who  have  been  sold 
must  have  been  miUions. 


190 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


What  kind  of  girls  are  these,  and  what  happens  to  them? 
In  the  first  place  they  are  the  prettiest,  brightest,  and  most  at- 
tractive, which  means  that  they  are  the  ones  who  combine  the 
best  physique  with  the  best  minds.  Of  course  I  do  not  mean 
that  they  are  absolutely  the  best  in  these  respects,  for  those  who 
most  excel  belong  to  the  most  successful  and  well-to-do  families 
which  do  not  have  to  sell  their  children.  But  among  the  ordinary 
peasants,  which  often  means  all  save  an  exceptional  few,  it  is 
these  prettier,  brighter  girls  who  are  sold.  How  do  we  know  that 
this  is  so  ?  Partly  because  mere  observation  shows  it,  and  partly 
because  girls  are  so  cheap  that  there  is  no  market  for  the  ugly, 
stupid  ones,  and  partly  because  the  prices  of  pretty  girls  run  so 
far  above  those  of  the  common  ones  that  the  self-centered  Chi- 
nese heads  of  families  cannot  resist  selling  those  that  will  bring 
the  highest  prices. 

The  effect  of  the  sale  of  girls  on  the  famine-stricken  villages 
is  obvious.  Among  the  prospective  mothers  of  the  next  genera- 
tion those  who  are  best  in  mind  and  body  are  removed.  Is  it 
any  wonder  that  the  north  Chinese  have  gradually  become 
more  and  more  dull,  and  that  pretty  women  and  girls  are  far 
rarer  among  them  than  in  the  south  ?  And  is  it  any  wonder  that 
women  are  despised  in  north  China  to  an  almost  unbelievable 
degree?  Read  Doctor  Smith's  Chinese  Characteristics  and  his 
book  on  Village  Life  in  China,  His  tale  of  the  way  in  which 
Chinese  brides  are  subjected  to  every  possible  indignity  and 
treated  as  if  they  were  the  sciun  of  the  earth  is  most  pathetic. 
The  lot  of  women,  especially  in  north  China,  is  so  miserable  that 
every  year  great  numbers  commit  suicide.  And  it  is  presumably 
miserable  in  part  because  in  the  famine  areas  many  of  the  girls 
who  might  have  had  the  force  of  character  to  make  themselves 
respected  and  to  uphold  a  certain  degree  of  dignity  have  been 
mercilessly  sacrificed.  Even  when  there  are  no  famines  the  sale 
of  girls  and  wives  is  by  no  means  uncommon.  Perhaps  this  may 
be  one  of  the  great  reasons  why  the  people  in  some  of  the  vil- 
lages where  famine  is  chronic  appear  to  be  little  more  than 
morons.  Take  away  the  finest  girls  from  any  community  for  half 


THE  SELECTION  OF  THE  CHINESE  191 


a  hundred  generations,  and  that  community  is  sure  to  become 
degraded  and  stupid  and  to  hold  women  in  low  esteem.  These 
quaUties  become  not  merely  a  social  but  a  physical  in- 
heritance. 

But  are  these  girls  wholly  lost  to  the  Chinese  race?  Not 
wholly,  but  very  largely.  A  part,  and  in  some  districts  a  consid- 
erable part,  are  bought  as  wives  by  men  in  regions  where  there 
is  no  famine,  but  the  purchasers  are  likely  to  be  the  poorest  and 
least  competent.  The  families  which  have  these  cheap  purchased 
wives  are  the  kind  who  are  most  likely  to  be  wiped  out  when 
famine  attacks  the  region  of  their  new  homes.  The  more  attrac- 
tive girls  may  meet  either  of  two  fates.  The  most  attractive  are 
likely  to  be  bought  as  secondary  wives  or  concubines  by  the  richer 
men  in  the  larger  towns  and  cities.  They  henceforth  become  part 
of  the  city  population  and  never  return  to  the  country  districts. 
Hence  so  far  as  rural  China  is  concerned,  they  are  utterly  lost; 
and  rural  China  is  probably  85  per  cent  of  all  China.  What  be- 
comes of  them  as  city  people,  I  shall  discuss  in  a  moment.  As 
for  the  other  girls,  they  are  bought  by  the  owners  of  houses  of 
ill  fame.  Many  of  the  prettiest  and  brightest  as  well  as  some 
who  are  less  attractive  meet  this  fate.  So  far  as  the  future  of 
the  race  is  concerned  they  are  as  good  as  dead.  Thus  the  sale 
of  girls  and  young  wives  tends  at  all  times  to  weed  out  the  better 
types  from  the  Chinese  villages,  and  in  times  of  famine  this 
tendency  rises  to  large  proportions. 

Thus  far  we  have  taken  no  account  of  the  wanderers  who 
form  so  large  a  proportion  of  the  sufferers  from  Chinese  famines. 
Even  in  a  mild  famine  like  that  of  192 1,  great  numbers  of  vil- 
lagers take  to  the  road.  At  first  it  is  only  the  poorer  people  who 
do  this,  unless  a  village  happens  to  have  been  wholly  destroyed, 
as  is  not  infrequent.  But  if  a  famine  continues  long,  practically 
all  except  a  few  of  the  most  wealthy  may  ultimately  be  on  the 
road,  and  often  the  whole  countryside  is  deserted  by  rich  and 
poor,  as  we  read  again  and  again  in  the  old  annals.  In  the  last 
famine  the  missionaries  say  that  they  saw  bands  of  from  twenty 
to  thirty  people,  and  sometimes  fifty  or  more,  wandering  far 


192 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


from  their  homes,  sometimes  a  hundred,  two  hundred,  or  even 
three  hundred  miles  in  the  case  of  some  who  went  to  Manchuria. 
Picture  the  hardships  of  such  a  forced  migration.  The  migrants 
rarely  start  until  their  food  is  exhausted.  Then  they  travel  from 
town  to  town,  moving  out  from  their  own  region  into  parts  of 
the  country  where  the  famine  has  been  less  severe.  If  the  famine 
is  due  to  flood  it  is  easy  to  find  such  places,  but  if  drought  is  the 
cause,  they  may  have  to  wander  hundreds  of  miles. 

At  first  it  may  not  be  extremely  difficult  to  move  from  one 
village  to  another  each  day  or  at  frequent  intervals.  And  at 
first  the  villagers  who  are  not  famine-stricken  may  give  fairly 
freely,  although  always  in  extremely  small  amounts.  A  mis- 
sionary who  observed  many  such  wandering  bands  said  that 
when  one  looks  into  the  bowls  of  the  beggars  one  usually  finds 
nothing  but  tiny  scraps  of  bread,  for  each  person  who  gives  any- 
thing throws  into  the  bowl  no  more  than  a  mouthful  from  the 
meal  which  he  is  eating  when  the  beggar  passes  by.  As  time  goes 
on  it  becomes  harder  and  harder  to  get  a  living  through  beg- 
gary, for  the  wanderers  grow  weak,  the  other  villagers  become 
less  and  less  inclined  to  give,  disease  breaks  out,  some  of  the 
beggars  become  footsore  or  otherwise  incapacitated,  and  cold 
weather  comes  on  with  all  its  terrors.  Then  death  runs  riot,  and 
there  is  a  tremendous  selection  whereby  not  only  the  weak  in 
body  but  those  who  are  weak  in  spirit  are  pushed  to  the  wall. 
Suicide  is  common,  and  the  women  have  been  known  to  throw 
themselves  into  wells  until  the  wells  were  choked  with  dead 
bodies.  But  still  the  little  band  moves  on.  It  is  losing  in  numbers 
and  losing  in  physical  strength,  and  yet  it  is  gaining  in  strength 
as  a  source  of  new  generations. 

As  time  goes  on  the  wanderers  divide  into  two  groups.  One 
set  consists  of  those  who  keep  trying  to  go  back  to  the  old  homes. 
They  are  the  ones  for  whom  the  old  home  has  the  strongest 
call,  partly  because  they  have  lands  there,  and  partly  because 
their  temperament  is  such  that  they  feel  the  influence  of  their 
ancestral  cult  and  love  the  old  ways  even  though  they  be  miser- 
able. In  a  word,  the  more  conservative  type  tends  to  go  back 


THE  SELECTION  OF  THE  CHINESE  193 


home,  just  as  it  is  the  last  to  leave  home.  Hence  the  economi- 
cal, thrifty  disposition,  the  utter  selfishness,  the  callousness  to 
suffering,  the  conservative  temperament,  and  the  physical  en- 
durance of  those  who  have  stayed  at  home  all  through  the 
famine  find  their  counterpart  in  the  similar  characteristics  of 
those  who  return.  Like  marries  like  as  the  years  go  on,  and  the 
famine  centers  become  the  focus  of  these  traits. 

The  other  group  of  wanderers  consists  of  those  who  have 
more  energy  and  initiative.  They  set  themselves  to  do  some 
definite  thing  in  order  to  escape  from  the  toils  of  hunger.  Some 
take  up  brigandage,  but  they  are  a  relatively  small  percentage. 
A  larger  number  undertake  a  distinct  migration  either  to  the 
city  or  to  some  part  of  the  country  where  they  can  find  land  and 
settle  down.  Doubtless  most  of  them  plan  originally  to  return 
home  in  course  of  time,  but  that  purpose  often  fades  as  time 
goes  on.  It  is  most  likely  to  fade  among  those  who  are  most  suc- 
cessful. And  those  who  are  most  successful  are  Hkely  to  be  those 
who  have  some  special  qualification.  The  man  who  is  quick  and 
alert  is  more  likely  to  make  a  successful  coolie  in  the  city  than 
is  the  man  who  is  dull.  But  all  coolies  have  a  hard  time  and  are 
likely  to  return  home  if  they  have  a  bit  of  land  which  may  by 
now  be  fit  for  cultivation.  The  man  who  is  clever  enough  to  be 
a  good  carpenter,  mason,  baker,  maker  of  images,  coppersmith, 
or  other  artisan  is  much  more  likely  to  find  profitable  work  in 
the  city,  and  the  call  of  the  country  village  appeals  to  him  less 
strongly.  So,  too,  with  the  man  who  has  a  clever  brain  and  can 
live  by  one  of  the  more  intellectual  pursuits.  Thus  whenever  a 
famine  drives  great  numbers  of  people  to  the  cities,  the  more 
brainy,  the  ones  with  more  skilful  hands,  and  the  ones  best  com- 
petent to  take  care  of  themselves  are,  in  general,  those  who  de- 
part. The  country  districts  are  thereby  drained  of  their  best 
men  as  well  as  of  their  brightest,  prettiest  girls.  In  a  certain 
way  this  same  process  is  going  on  in  other  countries,  but  the 
Chinese  famines  greatly  accelerate  it. 

This  loss  of  the  best  would  not  be  so  bad  if  it  were  certain 
that  the  city  people  would  continue  to  multiply  as  rapidly  as 


194 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


those  in  the  country.  But  this  is  almost  never  the  case.  In  all 
parts  of  the  world  the  birth-rate  appears  to  be  lower  in  the  city 
than  in  the  country,  while  in  the  past  and  in  backward  countries 
the  death-rate  appears  also  to  be  systematically  higher  in  the 
cities  than  in  the  country.  Indeed,  it  is  often  stated  that  in 
Oriental  cities  the  death-rate  is  so  high  and  the  birth-rate  so 
low  that  the  cities  would  gradually  die  out  if  not  replenished 
from  the  country.  No  exact  statistics  are  available,  but  a  study 
of  the  number  of  children  per  family  by  Doctor  Lennox  at  the 
Peking  Union  Medical  College  Dispensary,  and  by  Doctor  Gray 
at  the  British  Charitable  Hospital  of  Peking  indicates  that  the 
birth-rate  among  all  the  Chinese  of  the  Peking  district  is  much 
smaller  than  has  generally  been  supposed.  About  a  quarter  of 
the  city  famihes  appear  to  have  no  children,  apparently  due  in 
considerable  measure  to  venereal  diseases.  Counting  these  as 
well  as  the  others,  the  average  number  of  children  appears  to 
be  only  about  2.6  per  family.  Inasmuch  as  the  death-rate  is 
very  high,  it  seems  probable  that  in  Peking  the  deaths  apprecia- 
bly exceed  the  births.  If  this  is  true,  it  means  that  when  people 
migrate  to  the  city  they  doom  themselves  to  gradual  extinction. 
In  that  case  the  constant  draining  of  the  more  active  and  ener- 
getic parts  of  the  population  from  the  rural  districts  to  the  cities 
is  slowly  but  surely  lowering  the  general  cahber,  not  only  of  the 
country  districts  but  of  the  cities. 

The  most  hopeful  side  of  this  dark  picture  seems  to  be  the 
wanderers  who  migrate  into  the  rural  portions  of  new  regions. 
The  competent  Hakkas  of  south  China,  previously  referred  to, 
are  migrants  of  this  sort.  Their  history  affords  a  good  example 
of  the  way  in  which  people  from  the  famine  areas  of  north  China 
have  moved  into  other  parts  of  the  country.  During  the  process 
they  have  apparently  suffered  natural  selection  in  such  a  way 
that  the  weaker  or  more  conservative  elements  have  been  left 
behind,  while  only  the  most  able  and  energetic  have  finally  set- 
tled in  the  new  home.  There  has  been  much  misapprehension 
as  to  the  history  as  well  as  the  character  of  the  Hakkas.  The 
most  reliable  account  that  I  have  found  was  prepared  by  Mr. 


THE  SELECTION  OF  THE  CHINESE  195 


George  Campbell,  a  missionary  who  lived  among  the  Hakkas 
many  years.  It  was  printed  as  a  ten-page  pamphlet  for  private 
distribution,  after  having  been  read  at  a  conference  of  the  Eng- 
hsh  Presbyterian  and  American  Baptist  Missions  at  Swatow 
in  191 2.  It  illustrates  the  way  in  which  many  missionaries  have 
done  most  scholarly  and  valuable  scientific  work,  much  of  which 
has  never  been  made  generally  available  because  the  time  of 
the  missionaries  has  been  so  occupied  in  their  daily  work. 

One  of  the  first  facts  to  be  noted  about  the  Hakkas  is  that 
they  speak  a  Mandarin  form  of  the  Chinese  language,  unhke 
the  tonal  languages  of  their  neighbors,  but  much  like  that  of 
parts  of  Honan,  thus  indicating  their  northern  origin.  Accord- 
ing to  Campbell's  account,  derived  directly  from  old  Chinese 
sources,  the  present  Hakkas  are  the  result  of  three  migrations. 
First,  in  the  fourth  century  after  Christ  north  China  suffered 
a  period  of  terrible  distress,  due  partly  to  famine  and  partly  to 
invasions  by  the  Tungus  tribes,  and  especially  the  Huns.  Ac- 
cording to  an  old  chronicle  quoted  by  Miss  Lee:  "The  popula- 
tion of  to-day  [in  an  unspecified  area  about  300  A.  D.]  is  only 
one-tenth  of  that  of  the  Han  Dynasty.  ...  At  present  the 
people  who  are  not  engaged  on  farms  are  innumerable."  And 
again,  "Good  fields  have  been  growing  weeds  and  the  people 
have  been  staying  in  swamps  [presumably  because  those  were 
the  places  where  there  is  water  or  else  as  a  refuge  from  invaders]. 
Both  the  dry  and  wet  fields  have  lost  their  fitness  for  agriculture, 
pasturage  has  put  an  end  to  the  raising  of  grain  [which  prob- 
bably  means  that  because  grain  could  not  be  raised,  the  former 
grain-fields  had  been  used  for  pasturage],  and  the  trees  and 
woods  have  all  become  dry  at  once." 

At  about  the  same  time  the  invading  Huns  captured  two 
successive  Chinese  emperors,  the  second  of  whom  was  com- 
pelled to  act  as  servant  to  the  leader  of  the  Huns,  until  that 
rough  bandit  became  tired  of  seeing  him  around,  and  put  him 
out  of  the  way.  "These  insults  and  humiliations  [together,  we 
infer,  with  the  famines]  seem  to  have  broken  the  spirit  of  the 
people.   When  the  founder  of  the  Eastern  Tsin  made  Nanking 


196 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


his  capital,  many  left  their  homes  and  took  their  families  across 
Hhe  Great  River'  [the  Yangtse].  This  was  to  them  a  very  seri- 
ous step/'  (Campbell.) 

Beyond  the  Yangtse,  which  at  a  much  later  date  was  regarded 
as  the  main  barrier  against  the  Mongol  invaders  from  the  north, 
the  migrating  Hakkas  of  the  fourth  century  drifted  southward, 
some  trending  southeasterly  toward  the  coastal  provinces  of 
Chekiang  and  Fukien,  and  others  south  toward  the  province  of 
Kiangsi.  Their  further  history  has  not  yet  been  traced,  but  the 
ones  who  went  to  the  seacoast  probably  became  the  so-called 
Hoklos  of  the  maritime  sections,  while  the  others  may  be  rep- 
resented by  the  Hakkas  of  Kiangsi,  who  apparently  drove  out 
the  primitive  Lau  or  Laos. 

The  next  Hakka  migration  took  place  in  the  ninth  century. 
At  that  time  the  condition  of  China  was  most  distressing.  Ac- 
cording to  Boulger  as  quoted  by  Campbell,  the  country  was 
"desolate,  the  towns  ruined,  the  capital  reduced  to  ashes.  Not 
a  province  that  had  not  been  visited  by  the  horrors  of  civil  war, 
not  a  fortified  place  which  had  not  undergone  a  siege,  and  which 
might  not  be  estimated  fortunate  if  it  had  escaped  a  sack.  With 
confusion  in  the  administration,  and  the  absence  of  all  public 
spirit,  it  was  not  surprising  that  each  governor  should  strive 
to  make  himself  independent  and  fight  for  his  own  hand." 

At  this  same  time  we  have  the  usual  accounts  of  famines  of 
great  severity.  Whether  they  were  worse  than  usual  is  not  quite 
clear,  although  they  seem  to  have  been,  for  we  hear  that  famine 
occurred  several  times  in  the  province  of  Chekiang,  where  as  a 
rule  it  is  rare. 

One  effect  of  all  these  disasters  was  that  a  band  of  5,000  men 
migrated  from  Honan.  After  much  fighting  and  wandering  they 
finally  settled  in  the  province  of  Fukien  among  the  mountains 
back  of  Fuchow,  about  885  A.  D.  That  their  famihes  went  with 
them  is  proved  by  the  presence  of  the  old  mother  of  two  of  the 
leaders  on  a  special  expedition,  when  orders  had  been  issued 
that  no  weak  or  infirm  persons  should  be  taken  along,  as  the 
way  was  dangerous  and  provisions  scarce.  This  is  the  foundation 


THE  SELECTION  OF  THE  CHINESE 


197 


of  one  of  those  tales  of  filial  piety  so  dear  to  the  heart  of  the 
Chinese.  The  sons  are  called  to  account  by  their  chief  in  these 
words : 

"All  soldiers  have  rules,  there  are  no  soldiers  without  rules. 
You  have  disobeyed  my  command.  If  I  do  not  punish  you  dis- 
cipline is  broken." 

The  elder  son  replied:  "All  sons  have  mothers,  there  are  no 
men  without  mothers?" 

When  the  general  ordered  the  mother  to  be  beheaded,  the 
son  made  answer:  "We  brothers  serve  our  mother  as  we  serve 
our  general.  Having  slain  their  mother,  how  can  you  use  the 
sons?  Please  let  us  die  first." 

Of  course  the  faithful  sons  are  saved  by  the  intervention  of 
the  soldiers,  and  ultimately  the  elder  of  them  replaces  the  gen- 
eral in  the  supreme  command. 

In  the  early  part  of  the  reign  of  Wang  Chau,  the  faithful  son, 
"there  was  undoubtedly  frequent  communication  between  his 
followers  and  their  relatives  in  Honan.  Doubtless  his  armies 
were  largely  recruited  in  this  way.  The  sufferings  of  the  people 
in  Honan  would  dispose  them  to  emigrate  to  the  new  kingdom, 
dominated  by  those  of  like  blood  with  themselves."  (Campbell.) 
Thus  the  Hakka  settlements  grew  as  did  those  of  early 
America. 

For  nearly  four  hundred  years  after  this  migration  the  Hakkas 
kept  themselves  distinct  from  the  surrounding  people,  whereas 
the  Hoklos  on  the  coast  mingled  with  the  earlier  inhabitants. 
Campbell  considers  that  the  two  cases  are  comparable  to  those 
of  the  Puritans  in  New  England  and  the  Spaniards  in  Mexico. 
The  Hakkas,  like  the  Puritans,  found  a  few  savages  whom  they 
drove  out  or  exterminated,  but  with  whom  they  did  not  mingle. 
The  coastal  Hoklos,  like  the  Spaniards  in  Mexico,  found  a  more 
numerous  and  more  civilized  people  with  whom  they  intermar- 
ried, and  thereby  probably  lowered  their  innate  ability. 

At  the  end  of  four  long  quiet  centuries  a  great  disaster  over- 
whelmed the  whole  Hakka  region  in  the  form  not  only  of  famines 
but  of  the  Mongol  invasions,  about  1276  A.  D.  A  large  part  of 


198 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


the  population  was  exterminated.  It  is  recorded  that  a  Hakka 
named  Tsok  raised  a  regiment  of  nearly  a  thousand  men  among 
his  own  clan,  and  only  one  of  them  survived.  The  region  in  which 
the  Hakkas  now  display  their  highest  development  became  a 
wilderness.  A  native  writer  of  that  period  speaks  of  the  deserted 
houses  and  fields  and  asks  if  the  people  have  all  turned  into 
foxes  and  birds.  The  chosen  remnant  whose  skill,  bravery,  and 
endurance  enabled  them  to  survive  this  terrible  period  gave 
rise  to  the  last  migration.  This  involved  merely  a  change  of 
residence  of  a  hundred  miles  or  so  from  the  Ning-hua  district, 
in  Fukien,  which  had  not  been  completely  devastated,  to  the 
Mei-chau  district  of  Kwantung,  where  the  devastation  was 
complete.  Some  settlers  also  appear  to  have  come  from  the  sur- 
vivors of  the  fourth-century  migration  to  Kiangsi.  In  Mei-chau, 
the  central  area  of  the  most  progressive  Hakkas,  the  new  migra- 
tion was  probably  very  smaU.  Even  as  late  as  1390  the  country, 
if  so  we  may  call  it,  is  reported  to  have  contained  only  1,686 
famihes,  and  6,989  persons.  In  1848,  in  spite  of  large  emigration 
to  other  provinces,  the  descendants  of  these  original  settlers 
are  reckoned  as  268,193  persons.  Thus  the  present  Hakkas, 
especially  those  in  the  central  area,  appear  to  be  the  descendants 
of  a  small  number  of  people  from  Honan,  who  in  the  fourth  and 
especially  the  ninth  century  migrated  southward.  The  later 
migrants  settled  in  the  mountains  of  Fukien  and  kept  them- 
selves unmixed  with  any  other  race  for  four  centuries.  Then 
they  were  again  subjected  to  a  terribly  drastic  process  of  selec- 
tion by  famine,  war,  and  migration,  and  finally  a  small  number 
settled  in  a  new  district  which  had  been  practically  depopulated. 
There  they  have  since  maintained  themselves  almost  unmixed. 
To-day,  as  Campbell  well  says,  "the  Hakkas  are  certainly  a 
very  distinct  and  virile  strain  of  the  Chinese  race.  The  circum- 
stances of  their  origin  and  migrations  go  far  to  account  for  their 
pride  of  race  and  martial  spirit.  It  is  safe  to  predict  that  the 
Hakkas  will  play  an  increasingly  important  part  in  the  progress 
and  elevation  of  the  Chinese  race." 

In  the  Hakka  district  some  movement  is  still  going  on,  for 


THE  SELECTION  OF  THE  CHINESE  199 


not  all  of  the  mountainous  country  is  yet  occupied.  Ofttimes, 
so  the  missionaries  say,  it  is  the  most  progressive  and  most  rad- 
ical who  move.  As  population  increases,  the  fields  are  too  small. 
Part  of  the  men  go  to  Canton,  Swatow,  and  other  cities.  Others 
start  new  villages.  Those  who  thus  move  to  new  villages  are 
often,  according  to  Mr.  Spiker,  the  ones  who  want  to  adopt 
new  methods,  and  hence  are  looked  upon  askance  by  their 
fellows. 

The  history  of  the  Hakkas  deserves  careful  study.  Recall 
the  fact  that  in  the  opinion  of  many  good  judges  they  are  to-day 
"the  cream  of  the  Chinese.''  Their  energy  and  cleanliness,  their 
respect  for  women,  and  their  high  degree  of  education  are  almost 
unique.  They  differ  markedly  from  the  Chinese  of  earher  migra- 
tions who  surround  them,  and  the  difference  is  the  same  kind 
as  that  which  differentiates  those  same  surrounding  Chinese  of 
the  south  from  the  less  progressive  and  active  Chinese  of  the 
north.  The  quahties  of  the  Hakkas  are  in  many  respects  like 
those  of  the  energetic  barbarian  invaders  of  Tartar,  Mongol, 
and  Manchu  stock  from  the  dry  northern  regions  to  whom  north 
China  owes  so  much  of  its  historic  dominance.  In  the  case  of  the 
Hakkas  we  have  written  evidence  that  they  were  impelled  to 
leave  their  northern  homes  under  the  stress  of  famine  and  in- 
vasion. We  get  glimpses  of  the  way  in  which  hardship  and  war 
inexorably  cut  down  their  numbers  and  left  only  a  chosen  rem- 
nant of  unusual  capacity.  We  also  find  that  this  process  of 
selection  took  place  three  successive  times.  Finally,  when  the 
Hakkas,  especially  those  in  the  central  and  most  typical  area, 
were  free  from  the  difficulties  and  hardships  which  induced 
migration  and  natural  selection,  they  kept  themselves  aloof 
from  their  neighbors  and  thus  preserved  their  inheritance.  The 
competent,  wide-awake,  progressive  Hakkas,  on  the  one  hand, 
and  the  incompetent,  dull,  conservative  people  of  the  villages 
near  Peking  where  the  houses  are  left  sealed  while  the  villagers 
beg  for  bread,  on  the  other  hand,  seem  to  represent  the  two  ex- 
tremes due  to  natural  selection  and  migration  in  China.  In  the 
one  case  we  have  migrants  in  whom  a  high  degree  of  ability  has 


200 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


been  concentrated;  in  the  other  we  have  the  stay-at-homes 
from  among  whom  most  of  the  more  able  elements  have  gradu- 
ally been  eliminated. 

Let  us  look  at  another  and  still  more  recent  example  of  the 
selective  progress  here  outlined.  In  Mukden,  as  I  have  said, 
there  is  more  activity  and  life  than  in  any  other  Chinese  city 
that  I  have  visited.  Activity  and  progressiveness  are  said  to 
be  still  more  evident  in  Harbin,  and  most  of  all  in  the  far  north, 
where  the  town  of  Aigun  on  the  Amur  River,  opposite  Blagoves- 
chensk,  is  reported  to  be  inhabited  by  Chinese  who  seem  quite 
unlike  their  countrymen  in  their  modern  spirit  of  progress  and 
in  their  bustling  activity.  It  is  sometimes  affirmed  that  this  is 
because  the  Chinese  have  become  Russianized  by  contact  with 
the  relatively  large  Russian  population.  In  a  certain  way  this 
is  true.  But  why  has  not  contact  with  the  British  at  Hongkong 
done  still  more  to  give  a  British  quality  to  the  Chinese  there? 
Nothing  of  the  kind  has  happened,  although  Hongkong  had  a 
considerable  British  population  for  a  generation  or  two  before 
the  Russians  had  much  contact  with  the  Chinese  in  Manchuria. 
The  answer  seems  to  be  a  recent  and  drastic  selection  in  Man- 
churia, and  only  a  mild  selection  in  Hongkong. 

Manchuria  is  inhabited  almost  entirely  by  Chinese  who  have 
recently  come  from  the  conservative  provinces  of  Shantung  and 
Chihli.  In  general  the  merchant  classes  and  city  people  are  from 
Chihli,  and  the  farmers  from  Shantung.  Here  is  what  happens. 
Owing  to  the  constant  economic  pressure,  people  from  those  two 
provinces  migrate  more  or  less  at  all  times,  but  especially  when 
there  are  famines.  They  go  to  Manchuria  not  only  because  that 
province  is  near  and  is  under  Chinese  rule,  but  because  until 
the  nineteenth  century  it  was  only  sparsely  populated.  The 
regular  proceeding  is  for  the  Chinese  men  to  go  first  without 
their  families.  A  man  newly  come  from  Chihli  works  for  a  while 
for  some  one  in  Manchuria.  Then  if  he  is  successful  he  starts  a 
little  business  for  himself.  Once  in  three  years,  as  a  rule,  he  goes 
back  home,  usually  staying  five  or  six  months.  From  time  to 
time  he  brings  with  him  other  men  from  his  village.  For  a  while 


THE  SELECTION  OF  THE  CHINESE 


201 


they  live  together  as  a  single  big  family.  But  at  last  the  mer- 
chant who  succeeds,  decides  to  have  his  family  with  him  rather 
than  several  hundred  miles  away.  He  can  afford  to  set  up  a 
house,  and  he  does  so.  Because  he  is  competent  and  successful 
— ^because  he  is  the  best  man  out  of  twenty,  or  fifty,  or  a  hun- 
dred— his  family  comes  to  Manchuria  and  his  children  become 
permanent  parts  of  the  population.  Of  course  he  still  calls 
Chihli  his  home,  but  the  EngHshman  who  settles  in  Australia 
calls  England  home.  In  due  time  the  merchant's  sons  grow  up. 
The  more  adventurous  among  them  go  farther  north,  just  as 
their  father  did  before  them.  When  they  succeed  they  likewise 
bring  their  famiHes  to  the  north,  and  still  another  stage  in  the 
selection  of  competent  types  is  accomplished. 

The  same  thing  happens  among  the  Shantung  farmers. 
Each  year  toward  the  end  of  winter  they  come  by  the  hundred 
thousand  to  Manchuria,  some  by  rail,  but  many  tramping  hun- 
dreds of  miles  on  foot.  Spreading  out  into  the  country  they  are 
ready  to  work  for  the  farmers  as  soon  as  spring  breaks.  In  the 
autumn  they  go  back  to  their  families,  only  to  swarm  north  once 
more  at  the  end  of  the  winter.  But  some  are  not  content  to  be 
merely  hired  laborers.  The  more  ambitious  and  energetic  get 
hold  of  small  pieces  of  ground.  At  first  they  cultivate  these  and 
at  the  same  time  work  for  others.  But  in  a  year  or  two  they  get 
enough  land  to  support  a  family.  Then  a  shack  is  built.  Next 
year  at  the  time  of  the  northward  migration  there  is  a  wheel- 
barrow on  the  road.  On  it  sits  the  grandmother  surrounded  by 
a  promiscuous  heap  of  bedding,  boxes,  bags  of  rice,  cooking-pots, 
and  all  the  simple  paraphernalia  of  a  Chinese  household.  The 
proud  owner  of  the  Manchurian  shack  sways  between  the  shafts 
of  the  wheelbarrow,  his  oldest  son  bends  low  in  front,  tugging  at 
a  rope  over  his  shoulder  to  help  his  father  with  the  heavy  barrow. 
The  wife  walks  behind  bearing  on  her  shoulder  a  bamboo  pole 
with  a  basket  on  each  end  and  a  baby  in  each  basket.  And  with 
her  trudge  one  or  two  other  children.  Thus  they  toil  along  the 
snowy  path  to  that  new  home,  unconscious  that  they  have  been 
selected  by  their  innate  ability  to  people  a  new  land.  If  the  father 


202 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


is  competent  and  ambitious  his  work  soon  makes  his  land  in- 
crease in  value.  Then  he  sells  out,  moves  north  once  more,  this 
time  in  a  cart  drawn  perhaps  by  two  horses  and  a  mule.  Once 
more  he  succeeds,  and  then  sometimes  moves  on  a  third  time. 
Thus  northern  Manchuria  is  being  peopled  by  the  most  compe- 
tent of  the  inhabitants  of  Chihli  and  Shantung.  The  old,  old 
process  which  apparently  gave  to  the  Hakkas  their  relatively 
good  abihties  is  being  repeated  before  our  eyes.  It  is  one  of  the 
most  hopeful  phenomena  in  all  China,  for  it  shows  that  even  in 
provinces  like  Chihli  and  Shantung,  where  the  ravages  of  famine 
have  been  especially  bad,  they  have  not  weeded  out  all  abiHty. 
Proper  selection,  free  opportunity,  and  freedom  from  the  de- 
pressing effect  of  overpopulation  seem  to  be  all  that  is  needed 
to  build  up  even  in  those  regions  a  Chinese  race  of  high 
abihty. 

In  summing  up  this  discussion  of  China  one  of  the  dominant 
facts  in  the  history  of  the  country  seems  to  be  the  way  in  which 
each  cycle  has  been  characterized  by  the  incursion  of  selected 
types  from  the  north,  especially  from  the  deserts,  the  outward 
migration  of  the  more  able  of  the  previous  inhabitants,  and  the 
degeneration  of  those  who  remain  in  the  areas  where  famines  are 
most  numerous.  Thus  in  the  early  days  we  see  the  Hiung-nu 
breaking  into  northern  China  during  the  third  century  before 
Christ  and  bringing  in  a  strong  virile  element.  At  about  the 
same  time  other  Chinese  who  had  been  pushed  out  from  northern 
China  were  penetrating  south  of  the  Yangtse  and  ultimately 
reached  the  coast  at  Fuchow,  Canton,  and  elsewhere.  Although 
no  records  are  as  yet  available  it  seems  almost  certain  that 
these  migrants  went  through  a  process  of  selection  like  that  which 
later  concentrated  so  much  ability  in  the  Hakkas.  Thus  it  ap- 
pears probable  that  the  relative  activity  and  progressiveness  of 
south  China  had  its  origin  in  selective  migrations  of  these  first 
Chinese  inhabitants  of  the  lands  south  of  the  Yangtse. 

In  the  fourth  century  after  Christ  another  period  of  unusually 
severe  famines  coincided  with  new  inroads  of  Tartar  peoples 
on  the  north  and  new  movements  of  the  Chinese  toward  the 


THE  SELECTION  OF  THE  CHINESE  203 


south.  These  latter  movements  brought  the  first  of  the  Hakkas 
and  likewise  seem  to  have  carried  other  similar  people  called  the 
Hoklos  onward  to  the  coast  to  reinvigorate  the  people  already 
there  and  give  them  a  new  spirit  of  progress.  Passing  over  the 
intervening  periods  we  find  in  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  cen- 
turies another  example  of  the  same  kind.  The  able  Mongols 
came  in  on  the  north,  the  Hakkas  again  suffered  selection  and 
moved  southward.  Even  now  they  are  still  pushing  coastward 
and  thus  maintaining  in  the  southern  cities  that  spirit  of  energy 
and  progressiveness  which  distinguishes  the  southern  Chinese 
from  the  northern.  Meanwhile  the  Manchus  have  come  and 
made  their  contribution  to  progress  in  the  north,  and  are  now 
in  decline.  At  the  same  time  there  has  occurred  in  the  north  a 
process  of  adverse  selection  whereby  the  abler  people  under  the 
compulsion  of  poverty  and  famine  move  cityward  and  are  even- 
tually exterminated,  or  else  go  to  other  parts  of  China  such  as 
the  relatively  new  provinces  of  Manchuria  and  likewise  far 
Szechuan  on  the  upper  Yangtse. 

Even  among  the  abler  people  of  the  north  there  is  presumably 
a  tendency  toward  innate  conservatism  because  many  of  the 
village  girls,  bringing  with  them  their  village  inheritance,  are 
taken  into  wealthy  homes  as  concubines.  Thus  in  the  north  we 
see  a  great  antithesis :  at  one  stage  of  the  historic  cycle  a  sudden 
inroad  of  able  barbarians  who  in  due  time  amalgamate  more 
or  less  completely  with  the  former  inhabitants.  Then  comes  a 
period  when  the  impulse  thus  gained  is  lost  through  the  natural 
selection  due  to  overpopulation  and  selective  migration  to  the 
cities  or  to  other  provinces.  These  contrasted  events  in  the  north 
are  the  central  fact  of  Chinese  history.  Elsewhere,  especially  in 
the  south,  there  is  the  same  alternation  between  the  invigorating 
inroads  of  new  people,  and  the  deterioration  which  almost  in- 
evitably follows.  But  because  nature  is  more  uniform  and  there 
is  no  such  severe  economic  pressure  as  in  the  northern  provinces 
where  famine  is  most  common,  this  deterioration  in  the  south  is 
far  less  rapid  than  in  the  north.  To-day  we  seem  to  be  at  the 
stage  in  an  historic  cycle  when  the  north  has  deteriorated  to  the 


204 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


point  where  it  is  more  backward  than  the  south.  But  akeady  it 
is  beginning  to  forge  ahead  under  the  influence  of  a  new  kind  of 
selective  migration  whereby  able  foreigners — ^picked  men  in 
their  own  countries — as  well  as  able  Chinese  from  the  south  are 
peacefully  assuming  the  direction  of  future  progress. 


CHAPTER  XIV 


THE  THREE  GREAT  RACES  OF  EUROPE 

Having  considered  the  nomads  of  the  dry  parts  of  Asia,  and 
likewise  the  Jews,  Turks,  and  Armenians  of  the  West,  and  the 
Chinese  of  the  East,  it  would  be  natural  at  this  point  to  consider 
also  the  Japanese  and  the  people  of  Indo-China  and  India.  I 
shall  omit  these,  however,  for  lack  of  space  and  because  it  seems 
advisable  to  pass  on  to  our  own  ancestors  in  Europe.  Moreover, 
I  wish  to  retain  space  for  the  especially  unique  and  clear-cut 
case  of  Iceland  where  the  principles  of  natural  selection  are  illus- 
trated with  a  sharpness  found  ahnost  nowhere  else.  Japan,  to 
be  sure,  illustrates  the  same  principles,  but  not  so  clearly.  India 
resembles  China  in  many  ways,  but  is  vastly  more  complex, 
so  complex  that  I  hesitate  to  discuss  it  without  again  visiting 
the  country. 

Turning  now  to  Europe,  we  have  already  seen  that  during 
each  glacial  epoch  mankind  must  have  been  driven  from  a  large 
part  of  Europe.  When  the  ice  retreated,  however,  vast  areas 
which  had  previously  been  uninhabitable  became  highly  attrac- 
tive and  hospitable.  At  the  same  time  the  dry  regions  of  north 
Africa,  and  especially  Asia,  which  had  been  comparatively  well- 
watered  and  habitable  while  Europe  was  shrouded  in  ice,  tended 
to  assume  their  present  condition  of  deserts.  Thus  the  history 
of  Europe  for  the  last  twenty  or  thirty  thousand  years,  more  or 
less,  has  been  profoundly  influenced  by  three  great  conditions: 

First,  we  infer  that  previous  alternations  of  glacial  and  inter- 
glacial  epochs  had  rigidly  weeded  out  the  weaker  human  ele- 
ments and  mixed  one  selected  race  with  another  to  a  remarkable 
degree.  Hence  the  tribes  who  dwelt  in  the  Mediterranean  lands, 
and  in  western  Asia  from  Palestine  and  Asia  Minor  around 
through  Mesopotamia  to  Persia  and  the  Caspian  region  may  be 

205 


206  THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 

presumed  to  have  been  peculiarly  competent,  probably  the  most 
competent  in  the  world. 

Second,  the  change  in  climate  from  the  rigors  of  the  ice-age 
to  the  mildness  of  the  present  must  have  exerted  a  push  and  a 
pull  upon  these  competent  people.  The  push  from  behind  was 
doubtless  due  not  only  to  increasing  drought  and  growing  density 
of  population,  but  to  raids  and  invasions  by  less  fortunate  people 
nearer  the  centers  of  the  great  deserts.  The  pull  from  in  front 
was  due  to  the  attraction  of  the  new  and  unoccupied  lands  which 
were,  little  by  little,  passing  out  of  the  grip  of  the  glacial  climate 
in  Europe.  Whether  the  push  or  the  pull  was  stronger  we  can- 
not tell,  but  probably  the  push  often  led  to  violent  and  rapid 
migrations,  whereas  the  pull  may  have  been  especially  effective 
in  causing  slow,  quiet  movements  which,  in  the  long  run,  may 
have  been  highly  effective. 

In  the  third  place,  the  passing  of  the  glacial  period  presum- 
ably caused  migration  into  Europe  to  follow  different  paths  at 
different  times.  This  is  well  illustrated  in  Taylor's  map  of  head- 
form  and  migrations.  (Figure  3,  page  76.)  The  earliest  post- 
glacial line  of  approach  was  probably  northward  across  the 
Mediterranean,  for  the  Sahara  desert,  lying  relatively  near  the 
equator,  probably  felt  the  pinch  of  aridity  sooner  than  its  Asiatic 
counterparts.  Moreover  the  southern  peninsulas  of  Europe  were 
then  the  most  habitable  parts  of  that  continent,  and  presumably 
became  more  and  more  habitable  during  the  early  stages  of  the 
amelioration  of  the  glacial  climate.  Another  path  of  migration 
to  Europe  traverses  Asia  Minor  and  crosses  the  Hellespont,  the 
Bosphoms,  and  the  ^Egean  Islands.  Movements  in  this  direc- 
tion presumably  began  later  than  those  from  the  south  not  only 
because  the  highlands  of  Armenia,  Asia  Minor,  and  the  Balkans 
even  now  are  relatively  cold,  but  because  their  fairly  northern 
latitude  presumably  delayed  the  amelioration  of  their  climate, 
while  the  deserts  east  of  them  probably  did  not  become  extremely 
dry  so  quickly  as  did  those  farther  south.  The  third  line  of  inva- 
sion from  the  Mediterranean-Asiatic  belt  of  competent  people 
to  Europe  rims  north  of  the  Black  and  Caspian  Seas.  Since  the 


THE  THREE  GREAT  RACES  OF  EUROPE  207 


Caucasus  mountains  form  an  effective  barrier,  this  route  was 
probably  little  used  until  the  glacial  climate  had  so  far  passed 
away  that  Russia  in  latitudes  forty-five  degrees  to  fifty  degrees 
was  moderately  attractive  to  nomads,  while  the  deserts  to  the 
east  and  south  were  dry  enough  to  give  an  appreciable  push. 

This  discussion  of  physical  features  and  climate  suggests 
that  we  should  expect  three  main  waves  of  post-glacial  migra- 
tions into  Europe.  The  first  and  most  southern  wave  would  be 
expected  to  start  in  Africa  or  east  of  the  Mediterranean  and 
spread  into  the  Mediterranean  peninsulas.  It  might  likewise 
spread  along  the  seacoasts  to  parts  of  western  Europe,  like 
Brittany  and  Ireland,  for  people  who  could  cross  the  Mediter- 
ranean must  have  had  some  skill  in  boats,  and  the  west  coast 
of  Europe,  even  as  far  north  as  Ireland,  has  a  relatively  mild 
climate.  Our  expectation  seems  to  be  fulfilled  in  the  so-called 
Mediterranean  race.  People  of  that  race  were  apparently  among 
the  first  to  practise  agriculture  in  Europe. 

In  similar  fashion,  but  somewhat  later,  we  should  look  for  an 
invasion  of  plateau  people,  whose  route  would  take  them  from 
the  Asiatic  plateaus  to  those  of  Europe.  The  first  waves  of  the 
great  Alpine  race  may  perhaps  satisfy  this  expectation,  although 
many  people  of  related  stocks  have  come  in  later  times  by  more 
northern  routes.  In  the  rugged  plateaus  where  the  Alpines  first 
dwelt  the  keeping  of  sheep  has  long  been  a  main  industry.  Farther 
north,  and  perhaps  somewhat  later  as  befits  the  climate,  the  third 
great  migration  would  be  that  of  the  people  of  the  plains,  keep- 
ers of  horses  and  cattle.  And  the  first  stage  of  this  seems  to  cor- 
respond to  the  fair  Nordics,  or  to  Dixon's  Caspian  folk.  Thus 
the  division  of  the  people  of  early  Europe  into  three  great  types 
of  which  the  Mediterranean  is  the  oldest  is  fully  in  accord  with 
what  the  geography  and  climate  would  lead  us  to  expect. 

Of  course  the  history  of  the  great  migrations  into  Europe  is 
by  no  means  so  simple  as  the  preceding  paragraphs  would 
seem  to  indicate.  There  have  been  all  sorts  of  marchings  and 
counter-marchings,  and  people  of  different  races  have  moved 
over  the  same  track,  while  race  has  mingled  with  race  again  and 

1 


208 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


again.  Moreover,  the  migrations  out  of  Asia  have  continued 
till  our  own  day,  when  Armenians  and  Greeks  have  been  the 
last  to  move,  pushed  out  by  the  broad-headed  Turks  during 
the  World  War;  while  those  from  Africa  persisted  as  late  as  the 
days  of  the  Arab  invasion  of  Sicily  and  Spain.  But  this,  too,  is 
wholly  in  accord  with  the  physical  environment.  It  is  almost 
universally  agreed  among  geologists  that  since  the  height  of  the 
glacial  period  there  has  been  a  complex  series  of  glacial  stages. 
Sometimes  the  climate  has  rapidly  become  milder,  again  it  has 
grown  more  severe.  These  changes,  as  I  have  shown  fully  in 
other  places,  appear  to  have  continued  to  our  own  day.  During 
historic  times  the  general  tendency  of  the  cUmate  seems  to  have 
been  toward  aridity  in  the  deserts  of  Asia  and  in  the  lands  of 
the  eastern  Mediterranean,  but  the  tendency  has  been  interrupted 
again  and  again  by  pulsations  which  have  carried  it  back  toward 
the  glacial  type,  or  toward  a  degree  of  aridity  even  greater  than 
that  of  to-day.  These  stages  and  pulsations  in  themselves  would 
be  enough  to  cause  innumerable  movements  of  races  both  back- 
ward and  forward.  The  complexities  thus  introduced  are  still 
further  complicated  by  the  varying  character  of  the  mountains, 
valleys,  plains,  and  forests  in  different  parts  of  Europe.  More- 
over, purely  human  causes  like  the  racial  fervor  of  the  Turks  are 
extremely  important.  Again,  one  racial  movement  interferes 
with  another,  and  the  effect  of  a  movement  in  one  place  may  be 
to  displace  tribe  after  tribe,  so  that  the  commotion  extends 
thousands  of  miles,  and  endures  for  generations.  The  result  is 
bound  to  be  an  extraordinarily  complex  series  of  migrations  which 
give  almost  unlimited  opportunity  for  natural  selection  and  racial 
mixture,  and  thus  for  the  creation  of  racial  stocks  with  highly 
diverse  characteristics. 

It  would  be  profitable  at  this  point  to  undertake  a  general 
analysis  of  the  post-glacial  racial  movements  of  Europe,  but 
that  would  take  us  beyond  the  limits  laid  out  for  the  present 
book.  Accordingly  we  shall  merely  attempt  to  gain  a  general 
impression  of  the  qualities  of  the  three  great  races  of  Europe, 
and  shall  then  take  up  certain  specific  problems  pertaining  to 


THE  THREE  GREAT  RACES  OF  EUROPE  209 


individual  stocks.  In  studying  the  character  of  the  Mediter- 
ranean, Alpine,  and  Nordic  races  I  shall  set  forth  the  opinions 
of  two  of  the  most  recent  investigators,  Dixon  and  McDougall, 
and  shall  then  express  my  own  opinion.  Dixon  approaches  the 
matter  from  the  purely  anthropological  standpoint;  McDougall 
is  a  psychologist.  With  neither  do  I  agree  entirely,  but  both 
present  views  that  are  well  worthy  of  thought.  Dixon,  it  will  be 
remembered,  has  a  new  classification  of  races.  Here  is  what  he 
says: 

Whereas  the  Proto-Australoid  and  Proto-Negroid  types  seem  to  have 
had  their  origin  in  the  tropics,  and  the  Mongoloid  and  Palae-Alpine  upon 
the  great  central  Asiatic  plateaus,  the  Caspian  and  Mediterranean  types 
seem  to  be  traceable  to  the  Eur-Asiatic  steppes  surrounding  the  Caspian 
Sea  and  the  regions  adjacent  to  it,  north  of  the  plateaus.  If  the  Proto- 
Australoid  and  Proto-Negroid  types  have  been,  except  in  the  very  earhest 
period,  the  most  stay-at-home  of  types,  the  Caspian  and  Mediterranean, 
especially  the  former,  have  been  of  all  the  most  adventurous.  In  late  Palae- 
oUthic  times  spreading  westward  into  Europe,  and  almost  as  early  moving 
northeastward  into  America,  in  Neolithic  times  they  forced  their  way 
across  the  eastern  plateaus  into  the  borderlands  in  China  and  Japan,  and 
thence  southward  into  Indonesia  and  far  into  the  Pacific.  Southward,  also, 
across  the  eastern  plateaus  they  made  their  way  early  into  Arabia  and  north- 
eastern Africa,  driving  from  the  whole  northern  part  of  the  continent  its 
older  Negroid  population,  and  infusing  themselves  along  the  East  African 
plateau  far  to  the  south.  Later  yet  they  moved  southward  across  the  Iranian 
plateau  to  India.  The  Palae- Alpines  were  on  the  whole  content  to  be  led; 
the  Caspian  and  Mediterranean  people  were,  on  the  other  hand,  leaders, 
the  former  perhaps,  if  one  may  venture  so  far  in  attempting  an  analysis, 
more  in  the  affairs  of  the  body,  the  latter  in  those  of  the  mind.  The  Caspian 
was  more  a  conqueror,  the  Mediterranean  a  thinker  and  artist.  Each  type 
had  in  it  great  latent  possibiHties,  and  when  the  two  were  blended,  a  people 
of  great  capability  was  the  result.  It  was  thus,  among  a  Mediterranean  folk 
in  whom  was  a  minority  of  Caspian,  that  the  striking  Minoan  civilization 
of  Crete  arose,  out  of  which  grew  more  or  less  directly  and  among  a  largely 
I  kindred  people  the  "glory  that  was  Greece";  that,  in  a  population  where 
I  the  two  elements  were  perhaps  more  equally  blended,  there  were  evolved 
1  the  great  systems  of  Indian  philosophy,  whose  influence  has  been  so  pro- 
I  found  upon  all  the  Orient;  that  among  another  people,  mainly  compounded 
I  of  these  same  factors,  that  most  militant  of  religions,  Islam,  arose,  whose 
adherents  have  carried  it  with  fire  and  sword  into  Europe,  throughout 
northern  Africa,  almost  the  whole  of  Asia,  and  far  out  into  the  Pacific; 
and  that  in  a  related  group  of  similar  origin  in  Palestine  we  have  the  source 


210 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


of  that  faith  which  missionaries  have  carried  to  every  land.  Blended  also 
of  these  two  types,  but  with  considerable  elements  of  the  older  Proto- 
Australoid  and  Proto-Negroid,  were  the  Baltic  peoples,  that  "Nordic" 
race  which  wrecked  the  power  of  Rome,  as  their  Caspian-Mediterranean 
kindred,  the  Hyksos,  had  conquered  Egypt,  or  the  Kassites  had  plundered 
Babylon,  or  the  Persians  had  overthrown  Assyria.  Lastly,  in  modern  times, 
it  was  largely  the  adventurous  daring,  the  genius  and  the  hardihood  of 
these  breeds  which  were  responsible  for  the  discovery,  conquest,  and  coloni- 
zation of  America  by  Europe,  an  event  which,  in  the  development  of  the 
human  race  as  a  whole,  was  destined  to  be  of  great  significance.  .  .  . 

If,  in  the  history  of  the  race  as  a  whole,  the  Mediterranean  and  Cas- 
pian peoples  have  played  a  great  part,  that  of  the  Alpines  seems  hardly  less 
impressive;  and  there  is  not  a  little  reason  to  beheve  that  only  where  these 
types  have  met  and  mingled  have  the  highest  achievements  been  attained. 
Perhaps  the  idea  is  fanciful,  certainly  many,  many  other  factors  are  like- 
wise concerned,  yet  one  may  point  to  various  cases  in  history  which  seem 
to  bear  it  out.  Thus  Babylonian  civilization  grew  out  of  the  blending  of 
the  supposedly  Alpine  Sumerian  with  the  Mediterranean-Caspian  Semitic 
peoples  who  seem  long  to  have  been  in  occupation  of  the  Mesopotamian 
plains;  in  Greece,  before  the  florescence  of  Hellenic  culture,  the  earlier 
Mediterranean  population  was  reinforced  by  the  immigration  of  the  prob- 
ably Alpine  Dorians  [elsewhere  said  to  have  been  probably  under  Caspian 
leadership];  Rome  rose  to  greatness  only  after  the  older  Mediterranean- 
Caspian  people  of  Latium  had  been  half  dominated  by  Alpines  coming  south- 
ward from  the  valley  of  the  Po  and  the  region  where  the  older  Etruscan 
culture  had  its  centre.  [But  elsewhere  we  read  that  the  Patrician  aristocracy 
of  Rome  was  Caspian  in  type.]  In  the  East  Chinese  civilization  had  its  rise 
in  an  area  where  strong  Caspian  elements  were  absorbed  by  the  incoming 
Alpine  folk;  lastly,  the  marvellous  development  of  modern  European  civili- 
zation has  occurred  in  that  region  in  which  Alpine,  Mediterranean,  and 
Caspian  have  been  more  completely  and  evenly  fused  than  elsewhere  in 
the  world.  Is  it  perhaps  more  than  mere  coincidence  that  the  reawakening 
of  culture  in  Europe  after  the  Dark  Ages  began  at  a  time  when,  after  a 
period  of  centuries  during  which  wide  shif tings  of  peoples  had  occurred, 
the  new  fusion  of  the  elements  had  been  begun?  Is  it  mere  chance  that 
it  was  in  the  north  of  Italy,  in  Tuscany  and  the  valley  of  the  Po,  where  the 
influence  of  the  Caspian-Mediterranean  immigrants  was  strongest,  that 
the  Renaissance  began;  that  in  Germany  it  was  in  the  south  where  the 
Baltic  peoples  had  in  large  numbers  blended  with  the  older  Alpine  and 
Palae-Alpines,  rather  than  in  the  north  where  such  amalgamation  was  less 
clear,  that  the  revival  of  culture  had  its  start;  that  many  of  the  forerunners 
and  leaders  of  the  Reformation,  such  as  Huss,  Luther,  Zwingli,  Calvin,  all 
came  from  regions  where  the  fusion  of  types  must  have  been  vigorously 
going  on  ?  The  complexity  of  the  causes  underlying  all  such  great  movements 
is,  it  need  hardly  be  said,  very  great,  yet  I  cannot  but  feel  that,  among  the 
many  potent  factors  which  have  detern:]dne4  or  directed  the  rise  of  mod- 


THE  THREE  GREAT  RACES  OF  EUROPE  211 


em  European  civilization,  this  one  of  the  fusion  of  Alpine  with  Mediter- 
ranean-Caspian elements  has  an  important  place.  That  the  contact  of 
two  different  peoples  often  produced  a  stimulating  effect  upon  culture  has 
of  course  often  been  noted;  the  point  which  I  would  make  here  is  that  this 
stimulation  seems  to  be  at  its  maximum  when  the  peoples  belong  to  the 
Alpine  and  to  the  Caspian  or  Mediterranean  types.  In  the  years  before 
the  war,  Teutonic  scholars  were  proving,  to  their  own  satisfaction,  that 
most  of  the  great  names  in  the  history  of  the  European  and  Mediterranean 
world  were  those  of  men  of  Nordic  race,  and  even  Christ  himself  was 
claimed  by  some  of  the  more  daring  as  of  "Germanic"  blood.  To  no  one 
race  or  type,  however,  can  the  palm  be  thus  arrogantly  assigned,  rather  to 
the  product  of  the  blending  of  those  types  which  seem  of  all  the  most  gifted 
— the  Mediterranean-Caspian  and  the  Alpine. 

In  the  history  of  mankind  there  have  been,  from  earliest  times,  many 
places,  many  occasions  when  amalgamations  between  two  or  more  of  the 
great  fundamental  types  have  occurred:  and  from  these  blendings,  I  am 
tempted  to  believe,  have  arisen  again  and  again  the  cultures  or  civilizations 
which  mark  the  progress  of  the  race.  From  the  fusions  between  types  less 
dowered  have  come  the  feebler  cultures;  from  those  of  types  with  larger, 
more  richly  endowed  brains  have  come  greater  achievements;  from  those 
of  the  Alpine  and  Mediterranean  types,  whose  brains  in  size  surpass  all  the 
rest,  have  grown  the  greatest  of  them  all. 

This  long  quotation  is  inserted  here  not  only  because  of  its 
intrinsic  value,  but  because  it  is  well  to  remind  ourselves  that 
the  mixture  of  races  is  one  of  the  most  important  ways  of  produc- 
ing new  racial  types.  I  do  not  agree  with  all  that  Dixon  says, 
for  in  his  enthusiasm  over  racial  mixture  as  a  cause  of  racial 
ability  he  almost  disregards  natural  selection  and  environment. 
Nevertheless,  there  can  be  little  question  that  some  racial  mix- 
tures far  excel  others  in  providing  a  new,  varied,  and  competent 
assortment  of  human  types  from  among  which  natural  selection 
has  been  able  to  choose,  and  which  the  environment  has  then 
helped  or  hindered. 

Now  let  us  turn  to  a  wholly  different  line  of  thought.  In  his 
little  book  called  Is  America  Safe  for  Democracy?  McDougall 
gives  a  most  interesting  analysis  of  the  mental  characteristics 
of  Nordics  and  Mediterraneans,  together  with  some  hints  as  to 
the  Alpines.  His  discussion  centers  around  five  qualities:  (i) 
curiosity,  (2)  individualism,  (3)  introversion,  (4)  self-assertion, 
and  (5)  acquisitiveness.  In  all  of  these  he  believes  that  the  Nor- 


212 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


dies  tend  to  go  to  the  positive  extreme,  while  the  Mediterranean 
people  are  more  negative,  and  the  Alpines  generally  intermediate. 
Of  course  he  deals  only  with  the  typical  specimens  of  each  race, 
and  recognizes  that  the  majority  of  Europeans  are  of  mixed 
origin  even  though  they  may  in  their  general  character  tend 
toward  one  type  or  the  other. 

Curiosity  [says  McDougall],  with  the  emotion  of  wonder  which  enters 
as  an  essential  element  into  all  such  emotions  as  awe,  admiration,  and 
reverence,  may  without  exaggeration  be  called  the  mother  of  philosophy 
and  of  science.  Now  modern  science  is  very  largely  a  product  of  northern 
Europe,  of  those  countries  where  the  Nordic  blood  predominates;  not  ex- 
clusively so  by  any  means.  But  note  this  fact:  the  Greeks  who  founded 
philosophy  and  science  were  probably,  in  their  great  age,  compounded  of 
the  Nordic  and  Mediterranean  races.  The  Romans  were  almost  purely 
Mediterranean.*  They  produced  great  men,  great  lawyers,  soldiers,  ad- 
ministrators, and  poets;  but  no  philosophy  and  no  science.  For  four  hun- 
dred years  they  ruled  absolutely  the  fairest  part  of  the  world,  in  a  high  state 
of  civilization,  but  they  invented  nothing,  discovered  nothing,  made  no 
progress  in  science.  Otto  Seeck,  the  historian  of  the  classical  world,  has  drawn 
a  vivid  picture  of  this  scientific  stagnation.  He  points  out  how,  even  in 
the  art  of  war,  on  success  in  which  their  whole  empire  was  founded  and 
maintained,  the  Romans  made  no  progress,  invented  no  new  weapons,  but 
fought  with  the  same  old  weapons  throughout  the  centuries  of  predomi- 
nance. Note  another  evidence  of  the  weakness  of  their  curiosity.  In  spite 
of  their  supremacy,  their  navy  and  mercantile  marine,  they  remained  a 
Mediterranean  power:  their  sailors  penetrated  hardly,  if  at  all,  beyond  the 
pillars  of  Hercules;  while  the  barbarous  Vikings  in  their  smaller  ships  sailed 
to  Iceland,  Greenland,  and  America,  and  perhaps  landed  on  the  banks  of 
the  Charles  River.  Here,  then,  is  further  evidence  that  in  the  Mediterranean 
race  the  instinct  of  curiosity  is  relatively  weak. 

IndividuaHsm,  the  second  of  the  peculiar  Nordic  quahties 
according  to  McDougal,  is  diametrically  opposed  to  sociabiHty 
or  the  herd  instinct. 

The  Southern  Europeans  are  more  sociable  than  the  Northern.  They 
delight  in  conversation,  in  coming  together  in  large  masses,  in  expressing 

*  Dixon  does  not  agree  with  this.  He  holds  that  in  the  early  ages  of  Rome,  although 
the  Mediterranean  type  was  most  numerous,  the  Caspian  type  formed  the  dominant 
aristocracy.  By  the  time  of  Christ  the  Caspian  ingredient  had  greatly  diminished  and 
the  Alpine  had  become  prominent.  In  this  case,  as  in  many  others,  Dixon's  conclusions 
are  based  on  a  very  small  number  of  skulls,  and  hence  cannot  yet  be  considered 
conclusive,  but  they  cannot  be  disregarded. 


THE  THREE  GREAT  RACES  OF  EUROPE  213 


their  emotions  collectively,  in  great  collective  outbursts  of  applause,  of 
admiration,  or  of  execration.  In  all  ages  their  civilization  has  been  essen- 
tially urbane;  the  city  has  always  been  their  natural  habitat.  Men  of  Nor- 
dic race,  on  the  other  hand,  are  taciturn;  they  take  part  in  social  gatherings 
only  with  difficulty  and  hesitation;  they  are  content  to  live  alone  in  the 
seclusion  of  the  family  circle,  emerging  from  it  only  in  response  to  the  call 
of  duty  or  ambition  or  war.  The  isolated  home  is  their  invention,  their 
dearest  possession;  and  the  individualized  home  is  one  of  their  peculiar  con- 
tributions to  the  culture  of  the  world.  The  facts  are  all  summed  up  in  the 
phrase — "An  Englishman's  home  is  his  castle." 

The  next  contrast  between  Mediterraneans  and  Nordics  is 
expressed  as  follows: 

The  Mediterranean  peoples  are  vivacious,  quick,  impetuous,  impul- 
sive; their  emotions  blaze  out  vividly  and  instantaneously  into  violent 
expression  and  violent  action.  The  Northern  peoples  are  slow,  reserved, 
unexpressive;  their  emotions  seem  to  escape  in  bodily  expression  and 
action  with  difficulty.  .  .  .  [These  two  types  correspond  with  what  the 
psychologist  calls  extroverts  and  introverts.]  The  extroverts  are  the  vivid, 
vivacious  persons  who  charm  us  by  their  ease  and  freedom  of  expression, 
their  frankness,  their  quick  sympathetic  responses.  They  are  little  given 
to  brooding;  they  remain  relatively  ignorant  of  themselves;  for  they  are 
relatively  objective,  they  are  interested  directly  and  primarily  in  the 
outer  world  about  them. — If  they  break  down  under  strain,  their  trouble 
takes  on  the  hysteric  type — in  spite  of  which  they  may  remain  cheerful, 
active,  and  interested  in  the  world. — The  introvert,  on  the  other  hand,  is 
slow  and  reserved  in  the  expression  of  his  emotions.  He  has  difficulty  in 
adequately  expressing  himself.  His  nervous  and  mental  energies,  instead 
of  flowing  out  freely  to  meet  and  play  upon  the  outer  world,  seem  apt  to 
turn  inward  determining  him  to  brooding,  reflection,  deUberation  before 
action.  And  when  he  is  subject  to  strain,  his  energies  are  absorbed  in  in- 
ternal conflicts;  he  becomes  dead  to  the  outer  world,  languid,  absorbed, 
self-centered,  and  full  of  vague  distress. 

Physicians  who  have  studied  nervous  diseases  in  Europe 
say  that  in  general  the  southerners  suffer  from  the  hysteric 
type  and  northerners  from  the  neurasthenic  type.  McDougall 
shows  that  this  psychological  contrast  is  what  would  be  expected 
from  the  extrovert  and  introvert  types  and  may  have  much  to 
do  with  the  fact  that  while  homicide  is  common  in  the  Medi- 
terranean parts,  suicide  and  divorce  are  common  in  the  Nordic 
parts  of  Europe.    The  southerner  becomes  quickly  angry  and 


214 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


vents  his  rage  in  violent  physical  action  directed  against  the 
person  who  has  wronged  or  insulted  him.  The  northerner  broods 
over  his  wrongs,  and  kills  himself  rather  than  face  what  he  be- 
lieves to  be  intolerable,  or  obtains  a  divorce  when  he  has  thor- 
oughly thought  over  the  matter.  And  the  northerner  likewise 
tends  to  become  a  Protestant  because  his  curiosity  leads  him  to 
investigate  and  his  introvert  temperament  leads  him  to  rumi- 
nate over  what  he  learns. 

The  quality  of  self-assertion  manifests  itself  in  the  Nordics 
in  a  highly  developed  capacity  for  self-assertion  or  leadership. 
An  Englishman  likes  to  work  things  out  for  himseK,  and  is  glad 
when  an  emergency  throws  him  on  his  own  resources.  The 
Mediterranean  and  Alpine  people,  on  the  contrary,  are  much 
more  docile,  more  wilHng  to  be  led  even  when  it  is  ultimately 
to  their  own  disadvantage.  It  is  not  at  ail  likely  that  Napoleon 
could  have  led  the  Norse  as  he  led  the  French,  or  that  the  Brit- 
ish would  have  let  any  one  impose  upon  them  the  absolute  obedi- 
ence which  the  Nordic  junkers  imposed  upon  the  Alpine  remain- 
der of  the  Germans. 

McDougall  believes  that  docility  and  self-assertion  are  rooted 
in  two  distinct  and  opposed  instinctive  tendencies,  which  he 
calls  the  instincts  of  submission  and  self-assertion.  He  thinks 
that  the  instinct  of  submission  is 

the  root  of  all  docility  and  suggestibility,  that  is,  it  is  the  principal  factor 
in  all  those  social  phenomena  which  some  authors  have  erroneously  ascribed 
to  the  herd  instinct.  [On  the  other  hand]  the  instinct  of  self-assertion  is 
the  most  essential,  the  all-important  factor,  in  what  we  call  character, 
that  complex  organization  from  which  spring  all  manifestations  of  will- 
power, all  vohtion,  resolution,  hard  choice,  initiative,  enterprise,  and 
determination. 

This  instinct,  he  holds,  is  strongest  in  the  Nordics,  whereas 
the  instinct  of  submission  is  strong  in  the  Alpines. 

It  is  this  greater  dose  of  self-assertiveness  in  the  Briton  which  leads  other 
peoples  to  complain  that  he  goes  about  the  world  as  though  it  belonged 
to  him;  it  is  this  which,  in  spite  of  his  lack  of  method  and  organization, 
lias  enabled  him  to  muddle  through  the  Napoleonic  Wars,  the  Crimean 


THE  THREE  GREAT  RACES  OF  EUROPE  215 


War,  the  Indian  Mutiny,  the  South  African  War,  and,  lastly,  the  Great 
War,  It  is  this  which,  in  spite  of  his  lacks,  enabled  him  to  subdue  and  gov- 
ern the  300,000,000  of  India.  And  it  is  this,  in  combination  with  his  other 
quaHties,  that  has  rendered  him  the  successful  colonist  par  excellence. 

Let  us  note  in  passing  that  the  addition  of  this  quaUty  to  the  picture 
of  the  Nordic  race  completes,  or  makes  more  adequate,  our  explanation 
of  the  distribution  of  the  Protestant  religion  in  the  world;  for  it  shows  us 
that  the  men  of  this  race  are  by  nature  Protestants,  essentially  protesters 
and  resisters  against  every  form  of  domination  and  organization,  whether 
by  despot,  church,  or  state. 

The  final  quality  ascribed  by  McDougall  to  the  Nordics  is 
acquisitiveness: 

The  strength  or  weakness  of  this  tendency  is,  I  suggest,  the  main  factor 
in  determining  that  a  man  or  a  race  shall  be  provident  or  improvident. 
And  it  is  very  easy  to  see  how  natural  selection  may  have  developed  this 
quahty  in  peoples  inhabiting  cold  or  arid  regions.  It  seems,  in  fact,  to  be 
present  in  the  principal  races  in  proportion  to  the  demand  for  it  made  by 
their  habitat.  It  seems  to  be  strong  in  the  Alpine  and  the  Nordic  race  and 
in  the  Chinese;  less  strong  in  most  branches  of  the  Mediterranean;  but 
strong  in  the  Semites,  in  the  Jews  and  Arabs  and  the  Phoenicians,  who  long 
inhabited  the  dry,  desert  regions.  Its  strength  seems  to  be  a  quahty  essen- 
tial to  any  people  that  is  to  build  up  a  civiHzation  based  on  the  accumula- 
tion of  wealth,  on  commerce  and  industry,  as  every  higher  civilization  has 
been.  Owing  to  this  necessity,  every  communistic  or  sociaHstic  scheme 
which  would  aboHsh  private  property  is  an  empty  dream,  an  unrealizable 
ideal,  a  Utopia.  The  strength  of  this  impulse  seems  to  vary  widely  even 
in  nearly  related  peoples,  and  also  from  one  family  to  another.  It  would 
certainly  seem  to  be  stronger  in  the  lowland  Scotch  than  in  the  Irish;  and 
it  is,  I  think,  not  improbable  that  its  variations  are  a  principal  ground  of 
social  stratification  which  tends  to  arise  in  all  acquisitive  societies,  that  is 
to  say,  in  all  civilized  peoples. 

We  have  found  reason  to  believe  that,  though  the  Nordic  race  has  no 
monopoly  of  genius,  though  it  does  not  excel,  and  perhaps  does  not  equal, 
other  races  in  many  forms  of  excellence  (as  so  extravagantly  claimed  by 
the  race-dogmatists),  it  yet  has  certain  qualities  which  have  played  a  great 
part  in  determining  the  history,  the  institutions,  the  customs  and  tradi- 
tions, and  the  geographical  distribution  of  the  peoples  in  whom  its  blood 
is  strongly  represented. 

This  last  sentence  brings  us  face  to  face  with  the  central 
problem  of  this  book.  Do  the  innate  qualities  of  a  race  deter- 
mine its  geographical  distribution,  or  do  the  geographical,  eco- 


216 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


nomic,  and  social  conditions  pick  out  certain  types  of  character 
for  preservation,  and  thus  determine  their  distribution?  In  a 
certain  way  both  are  true.  Unquestionably,  other  things  being 
equal,  a  race  with  an  innate  acquisitive  instinct,  for  example,  will 
be  better  able  to  survive  in  a  cold  country  or  a  desert  than  will 
a  race  without  that  instinct.  But  if  we  go  back  far  enough  in  hu- 
man or  pre-human  history  we  presumably  come  to  a  time  when 
races  had  not  yet  been  differentiated,  and  there  were  only  in- 
dividual differences.  If  a  group  of  individuals  wandered  into  a 
cold  or  dry  climate  the  quality  of  acquisitiveness  at  once  gave 
some  of  them  an  advantage.  The  children  who  inherited  ac- 
quisitiveness would  tend  to  survive,  and  ultimately  that  quahty 
might  become  characteristic  of  the  race. 

Such  reasoning  leads  one  to  believe  that  the  qualities  dis- 
cussed by  McDougall  are  not  so  much  characteristic  of  races  as 
of  regions.  Take  the  Norse  and  the  SiciHans  as  extreme  types 
of  the  Nordics  and  Mediterraneans.  What  differences  in  their 
history  are  likely  to  have  given  rise  to  differences  of  character? 
One  of  the  most  obvious  facts  is  that  the  ancestors  of  the  Norse 
were  presumably  hunters,  cattle-raisers,  and  migrants  for  thou- 
sands of  years  after  the  ancestors  of  the  Sicilians  had  settled 
down  to  agriculture.  The  Norse  apparently  could  not  practise 
agriculture  in  most  parts  of  their  present  home  much  more  than 
two  or  three  thousand  years  ago.  They  occupy  one  of  the  latest 
parts  of  the  world  to  be  freed  from  a  cap  of  ice.  Even  during  the 
Christian  era  their  home  has  been  so  stormy  that  times  of  cU- 
matic  stress  and  repeated  failures  of  crops  have  caused  many  of 
them  to  wander  away,  or  else  to  depend  on  cattle-herding  and 
seafaring.  This  seems  to  be  one  reason  why  the  Norse  have 
spread  so  far  and  so  widely,  for  they  settled  Iceland,  came  to 
England,  made  a  home  in  Normandy,  ruled  Sicily,  and  intruded 
themselves  in  many  other  places.  Moreover,  in  order  to  get  a 
living  under  the  harsh  conditions  that  prevail  in  Norway  it  has 
been  necessary  to  cultivate  little  isolated  tracts  of  land,  herd 
cattle  in  small  and  almost  inaccessible  mountain  valleys,  and 
venture  forth  over  some  of  the  stormiest  seas  in  the  world. 


THE  THREE  GREAT  RACES  OF  EUROPE  217 


Nevertheless,  the  environment  is  decidedly  healthful  and  has 
no  such  terribly  repressive  conditions  as  seem  to  be  found  in 
the  extreme  cold  of  Siberia,  the  extreme  dryness  of  the  desert, 
and  the  malaria  of  Sicily. 

In  the  pastoral  migrations  preceding  their  arrival  in  Norway, 
and  in  the  stress  of  estabhshing  themselves  in  such  a  land,  it 
seems  clear  that  the  Norse  must  have  experienced  an  especially 
strong  dose  of  the  kinds  of  selection  which  we  have  found  char- 
acteristic of  nomads  and  of  migrants.  That  is  probably  one  reason 
why  the  Nordics  make  such  good  colonists.  Curiosity  as  well  as 
boldness,  initiative,  individuality,  and  the  power  of  leadership 
all  seem  to  be  among  the  prominent  traits  that  cause  men  to 
migrate  to  new  regions,  and  make  them  successful  when  they  get 
there. 

In  later  times  the  sea  has  acted  as  a  strong  selective  factor, 
for  the  death-rate  among  the  young  men  is  very  high  when  they 
first  go  to  sea.  This  puts  a  premium  on  the  quick  minds  and 
strong  bodies  which  are  needed  to  cope  with  sudden  storms, 
high  winds  and  waves,  and  long  exposure.  The  scarcity  of  tillable 
land  in  Norway  and  its  division  into  small  and  isolated  par- 
cels, and  the  fact  that  water  can  be  procured  practically  every- 
where, give  an  advantage  to  the  people  who  have  the  tempera- 
ment that  can  live  alone;  the  introvert  is  at  a  premium.  Self- 
reliance  and  the  capacity  to  do  things  alone  and  on  one's  own 
initiative  are  especially  valuable  in  a  land  where  a  large  percent- 
age of  the  families  must  live  by  themselves  and  must  depend 
entirely  on  their  own  ability  and  initiative  during  the  long  periods 
when  darkness  and  snow  keep  them  isolated.  Self-assertion  is 
equally  valuable,  for  a  successful  trip  in  a  fishing-boat  during  a 
storm,  or  a  journey  across  a  snowy  pass  at  a  season  when  dark- 
ness may  overtake  one  in  the  middle  of  the  journey  take  much 
more  of  that  quality  than  is  needed  by  the  man  who  lives  in  a 
Sicilian  village  and  never  goes  to  sea.  The  need  of  acquisitive- 
ness is  equally  obvious,  for  the  Norse  winters  are  very  long; 
and  food,  fuel,  shelter,  and  clothing  must  be  prepared  in  advance, 
or  some  of  the  family  will  perish.  Most  of  these  qualities  are 


218 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


as  necessary  for  the  women  as  for  the  men,  especially  in  view  of 
the  frequent  and  long  absences  and  all-too-common  deaths 
which  the  seafaring  life  and  the  care  of  the  cattle  in  the  moun- 
tains impose  on  the  men.  In  fact  the  Norse  families  where  the 
women  lack  these  qualities  are  likely  to  suffer  seriously.  Hence 
no  matter  what  the  original  character  of  the  race  which  migrated 
into  Norway,  it  seems  as  though  the  process  of  natural  selection 
would  tend  to  preserve  to  a  high  degree  the  qualities  of  curi- 
osity, individuahsm,  introversion,  self-assertion,  and  acquisitive- 
ness. It  is  quite  possible  that  some  races,  such  as  the  Negroes, 
would  be  exterminated  under  such  circumstances  because  they 
have  already  acquired  opposite  qualities  under  another  environ- 
ment. Or  an  incompetent  race  might  find  the  environment 
repressive  where  the  Norse  find  it  stimulating.  Hence  we  infer 
that  if  some  non-Nordic  race  had  migrated  to  Norway  its  char- 
acter would,  to-day,  be  markedly  different  from  that  of  the  mod- 
ern Norse.  Yet  in  comparison  with  its  near  relatives  who  mi- 
grated to  other  regions  I  am  convinced  that  such  a  race  would 
show  a  marked  tendency  toward  many  Norse  characteristics. 

The  Sicilians,  on  the  contrary,  have  been  permanent  farmers 
since  an  indefinite  time  far  in  the  past.  Greeks,  Arabs,  Normans, 
and  others  have  indeed  settled  in  Sicily  at  various  times,  but 
judging  by  the  modern  inhabitants,  these  stocks,  or  at  least  the 
northern  elements  of  them,  have  died  out,  as  we  shall  see  more 
fully  in  Greece.  The  great  bulk  of  the  present  Sicilians  seem  to 
be  descended  from  ancestors  who  for  thousands  of  years  have 
cultivated  their  little  farms  and  tended  their  few  sheep  and 
goats  almost  as  their  descendants  do  to-day. 

Even  if  the  original  Mediterranean  people  who  first  settled 
in  Sicily  possessed  a  considerable  degree  of  the  kind  of  curi- 
osity, initiative,  and  self-assertion  which  led  men  to  move  on 
into  new  lands,  the  long  agricultural  life  has  presumably  allowed 
these  qualities  to  grow  weak.  The  introvert  capacity  and  fond- 
ness for  living  alone  have  presumably  been  a  handicap  in  many 
cases,  for  Sicily  and  most  Mediterranean  lands  have  so  long  and 
dry  a  summer  that  the  vast  majority  of  the  inhabitants  are  forced 


THE  THREE  GREAT  RACES  OF  EUROPE 


219 


to  live  near  the  main  suppKes  of  water.  But  in  a  compact  village 
the  sociable  extrovert  family  gets  along  much  better  than  the 
self-centered  introvert.  Likewise  the  man  who  is  mild  and  easily 
led  has  an  advantage,  for  he  gets  along  without  friction.  This  is 
especially  true  if  a  region  is  governed  by  strong  intruders  from 
outside,  as  has  been  the  case  during  long  periods  of  SiciHan  his- 
tory. Again,  in  a  country  so  warm  and  mild  as  Sicily  the  acquisi- 
tive instinct  is  not  nearly  so  necessary  as  in  regions  where  the 
winters  are  long  and  severe,  but  where  agriculture  is,  nevertheless, 
the  main  mode  of  life. 

In  addition  to  this  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  for  a  long 
period  Sicily,  far  more  than  Norway,  has  been  densely  populated, 
and  hence  has  suffered  from  poverty  and  even  famine.  Thus 
there,  as  in  China,  there  has  been  a  slow  but  perhaps  important 
outward  movement  which  in  almost  every  generation  may  have 
taken  away  a  considerable  number  of  the  SiciHans  who  had  most 
of  the  pioneer  quaHties  which  are  so  strong  in  the  Norse.  And 
finally  the  climate  of  Sicily  with  its  mild  winters  and  long,  hot, 
monotonous  summers  does  not  stimulate  activity  as  does  that  of 
Norway,  with  its  coolness,  its  storms,  its  variabihty,  and  yet  its 
freedom  from  really  severe  extremes  of  temperature.  It  is  not 
improbable,  although  we  cannot  speak  positively,  that  the 
climate  itself  and  diseases  like  malaria  have  a  certain  direct 
selective  influence  so  that  the  less  strenuous  types  have  an  ad- 
vantage in  southern  Europe  and  the  more  strenuous  active  types 
in  the  northwest.  WTiether  this  is  true  or  not,  the  facts  here 
given  suggest  that  natural  selection  has  been  one  of  the  main 
factors  in  differentiating  the  Nordic  and  Mediterranean  races 
and  in  making  the  Alpines  more  or  less  intermediate  between 
these  two.  That  racial  mixture  and  other  factors  have  also 
played  a  part,  I  do  not  doubt.  The  emphasis  on  selection  in 
this  book  does  not  in  the  least  mean  that  other  causes  of  racial 
differences  are  ignored  or  minimized. 


CHAPTER  XV 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

We  have  looked  at  the  character  of  Europe  from  the  point 
of  view  of  the  three  great  races.  Let  us  next  attempt  to  get  a 
composite  idea  of  the  character  of  the  various  countries  in  quite 
a  different  fashion.  Let  us  get  away  from  the  subjective  method 
where  we  deal  with  our  own  impressions  and  opinions,  and  let 
us  look  at  the  matter  objectively  in  such  a  manner  that  our  own 
opinions  have  no  weight.  One  way  to  do  this  is  by  means  of  a 
consensus  of  opinion  such  as  is  found  in  a  book  like  the  Encyclo- 
pedia Britannica.  The  eleventh  edition  of  that  famous  publica- 
tion contains  biographies  of  about  8,600  Europeans  who  were 
born  since  1600  A.  D.  I  have  classified  these  men  according  to 
the  country  of  their  birth  and  the  lines  in  which  they  distin- 
guished themselves,  as  appears  in  the  table  at  the  end  of  this 
chapter.  For  simplicity  let  us  employ  only  the  five  major  groups 
there  given:  (i)  religion,  philanthropy,  philosophy,  and  educa- 
tion; (2)  science  of  all  sorts,  both  natural  and  mathematical,  to- 
gether with  invention,  and  engineering;  (3)  history  and  economics; 
(4)  literature  and  art;  and  (5)  politics,  government,  and  war.  In 
addition  to  these  there  are  a  number  of  people  whom  we  have 
omitted,  but  who  are  included  in  the  Encyclopaedia  Britannica 
because  of  their  success  in  business,  because  they  were  freaks,  or 
because  they  inherited  high  positions  but  were  otherwise  insig- 
nificant and  would  not  have  been  included  simply  on  their  own 
merits. 

We  do  not  yet  know  how  far  the  real  character  of  a  nation  is 
expressed  in  its  men  of  genius.  It  seems,  however,  that  such 
men  to  a  large  degree  not  only  guide  the  activity  of  a  nation,  but 
are  themselves  more  or  less  controlled  in  their  choice  of  work 
by  certain  definite  tendencies  belonging  to  their  country  and 
epoch.  For  example,  the  Swedes,  as  a  whole,  or  at  least  the  mid- 
dle and  upper  classes,  are  reported  to  be  unusually  scientific 

220 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  MODERN  EUROPE  221 


in  their  tendencies.  A  Swedish  geologist  and  a  Swedish  geographer 
who  have  worked  in  other  countries  have  both  told  me  that 
Sweden  is  a  peculiarly  easy  country  in  which  to  work.  When 
the  investigator  crosses  a  farmer's  fence  he  has  only  to  explain 
what  he  is  doing  in  order  not  only  to  be  given  permission  to  go 
where  he  will,  but  to  be  urged  to  investigate  further.  Except  in 
the  busy  seasons,  a  farmer  will  often  put  off  his  own  work  and 
tramp  around  with  the  scientist,  eager  to  help  and  eager  to  learn. 
He  seems  to  do  so  for  sheer  love  of  scientific  knowledge.  Even 
in  Norway  this  is  by  no  means  so  true  as  in  Sweden,  and  in  Den- 
mark much  less  so.  On  the  other  hand  among  the  Swedes  the 
interest  in  religion  is  remarkably  slight.  The  vast  majority  of 
the  educated  people  look  upon  religion  as  something  for  the 
ignorant,  but  of  no  real  use  in  the  world.  Even  among  the  lower 
classes  there  is  an  extraordinary  degree  of  indifference.  With 
this,  though  perhaps  as  neither  cause  nor  effect,  there  goes  what 
seems  almost  to  be  a  real  deficiency  in  the  qualities  of  sympathy 
and  affection.  In  view  of  these  facts  it  is  not  surprising  to  find 
that  twenty-six  of  the  ninety-one  eminent  Swedes  mentioned 
in  the  Encyclopaedia  Britannica  were  scientists.  This  is  a  larger 
proportion  than  in  any  other  European  country  except  Switzer- 
land. On  the  other  hand,  only  a  single  Swede  was  sufficiently 
famous  as  a  leader  in  religion  and  philanthropy  to  be  included  in 
Britannica.  This  is  a  much  smaller  percentage  than  in  any 
other  European  country  for  which  we  have  data  enough  to  draw 
any  reliable  conclusions.  Thus  it  would  seem  that  both  among 
the  Swedish  people  as  a  whole  and  among  the  leaders  there  is 
a  tendency  toward  a  type  of  mind  that  is  cold,  clear,  irreligious, 
and  relatively  unsympathetic,  but  at  the  same  time  highly  sci- 
entific. 

Among  the  107  modern  Swiss  in  our  five  Britannica  groups, 
40  per  cent  are  scientists  as  against  29  per  cent  in  Sweden,  17 
per  cent  in  Germany,  13  per  cent  in  France,  and  only  2  per  cent 
in  Spain.  Switzerland  likewise  has  had  a  strong  religious  tendency, 
for  15  per  cent  of  her  leaders  have  been  eminent  in  the  domain 
of  religion  and  philanthropy,  which  is  a  larger  percentage  than 


222 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


in  any  other  country.  The  reader  may  suggest  that  the  rehgious 
prominence  of  Switzerland  is  due  to  the  fact  that  people  who  were 
persecuted  in  other  lands  have  fled  to  the  free  republic.  This 
does  not  alter  our  conclusion,  however,  for  we  are  dealing  with 
men  born  since  1600  who  did  not  become  prominent  until  re- 
hgious persecution  was  almost  at  an  end.  We  are  also  classi- 
fying these  men  according  to  the  country  of  their  birth,  not  of 
their  residence.  Perhaps  the  fact  that  15  per  cent  of  the  Swiss 
leaders  and  only  4.5  per  cent  of  the  French  leaders  have  belonged 
to  the  religious  and  philanthrophic  group  may  be  due  partly  to 
the  migration  of  French  Huguenots  to  Switzerland  during  times 
of  persecution.  An  investigation  of  this  matter  would  be  most 
interesting. 

Scotland  with  14  per  cent  of  its  eminent  men  as  religious 
leaders,  and  20.2  per  cent  as  scientists,  closely  resembles  Swit- 
zerland, while  even  in  England  and  Germany  the  same  tendency 
is  seen  in  the  fact  that  the  percentage  of  the  leaders  who  have 
been  eminent  in  religion  amounts  to  11.8  per  cent  in  England, 
and  I  I.I  in  Germany,  whereas  for  Europe  as  a  whole  the  per- 
centage is  9.2,  for  Italy  6.8,  for  France  4.5,  and  for  Sweden 
only  I.I.  It  seems  generally  to  be  accepted  that  among  the 
rank  and  file  of  the  people  of  all  these  countries  the  tendencies 
are  much  the  same  as  among  the  leaders.  Hence  we  believe  that 
the  character  of  the  leaders  reflects  the  general  character  of  the 
people,  although  it  is  equally  true  that  the  character  of  the  lead- 
ers in  turn  guides  the  progress  of  the  people  as  a  whole. 

If  it  be  true  that  the  lines  of  endeavor  in  which  the  leaders 
of  a  country  distinguish  themselves  are  an  index  of  the  char- 
acter of  the  people,  we  may  gain  some  idea  of  the  geographical 
distribution  of  different  types  of  ability  from  Figures  6  to  10. 
These  show  the  percentage  of  eminent  men  in  each  country  who 
have  distinguished  themselves  in  the  various  lines.  For  some 
countries,  of  course,  the  total  number  of  eminent  men  is  too  small 
to  be  significant.  Nevertheless,  eighteen  European  countries 
have  more  than  twenty-five  men  among  the  eminent  persons 
born  since  1600,  and  listed  in  Britannica,  while  in  fifteen  coun- 
tries the  number  rises  above  sixty.   In  each  map  there  are  four 


FIG.  7.    PERCENTAGE  OF  EMINENT  EUROPEANS  ENGAGED  IN  RELIGIOUS, 
EDUCATIONAL,  AND  PHILOSOPHICAL  WORK. 


FIG.  9.    PERCENTAGE  OF  HISTORIANS  AMONG  EMINENT  EUROPEANS. 


I 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  MODERN  EUROPE  223 


types  of  shading,  to  which  a  fifth  exceptionally  dark  type  is 
added  in  some  cases  to  emphasize  peculiar  conditions  in  the  Bal- 
kans, Switzerland,  and  elsewhere.  The  lightest  shading  indicates 
regions  much  below  the  average  in  the  special  lines  of  eminence 
shown  in  the  map  in  question;  the  next  shading  denotes  regions 
somewhat  below  the  average;  the  third  somewhat  above  the 
average;  and  the  fourth  and  fifth  much  above  the  average.  Figure 
6  shows  the  degree  to  which  scientists  have  been  produced  among 
the  eminent  men  in  each  country.  In  Switzerland,  as  we  have 
seen,  40  per  cent  of  the  eminent  men  have  been  of  this  type,  and 
I  in  Sweden  and  Norway  the  percentages  are  27  and  21  respectively. 
Scotland  and  Germany  likewise  have  produced  a  high  percent- 
age of  scientists.  In  the  rest  of  Europe  the  percentage  has  either 
been  about  the  average,  as  in  France  and  England,  or  less  than 
the  average,  especially  in  the  east  and  south.  Of  course  a  high 
percentage  does  not  necessarily  mean  a  large  number  of  scientists, 
but  merely  that  among  the  eminent  men,  whether  they  be  few  or 
many,  the  scientists  hold  a  relatively  important  position.  We 
shall  consider  the  absolute  number  of  eminent  men  a  little  later. 

Now  compare  Figure  6  with  Figure  7,  showing  the  leaders  in 
religion,  education,  and  philosophy.  Here  again  Switzerland, 
Germany,  and  Scotland  stand  high,  but  Poland  outranks  them 
all,  while  England  is  also  prominent.  But  note  the  change  in 
Scandinavia;  Sweden  falls  into  the  lowest  group.  She  is  neither 
religious  nor  philosophical  in  her  contribution  to  human  progress. 
In  art  and  literature.  Figure  8,  we  come  to  quite  a  different  type 
of  distribution.  Highest  of  all,  not  in  actual  numbers,  of  course, 
but  in  proportion  to  the  total  number  of  great  men,  stand  Bel- 
gium, Austria,  and  the  Netherlands,  with  Portugal,  Finland, 
Spain,  Hungary,  and  Italy  following  not  far  behind.  England, 
Scotland,  and  Sweden  are  among  the  countries  which  have  spe- 
cialized relatively  little  in  art  and  to  a  less  degree  in  literature. 
Germany,  Poland,  Russia,  and  Austria  fall  into  the  same  group. 
Here,  as  in  each  of  the  two  preceding  maps,  the  countries  of 
southeastern  Europe  show  no  appreciable  development. 

Turning  to  history,  Figure  o,  we  find  a  curiously  spotted  dis- 
tribution. Men  of  this  craft  have  been  relatively  most  numerous 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


in  Finland,  but  Norway,  Germany,  and  Hungary  have  likewise 
stood  high,  while  the  Netherlands,  France,  Italy,  Portugal,  and 
Austria  stand  above  the  average.  In  this  group  for  the  first 
time  we  find  a  southeastern  country,  Greece,  rising  above  the 
average.  Ireland,  on  the  other  hand,  like  Russia  and  Spain, 
seems  to  have  taken  Httle  interest  in  recording  its  own  history. 
Lastly  we  turn  to  Figure  lo,  which  shows  in  what  countries  men 
have  had  the  greatest  tendency  to  distinguish  themselves  in  war 
and  politics  rather  than  in  more  peaceful  and  more  productive 
pursuits.  Scandinavia,  central  Europe,  and  Portugal  have  had 
singularly  few  leaders  of  this  type.  In  England  and  Scotland  the 
average  has  been  about  like  that  for  Europe  as  a  whole,  while 
in  France,  Denmark,  Spain,  Bohemia,  and  Hungary  the  number 
has  risen  a  little  higher.  But  note  eastern  and  southern  Europe. 
In  Russia,  Poland,  and  all  the  Balkan  countries,  including  Greece, 
at  least  half  of  the  eminent  men  have  put  forth  their  efforts  in 
these  two  lines.  In  Servia  nine  out  of  the  ten  who  are  included 
in  Britannica  belong  in  this  group,  and  eight  of  them  were  po- 
litical leaders. 

Let  us  now  see  if  we  can  discover  any  reasons  why  the  various 
countries  have  distinguished  themselves  in  different  lines.  The 
task  is  extremely  difficult  and  we  are  not  sure  of  the  value  of 
our  analysis.  One  thing  stands  out  clearly.  In  the  largest  coun- 
tries, or  rather  in  those  with  the  most  persons  in  Britannica,  the 
relative  numbers  of  eminent  men  in  each  of  the  various  branches 
of  achievement  show  the  smallest  departures  from  the  average 
for  the  rest  of  Europe  as  a  whole.  England  is  pre-eminent  in  this 
respect.  This  is  partly,  but  probably  not  wholly,  because  the 
number  of  Enghshmen  mentioned  in  Britannica,  2,790  in  our 
selected  categories,  is  far  larger  than  the  number  from  any  other 
country.  Among  the  Enghsh,  however,  it  may  be  that  the  able 
men  have  had  such  varied  tastes  that  the  different  lines  of 
endeavor  are  unusually  well  balanced.  Scotland,  with  604  people 
in  our  five  main  groups,  seems  to  indicate  pretty  clearly  that  the 
differences  from  country  to  country  are  not  accidental.  The 
number  of  eminent  Scotch  is  large  enough  so  that  accidents  which 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  MODERN  EUROPE  225 


might  cause  one  group  or  another  to  predominate  without  any 
real  cause  are  largely  eliminated.  Yet  Scotland  stands  well 
above  the  average  in  men  who  have  achieved  fame  either  in 
religion  or  in  the  sciences.  It  is  almost  exactly  average  in  Htera- 
ture,  and  in  war  and  politics  combined,  while  it  falls  distinctly 
below  the  average  in  historians,  and  has  had  only  half  the  aver- 
age percentage  of  artists.  Inasmuch  as  the  Scotch  born  since 
1600  have  had  practically  every  opportunity  that  is  open  to  the 
English  or  any  other  people,  and  have  had  no  special  handicaps 
as  to  the  lines  to  which  they  could  devote  themselves,  it  seems 
j  as  though  it  must  be  their  racial  character  which  leads  them  for- 
I  ward  in  science  and  religion,  and  keeps  them  back  in  history  and 
art. 

This  seems  the  more  probable  when  we  consider  Ireland. 
That  country  has  292  eminent  men  in  our  five  groups.  In  spite 
of  certain  disadvantages,  it  is  difficult  to  see  any  reason  save 
their  own  character  which  should  cause  the  Irish  to  have  only 
two-thirds  of  the  average  proportion  of  scientists  and  half  the 
average  percentage  of  historians,  whereas  they  have  shown  about 
the  average  tendency  toward  religion,  art,  and  literature.  Their 
strong  tendency  toward  war  and  especially  politics  may  be  due 
to  circumstances  quite  as  much  as  to  racial  character,  although 
it  is  hard  to  determine  which  is  cause  and  which  effect. 

The  high  development  of  art  and  literature  in  certain  coun- 
tries is  particularly  interesting  in  its  relation  to  racial  character. 
In  Belgium,  for  example,  48.7  per  cent  of  the  seventy-eight  men 
in  our  five  groups  were  artists,  and  14.  i  per  cent  distinguished 
themselves  in  literature.  In  Bohemia  the  figures  are  almost  the 
same,  though  a  trifle  lower,  while  in  Holland  39.5  per  cent  were 
artists  and  13.7  per  cent  literary  men.  In  Portugal,  on  the  con- 
trary, there  has  been  a  relatively  strong  development  of  literature, 
57.7  per  cent  of  the  twenty-six  men  in  Britannica  belonging  to 
that  group,  while  only  3.8  have  taken  the  lead  in  art.  If  we  in- 
terpret Figure  8  in  terms  of  both  art  and  Hterature,  we  may  say 
that  in  Europe  the  relative  tendency  toward  literature  has  been 
particularly  strong  in  three  places,  namely  the  far  southwest,  in- 


22C 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


eluding  both  Spain  and  Portugal;  the  far  north,  including  Iceland 
and  Finland;  and  the  south  central  part,  Hungary.  It  would  be 
hard  to  find  three  places  that  are  racially  more  distinct,  for  the 
people  of  the  southwest  are  primarily  of  the  dark,  long-headed 
Mediterranean  type,  those  of  Hungary  are  broad-headed  intrud- 
ers of  Alpine  stock,  while  in  Finland  we  have  an  upper  class  of 
Nordic  tendencies,  especially  in  the  west,  and  a  lower  class  with 
broad-headed  Alpine  or  Mongoloid  characteristics.  From  the 
point  of  view  of  art  Belgium,  Bohemia,  Holland,  and  Italy  are  the 
leaders,  that  is,  they  are  countries  where  the  proportion  of  artists 
compared  with  other  eminent  men  has  been  greatest.  In  these 
countries  the  Belgians  are  relatively  broad-headed,  although  with 
considerable  Nordic  admixture  in  the  northern  parts;  the  Dutch 
are  more  Nordic  than  the  Belgians;  the  Italians  are  broad-headed 
Alpines  in  the  north  and  long-headed  Mediterraneans  in  the 
south;  and  the  Bohemians  are  primarily  broad-headed  Alpines. 

Perhaps  there  is  some  guiding  principle  in  all  this,  but  I  can- 
not find  it.  Race,  as  we  have  just  seen,  does  not  seem  to  explain 
the  presence  of  the  artistic  and  literary  temperaments.  The  size  i 
of  the  different  countries  does  not  seem  to  be  of  any  particular  I 
significance,  for  Spain  and  Italy  rank  as  large  countries,  while 
Belgium  is  small.  Nor  does  there  seem  to  be  any  emdronmental 
condition  which  would  cause  one  part  of  Europe  to  tend  to  pro- 
duce literary  men  and  another  artists.  The  distribution  of  people 
who  attain  eminence  in  religion  and  philosophy  is  equally  puz- 
zling. What  common  factor  causes  the  Nordic  Scotch  and  the 
Alpine  Swiss  to  have  a  very  strong  religious  tendency,  while  the 
Nordic  Swedes  and  the  Alpine  Belgians  have  a  minimima  interest 
in  religion?  In  most  of  the  other  maps  the  conditions  seem 
equally  puzzling.  The  only  exception  is  the  map  of  persons  who 
distinguished  themselves  in  war  and  poHtics,  Figure  lo.  Here  it 
appears  clearly  that  in  eastern  Europe  these  have  been  the  two 
branches  in  which  there  has  been  by  far  the  most  opportunity 
to  rise  to  distinction.  This  may  be  explained  partly  on  the  basis 
of  the  backwardness  of  those  countries,  for  in  a  backward  coun- 
try it  is  the  warrior  and  the  political  leader  who  come  to  the 
front.  It  is  also  due  in  part  to  tJie  fact  that  eastern  Europe,  even  . 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  MODERN  EUROPE  m 


in  the  last  three  centuries,  has  felt  the  rough  tide  of  invasion 
I  from  the  deserts  of  Asia.  Only  in  1683  was  the  Turkish  conquest 
of  Europe  finally  checked  at  Vienna,  and  the  surgings  due  to  the 
coming  of  the  Turks  and  Tartars  in  Russia  and  the  Balkans  have 
scarcely  died  away  even  now.  In  such  disturbed  and  backward 
countries  the  scientist,  the  religious  leader,  and  the  artist  have 
little  opportunity.  But  this  explanation  of  the  prevalence  of 
warriors  and  politicians  in  eastern  Europe  does  not  help  us  in 
regard  to  the  center.  Switzerland,  Holland,  Belgium,  Norway, 
I  and  Portugal,  being  small  countries  and  more  or  less  protected 
by  nature  or  by  pohtical  agreement,  may  not  have  afforded 
I  much  scope  for  political  and  military  genius.  Possibly  the  fact 
that  Germany  long  consisted  of  a  great  number  of  little  states 
had  the  same  effect  there.  But  why  have  Denmark,  Sweden, 
Bohemia,  Austria,  and  Ireland  had  such  a  large  percentage  of 
soldiers  and  political  leaders  among  their  great  men  ?  Ireland's 
percentage  vies  with  that  of  Austria,  and  is  thus  above  that  of 
any  country  of  Europe  save  Russia,  Poland,  and  the  states  of 
the  Balkan  Peninsula.  So  far  as  political  leaders  are  concerned, 
Ireland  has  had  almost  the  same  number  as  Scotland,  81  against 
85,  although  it  has  but  292  men  in  our  five  groups  compared  with 
604  in  Scotland.  We  are  again  and  again  told  that  Ireland  has 
been  suppressed  politically.  Has  such  suppression  bred  political 
leaders?  I  think  not,  for  the  great  majority  of  Irish  political 
leaders  since  1600  have  not  been  representatives  of  little  Ireland, 
but  of  imperial  Britain.  Moreover,  in  free  America  the  Irishman 
tends  to  be  a  politician  quite  as  much  as  in  unhappy  Ireland. 
Political  genius  seems  to  be  born  in  him  just  as  it  is  in  the  Turk, 
and  just  as  a  scientific  temperament  is  born  in  the  Swiss  and 
Swedes,  the  artistic  temperament  in  the  Belgians,  and  literary 
proclivities  in  the  Spaniards.  Or  would  it  be  fairer  to  conclude 
that  a  series  of  historic  accidents  has  given  each  country  an  im- 
petus in  one  direction  or  another— an  impetus  which  persists  for 
generation  after  generation? 

I  am  well  aware  that  the  preceding  paragraphs  fail  to  give  any 
clear  idea  of  the  distribution  of  racial  character.  This  is  because 
no  definite  laws  appear  to  be  detectable  in  the  distribution  of 


228 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


types  of  eminence.  One  country  certainly  differs  from  another, 
but  not  according  to  any  definite  plan  that  can  yet  be  recognized. 
If  racial  tendencies  play  a  part  in  determining  the  lines  in  which 
genius  manifests  itself,  as  presumably  is  the  case,  those  tenden- 
cies do  not  seem  to  manifest  themselves  as  one  would  expect  on 
the  basis  of  the  distribution  of  Nordic,  Alpine,  or  Mediterranean 
blood.  Nor  do  they  conform  to  the  distribution  of  racial  kinship 
as  denoted  by  the  form  of  the  head.  So  far  as  environment  is 
concerned,  it  is  equally  hard  to  see  any  relationship,  except  in 
the  tendencies  toward  war  and  politics,  in  the  backward  countries 
of  the  east  and  southeast.  Perhaps  historic  development  is  the 
key  to  the  problem,  but  that  key  would  apparently  have  to  be 
turned  many  times  before  it  would  unlock  the  door.  The  fact 
probably  is  that  in  its  higher  manifestations  the  pecuKar  quali- 
ties which  we  call  racial  character  depend  upon  such  complex 
and  varied  causes  that  for  the  present  their  analysis  is  beyond 
our  power. 

The  character  of  a  race,  as  of  an  individual,  depends  upon  the 
energy,  strength,  concentration,  and  steadiness  with  which  it 
pursues  its  aims  quite  as  much  as  upon  the  elusive  factors  which 
determine  what  those  aims  shall  be.  In  discussing  that  phase  of 
our  subject  I  shall  recapitulate  certain  things  which  I  have  said 
in  Civilization  and  Climate.  The  European  ideal  of  civilization 
may  be  stated  somewhat  as  follows:  Civilization  is  the  stage  of 
development  which  results  when  men  display  to  the  highest  de- 
gree the  power  of  initiative,  the  abiHty  to  dominate  nature,  the 
capacity  for  formulating  new  ideas  and  for  carrying  them  into 
effect,  the  power  of  self-control,  high  standards  of  honesty  and 
morality,  the  power  to  lead  and  to  control  other  races,  the  capac- 
ity for  disseminatmg  ideas,  the  ability  to  express  themselves  in 
high  types  of  art  and  Hterature,  and  other  similar  quaHties. 
These  qualities  find  expression  in  high  ideals,  respect  for  law, 
inventiveness,  abihty  to  develop  philosophical  systems,  great 
works  of  art  and  Hterature,  stabihty  and  honesty  of  government, 
a  highly  developed  system  of  education,  the  capacity  to  dominate 
the  less  civiHzed  parts  of  the  world,  and  the  abiHty  to  carry  out 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  MODERN  EUROPE  229 


far-reaching  enterprises  covering  long  periods  of  time  and  great 
areas  of  the  earth's  surface. 
I  On  the  basis  of  approximately  this  definition  fifty-four  geog- 
I  raphers,  anthropologists,  historians,  travellers,  and  others  have 
classified  the  various  regions  of  the  world.  These  men  represent 
fifteen  countries,  and  the  opinions  of  each  of  the  following  groups 
have  received  equal  weight  in  the  final  classification :  twenty-five 
Americans,  seven  British,  six  Germanic  Europeans,  six  other 
Europeans  (chiefly  Latins),  and  five  Asiatics.  They  rated  the 
various  countries  on  a  scale  in  which  lo  stood  for  the  nearest 
approach  to  the  ideal  as  expressed  in  the  preceding  definition, 
while  I  stood  for  the  greatest  divergence  from  that  ideal.  The 
average  opinion  of  the  five  groups  into  which  the  fifty-four  men 
were  divided  is  shown  in  Figure  ii.  By  giving  America  and  Asia 
equal  weight  and  by  dividing  Europeans  into  three  groups  ani- 
mated by  different  ideals  and  different  sympathies,  we  are  able 
largely  to  eliminate  the  effect  of  racial  prejudice.  Fortunately 
the  classification  was  made  before  the  World  War,  so  that  it 
represents  a  far  truer  estimate  of  racial  character  than  will  again 
be  possible  until  the  hatreds  and  antipathies  of  the  war  have  dis- 
appeared. The  close  agreement  in  the  opinions  of  all  five  groups 
makes  it  almost  certain  that  any  other  cosmopolitan  group  of 
eminent  men  would  come  to  approximately  the  same  conclusion. 
Hence  Figure  ii  appears  to  be  the  best  available  estimate  of  the 
geographical  distribution  of  civilization  and  progress. 

Let  us  compare  this  map  with  another.  Figure  12,  showing 
the  number  of  persons  mentioned  in  the  Encyclopaedia  Britan- 
nica  compared  with  the  population  of  various  parts  of  Europe 
in  1800.  The  estimates  of  the  population  at  that  time,  as  given 
in  the  table  at  the  end  of  this  chapter,  are  merely  approximations 
in  many  cases;  indeed,  in  certain  instances,  such  as  Greece  and 
Turkey,  they  are  little  more  than  guesses  controlled  by  the 
known  facts  of  later  times.  Nevertheless  they  give  a  fairly  true 
picture  of  the  actual  conditions  in  1800  A.  D.  The  reason  for 
choosing  that  year  is  that  it  gives  a  fairly  close  approximation 
to  the  relative  number  of  people  in  the  various  countries  from 


230 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


1600  to  1850  A.  D.,  that  is  during  the  period  when  the  men  in 
our  list  were  born.  Previous  to  1800  the  data  as  to  population 
are  very  unreliable.  At  that  time,  however,  the  rapid  increase  of 
population  due  to  the  introduction  of  machinery,  raihoads, 
steamships,  and  manufacturing  had  not  begun.  Hence  the  data 
for  that  year  are  fairly  representative  of  the  conditions  during 
the  two  preceding  centuries. 

In  the  Encyclopaedia  Britannica  the  British  Isles  are  of 
course  represented  by  an  unduly  large  number  of  names,  and  the 
same  is  perhaps  true  of  France  to  a  less  degree.  Moreover,  a 
large  country  with  a  language  in  which  many  books  are  pub- 
Hshed  may  have  some  advantage  over  a  small  country.  I  doubt, 
however,  whether  this  last  source  of  error  is  significant,  for  in 
Figure  12  the  numbers  for  Holland,  Denmark,  Switzerland,  and 
Iceland  compare  very  favorably  with  those  for  Germany  and 
France.  The  mere  fact  of  distance  and  of  the  degree  to  which 
the  language  of  a  country  differs  from  English  may  also  have 
something  to  do  with  the  number  of  people  who  are  included  in 
the  Encyclopaedia.  It  is  doubtful,  however,  whether  even  the 
fullest  allowance  for  this  would  materially  alter  the  appearance 
of  Figure  12.  "Ideas  are  light  baggage"  (Semple),  and  the  edi- 
tors of  Britannica  have  for  a  century  been  on  the  qui  vive  to 
find  new  names  appropriate  for  their  book.  In  encyclopaedias  in 
other  languages  it  is  surprising  to  find  that  aside  from  persons 
hving  in  the  country  where  the  book  is  pubHshed  there  are  rarely 
any  names  which  are  not  included  in  Britannica.  Hence  it  ap- 
pears that  if  the  undue  preponderance  of  the  British  Isles  were 
toned  down,  and  if  the  peripheral  parts  of  the  continent  were 
given  somewhat  greater  weight,  we  should  have  a  fairly  rehable 
map  of  the  general  distribution  of  eminent  Europeans  who  have 
really  influenced  the  world's  progress.  But  such  changes  in 
Figure  12  would  not  materially  alter  its  general  appearance. 
The  main  feature  of  the  map  would  still  be  an  area  around  the 
North  Sea  where  great  men  have  been  produced  in  relatively 
large  numbers  during  the  last  three  centuries.  From  this  center 
the  percentage  of  eminent  men  decreases  in  all  directions  except 


I 


i 
I 


FIG.  11.    DISTRIBUTION  OF  CIVILIZATION  IN  EUROPE. 


FIG.  13.    DISTRIBUTION  OF  HEALTH  IN  EUROPE. 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  MODERN  EUROPE  231 


toward  Iceland,  where  highly  exceptional  conditions  prevail,  as 
we  shall  see  later. 

Now  compare  the  map  of  great  men,  Figure  12,  with  the 
map  of  civilization,  Figure  11.  The  general  aspect  of  the  two  is 
quite  similar,  and  becomes  still  more  so  when  allowance  is  made 
for  the  fact  that  we  are  following  an  EngHsh  publication.  In 
other  words,  it  seems  that  the  number  of  men  of  genius  in  pro- 
portion to  the  population  agrees  fairly  closely  with  the  relative 
position  of  the  various  parts  of  Europe  in  the  scale  of  civilization. 
Note  in  each  case  the  peculiar  way  in  which  there  is  not  only 
an  area  of  dark  shading  around  the  North  Sea,  but  a  projection 
toward  the  east  in  the  Italian  region  and  another  in  the  Baltic 
region.  Note  also  how  Greece  rises  above  the  level  of  its  neigh- 
bors in  both  maps.  In  one  respect,  however.  Figure  12  contains 
a  peculiar  feature  which  is  contrary  to  Figure  11.  This  is  the 
belt  of  unexpectedly  low  achievement,  which  includes  Belgium, 
Bohemia,  Austria,  and  Hungary.  Yet  even  in  Figure  11  a  hint  of 
it  can  be  seen  in  the  relatively  low  position  of  Belgium,  Bohemia, 
and  the  Austrian  Alps.  I  shall  not  attempt  to  explain  this,  but 
it  may  possibly  be  significant  that  in  general  the  central  Euro- 
pean belt  of  relatively  few  men  of  eminence  coincides  more  or 
less  closely  with  the  belt  where  the  broad-headed  Alpine  type 
of  head  is  most  common,  as  appears  in  Taylor's  map,  Figure  3, 
page  77.  On  the  other  hand,  it  must  not  be  overlooked  that  in 
Switzerland,  where  the  people  are  broad-headed,  the  propor- 
tion of  eminent  men  is  high. 

The  maps  of  the  distribution  of  civilization  and  of  men  of 
eminence  may  both  be  regarded  as  illustrating  the  distribution 
of  character.  They  do  not  indeed  represent  all  phases  of  charac- 
ter, but  they  are  based  on  the  factors  which  are  most  vital  in 
promoting  human  progress.  In  spite  of  the  peculiar  belt  of  low 
achievement  in  Belgium  and  Bohemia,  the  resemblance  of  the 
two  maps  is  so  great  that  we  apparently  must  infer  that  they 
are  related.  But  which  is  cause  and  which  is  effect,  or  are  both 
the  effects  of  some  other  cause?  The  answer  is  perhaps  found 
in  Figure  13,  representing  the  distribution  of  health,  and  in 


232 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


Figure  14,  representing  the  distribution  of  climatic  energy.  The 
map  of  health  is  based  on  the  average  mortality  statistics  of  the 
various  countries  of  Europe,  for  it  is  generally  agreed  that  the 
death-rate  is  the  best  available  measure  of  health.  The  years 
1 909-1 9 13  have  been  used  in  order  to  get  normal  conditions, 
such  as  prevailed  before  the  World  War.  All  the  data  have  been 
reduced  to  what  is  known  as  a  standard  population,  so  that  the 
differences  in  the  death-rate  due  to  a  larger  or  smaller  percentage 
of  children  or  old  people  in  the  various  countries  are  eliminated. 
Moreover,  the  deaths  of  infants  have  been  eliminated,  since  the 
methods  of  recording  these  vary  greatly  from  country  to  country. 
The  deaths  of  people  over  seventy  years  of  age  have  likewise 
been  omitted,  but  these  are  too  few  to  produce  any  appreciable 
effect.  Even  so  the  map  is  not  perfect,  for  the  mortality  data  in 
eastern  and  southern  Europe  are  not  very  accurate,  many  deaths 
being  unrecorded.  But  if  these  unrecorded  deaths  were  included, 
they  would  simply  increase  the  contrast  between  the  more 
healthful  countries,  which  are  heavily  shaded,  and  the  less 
healthful,  which  are  lightly  shaded. 

The  map  of  cHmatic  energy  (Figure  14)  is  based  on  the  way 
in  which  people's  work,  both  physical  and  mental,  varies  from 
day  to  day  and  season  to  season  among  people  of  European 
origin  in  the  United  States.  The  amount  of  work  done  by  piece- 
workers in  factories  and  the  marks  obtained  by  students  on  days 
with  different  kinds  of  weather  give  a  fairly  accurate  measure  of 
people's  energy  during  a  day  or  month  with  any  given  tempera- 
ture, humidity,  and  degree  of  storminess.  Records  of  health  show 
variations  almost  identical  with  those  of  work.  On  this  basis, 
knowing  the  average  monthly  conditions  of  the  weather  in  each 
part  of  Europe,  it  has  been  possible  to  construct  a  map  of  cli- 
matic energy. 

The  similarity  of  the  maps  of  civilization,  genius,  health,  and 
climatic  energy  is  so  clear  that  it  speaks  for  itself.  In  each  map 
there  is  the  same  dark  area  around  the  North  Sea,  the  same  ten- 
dency toward  a  diminution  in  intensity  in  all  directions,  except 
that  the  maps  of  genius  and  health  do  not  diminish  toward  Ice- 
land. In  all  there  are  likewise  projections  in  the  regions  of  Italy 


FIG.  14.    DISTRIBUTION  OF  CLIMATIC  ENERGY  IN  EUROPE. 


900    1000   1100    1200   1300  1100    1500   1600   1700   1800    1900  A.D. 


FIG.   15.    APPROXIMATE   VARIATIONS   OF    RAINFALL    IN  CALIFORNIA 
DURING  THE  CHRISTIAN  ERA. 

Note:  This  curve  differs  somewhat  from  those  that  I  have  generally  published.  It 
is  taken  from  "Maya  Civilization  and  Climate,"  Proc.  2d  Int.  Cong.  Americanists, 
Washington,  1917.  It  has  been  adjusted  to  conform  to  th(^  levels  of  the  strands  of 
Owens  Lake.  The  part  from  600  A.  D.  onward  agrees  closely  with  the  curve  of  the 
Big  Trees  as  corrected  both  by  the  author's  method  as  described  in  "The  Climatic 
Factor,"  Washington,  1915,  and  by  the  method  of  Doctor  Antevs  described  in  "Post- 
glacial Climatic  Changes,"  publication  No.  352  of  the  Carnegi(^  Institution  of  Washington, 
1924.  The  part  before  600  A.  D.  awiiits  further  revision,  but  that  docs  not  materially 
affect  tliis  book. 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  MODERN  EUROPE  233 


and  the  Baltic  Sea.  That  the  four  maps  are  intimately  related 
can  scarcely  be  doubted.  The  relation  can  be  of  only  one  kind. 
No  one  of  the  other  three  maps  can  have  any  effect  on  the  map 
of  climatic  energy.  That  depends  on  nature,  not  man.  Therefore 
it  must  be  the  foundation.  Apparently  climate  influences  health 
and  energy,  and  these  in  turn  influence  civilization.  The  reverse 
is  also  true,  for  the  stage  of  civilization  has  a  great  effect  upon 
health. 

But  how  is  genius  related  to  the  other  factors?  Assume,  for 
the  moment,  that  the  people  in  all  parts  of  Europe  are  endowed 
with  exactly  the  same  degree  of  hereditary  ability,  and  that  the 
state  of  progress  is  everywhere  the  same,  politically,  industrially, 
socially,  and  otherwise.  Would  the  proportion  of  men  who  rise 
to  eminence  be  everywhere  the  same?  I  doubt  it.  The  regions 
around  the  North  Sea  would  probably  always  excel  eastern  and 
southern  Europe.  This  is  mainly  because  on  an  average  the  men 
of  genius  in  the  North  Sea  countries  would  be  more  energetic 
than  those  of  other  regions  because  they  would  enjoy  better 
health,  even  though  the  medical  service  were  everywhere  equally 
good.  They  would  be  continually  stimulated  by  their  cool, 
bracing  climate,  and  would  feel  like  working  hard  all  the  year, 
whereas  their  southern  and  eastern  colleagues  in  either  hot 
weather  or  cold  would  be  subject  to  periods  of  depression  which 
are  a  regular  feature  of  the  less-favored  parts  of  Europe.  Be- 
cause of  their  strength  and  energy  the  men  of  genius  in  the 
North  Sea  region  would  cause  civilization  to  advance  and  inci- 
dentaUy  would  improve  the  conditions  of  health  more  than  would 
their  comrades  of  the  south  and  east,  even  though  the  degree  of 
innate  abihty  was  the  same  in  all  countries.  Thus  from  what- 
ever point  of  view  the  matter  is  approached,  we  seem  forced  to 
conclude  that  the  phase  of  racial  character  which  expresses  itself 
in  differences  in  energy,  initiative,  and  the  power  of  achievement 
is  closely  correlated  with  differences  in  the  physical  environment. 
This  by  no  means  indicates  that  inherited  traits  do  not  likewise 
have  a  great  effect  upon  these  quaHties.  It  merely  means  that  no 
bodily  trait  such  as  head-form,  complexion,  or  other  supposed 
indication  of  racial  affinity  has  thus  far  been  found  to  display  a 


234 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


geographical  distribution  like  that  of  men  of  eminence,  or  like 
human  energy,  initiative,  and  the  power  of  achievement.  On  the 
other  hand,  it  cannot  be  too  strongly  emphasized  that  the  type 
of  activity  which  prevails  in  different  parts  of  Europe  seems  to 
be  strongly  influenced  by  inheritance.  An  artist  presumably 
retains  the  artistic  temperament  no  matter  where  he  is  or  how 
great  his  energy  or  lassitude.  A  typical  Irishman  is  a  good  poH- 
tician  and  the  Jew  a  merchant  wherever  he  may  be.  Thus  racial 
inheritance  is  presumably  a  strong  factor  in  directing  men^s  lines 
of  effort.  It  is  likewise  a  strong  factor  in  determining  the  pro- 
portion of  men  of  genius  produced  in  any  country.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  degree  of  energy  with  which  each  race  pursues  its 
chosen  lines,  and  the  percentage  of  its  men  of  genius  who  use 
their  capacities  so  fully  that  they  become  eminent,  seems  to  de- 
pend largely  on  physical  environment. 

Thus  at  least  two  of  the  fundamental  reasons  why  Europe 
leads  the  world  seem  apparent.  First,  during  the  glacial  period 
the  ancestors  of  the  present  European  races  presumably  suffered 
an  extremely  severe  process  of  natural  selection  by  reason  of  the 
alternate  expansion  of  the  ice-sheets  on  the  one  hand  and  of  the 
deserts  of  Asia  and  Africa  on  the  other.  To  this  perhaps  is  due 
the  superiority  of  the  Mediterranean-Caspian  blend  as  set  forth 
by  Dixon.  Second,  ever  since  the  last  glacial  epoch  had  suffi- 
ciently passed  away,  some  part  of  Europe  or  of  the  neighboring 
regions  of  western  Asia  and  north  Africa  has  enjoyed  a  climate 
unsurpassed  in  the  quaHties  that  give  health  and  energy.  As  the 
climate  has  changed  and  as  man  has  learned  more  fully  to  pro- 
tect himself  against  the  cold,  civilization  has  advanced  north- 
westward almost  as  if  Scandinavia,  Scotland,  and  Iceland  were 
its  goal.  At  every  stage  people  of  unusually  good  inheritance 
have  been  naturally  selected  to  colonize  those  regions  and  have 
experienced  the  stimulus  of  an  unusually  good  climate.  Thus 
they  have  acquired  another  asset  of  enormous  value,  namely, 
the  power  to  profit  to  an  unparalleled  degree  by  the  knowledge, 
the  institutions,  and  the  ideals  handed  down  from  former  genera- 
tions. 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  MODERN  EUROPE  235 


ssauisng 


H  O00<NM  roco  mOww 


M    M  O    «^    f*:  O 


3JTHU3APV 


uopniOAa-g 


O  Oi  M  00  QO 


moo  MHO 


00  t>.  lo     M  <N      loO  fO  O 

MTj-       X^O        >-iN  VOO 
»0       to  N 


SDiraouoD^ 
pu-e'  iCio^sijj 


O  M       OOO  f1  o» 

\0  00  l-t  MM 
W  M  CS 


uopuaAuj  pnB 


saauaps 


uoi^uDnpg; 
puB  XqdosoKTti  J 


i^dOJnlu■B]^:[(J 
puB  uoiSyia^ 


•so6i  'z 
•;d  'si  'lOA  'mbij 

u^jjrtff  UT  oip 
-og  pu'B  jnassBAa^ 

JO  •B^BQ  JO  SISBg  UO 

•Q  v  oogi  nop 
-Bpdoj  paiBxupsg; 


88 


O  o 

88 


O  Q  O  O  O  O  O 

o  o  o  o  g  o  o 

O  O  O  O  O  O  O 


O  O 

O  O 
O  O 


88 

O  CO 


o  9 
<?.  o 


O  O  O  O  O  O  O 

O  O  O  O  O  O  O  ' 

D  M  o  o_  q>  o_  o_  . 

Tt  pT  f«S 


9  o 

O  lo 

O  f^ji 
O' 


0 


.S2  "b  "5 


C 


c3  -a 


CHAPTER  XVI 


THE  CONTRAST  BETWEEN  GREEKS  AND  IRISH 

Having  finished  our  general  survey  of  Europe,  we  are  ready 
to  turn  to  certain  specific  cases  where  natural  selection  may  help 
to  explain  the  character  and  history  of  nations.  Among  the  few 
that  we  can  here  consider,  Greece  and  Ireland  are  especially 
puzzling  and  present  a  remarkable  contrast.  In  Greece  we  are 
puzzled  as  to  why  there  was  so  sudden  and  magnificent  an  out- 
burst of  genius  in  a  limited  area.  It  is  true  that  from  700  to  400 
B.  C.  Greece  seems  to  have  enjoyed  an  unusually  favorable 
climate,  together  with  comparative  freedom  from  malaria  and 
other  diseases.  Nevertheless,  the  extraordinary  concentration  of 
genius  in  Greece  as  a  whole,  and  especially  in  Athens,  still  remains 
unique  and  unexplained.  In  the  same  way  the  increasingly 
troubled  and  desperate  condition  of  Ireland  does  not  seem  in 
harmony  with  the  physical  environment,  nor  is  it  adequately 
explained  by  the  common  views  as  to  land  tenure,  absentee  land- 
lordism, and  lack  of  home  rule. 

In  spite  of  the  wealth  of  legend,  the  early  history  of  Greece 
is  not  clear.  For  example,  there  has  been  a  violent  discussion  as 
to  what  part  the  Pelasgians  played  in  old  Greece,  as  to  the 
reality  of  the  Achaean  invasion,  and  as  to  the  connection  between 
the  Achaeans  and  the  culture  of  Mycenae.  After  long  controversy, 
however,  the  doubts  as  to  the  Pelasgians  seem  to  be  clearing 
away,  while  the  work  of  such  men  as  Ridgeway  and  Leaf  is  fast 
leading  to  conviction  as  to  the  Achaeans.  Hence  without  further 
explanation  I  shall  recount  the  early  history  of  Greece  substan- 
tially as  given  by  these  latest  authorities. 

The  earhest-known  inhabitants  of  Greece  appear  to  have 
been  a  people  known  as  Pelasgians,  or,  as  some  prefer  to  say, 
iEgeans.  They  were  apparently  a  Mediterranean  race,  and  were 
probably  short,  dark,  and  straight-haired.    Presumably  they 

£36 


THE  CONTRAST  BETWEEN  GREEKS  AND  IRISH  237 


came  from  the  south  or  east  by  sea.  We  do  not  know  what  con- 
tributions they  made  to  human  progress  during  the  early  days, 
when  they  were  still  under  the  stimulating  and  selective  influ- 
ence of  migration  and  a  new  country.  In  later  times,  however, 
they  seem  to  have  settled  down  into  a  rather  inert  peasantry 
which  did  little  worthy  of  note.  They  appear  to  have  been  largely 
serfs  or  helots,  as  in  Sparta.  In  Homer  the  chiefs  speak  to  them 
in  the  roughest  and  rudest  manner,  and  do  not  hesitate  to  beat 
them  on  smaU  provocation.  In  later  times  they  continue  to  be 
despised,  especially  in  Sparta,  while  in  Attica  we  are  told  by 
Hecataeus  that  they  were  expelled  by  the  Athenians.  They  were 
least  important  in  the  very  places  where  later  races  displayed 
the  greatest  vigor  and  made  the  greatest  progress. 

Yet  in  the  long  run  the  Pelasgians  appear  to  have  gotten  the 
better  of  each  of  the  succeeding  races.  As  Myers  puts  it  in  his 
lecture  on  Greek  Lands  and  the  Greek  People : 

Broadly  speaking,  the  history  of  Man  in  the  ^gean,  as  in  the  Medi- 
terranean world  of  which  it  is  the  microcosm,  has  been  the  resultant  of  two 
groups  of  forces.  On  the  one  hand,  it  has  been  the  history  of  the  attempts 
of  non-Mediterranean  men  to  penetrate  from  elsewhere  into  the  Medi- 
terranean coast  lands,  and  of  the  earlier  occupants  to  keep  them  out, 
almost  always  unsuccessfully.  On  the  other,  it  has  been  the  story  of  the 
attempts  of  the  successful  invader  to  acclimatize  himself  to  Mediterranean 
nature,  to  learn  her  ways,  and  through  conformity  with  them,  to  conquer 
her  and  survive.  And  these  attempts  also,  in  general,  have  failed.  No 
type  of  non-Mediterranean  invader  has  ever  yet  learned  so  quickly  how  to 
live  under  Mediterranean  conditions,  as  to  escape  extinction  in  the  process. 

There  is  clearly  something  in  the  physique  of  "Mediterranean"  man 
which  fits  him  in  a  peculiar  way  for  life  on  the  Mediterranean  seaboard; 
for,  once  established  there,  in  days  of  which  we  still  know  nothing,  he  has 
succeeded,  in  a  remarkable  way,  in  maintaining  himself  against  all  rivals 
within  very  rigid  limits.  A  recent  piece  of  work  by  Mr.  Hawes  illustrates 
well  the  rigidity  of  this  physical  control.  Crete,  during  the  centuries  from 
the  thirteenth  to  the  seventeenth  A.  D.,  was  a  political  appendage  of  Venice, 
and,  hke  all  Venetian  dependencies,  endured  a  copious  inflow  of  settlers 
and  functionaries  from  Venice  itself  and  its  home-colonies  on  the  Dal- 
matian coast,  a  markedly  "Alpine"  region.  Many  Cretan  famihes  retain 
Venetian  surnames  today,  particularly  in  certain  provinces.  It  was  there- 
fore natural  to  suppose  that  if  physical  types  could  be  implanted  perma- 
nently by  colonization  extending  over  three  or  four  centuries,  these  fam- 


238 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


ilies  would  retain  physical  traits  characteristic  of  the  region  from  which 
their  ancestors  came.  But,  province  by  province,  the  Venetian-named 
Cretans  today  are  of  precisely  the  same  physique  as  their  Greek-named 
neighbors;  in  the  more  "Alpine"  provinces  they  are  "Alpine,"  in  the 
"Mediterranean"  districts  they  are  "Mediterranean."  Either,  therefore, 
well-marked  physical  types  of  men  are  so  unstable  as  to  be  modified  by 
local  conditions  within  a  dozen  generations,  or  they  are  so  sensitive  to  a 
strange  environment  as  to  die  out  like  exotic  seedUngs  among  indigenous 
weeds.  Between  these  two  alternatives  we  can  hardly  hesitate  to  choose, 
when  we  remember  the  deadly  selection  which  is  exerted  in  the  South  by 
infantile  diseases;  for  it  is  believed  that  hardly  one  in  three  of  the  children 
who  are  born  in  Greek  lands  lives  to  its  first  birthday.  With  an  infant 
mortahty  like  this,  and  with  a  further  steady  drain  on  adults  from  malaria 
and  other  regional  diseases,  it  is  not  surprising  to  learn  that  intruders 
must  be  very  persistently  reinforced  from  the  outside,  if  they  are  to  main- 
tain their  race  alive  under  Mediterranean  conditions.  .  .  . 

Outside  the  Mediterranean  limits,  however,  the  Mediterranean  man  is 
apparently  as  powerless  to  establish  his  race,  in  competition  with  the  men 
of  the  Alpine  and  Anatohan  highlands,  as  they  are  to  displace  him  within 
sight  of  the  sea  which  is  his  home.  We  reach,  therefore,  this  notable  con- 
clusion, that  in  these  apparently  favored  lands  there  is  yet  a  physical  con- 
trol so  efficient  as  to  make  acclimatization  exceedingly  difiicult  and  slow; 
so  that,  though  exotic  types  of  man  make  their  way  from  time  to  time 
either  tumultuously  or  in  persistent  driblets  into  the  Mediterranean  world, 
their  independent  existence  is  destined  to  be  brief;  and  after  a  very  few 
centuries,  their  presence  is  difficult  to  detect.  The  physical  evidence,  how- 
ever, is  already  sufficient  to  show  that  slow  infiltration  of  foreign  types 
has  taken  place  nevertheless;  that  it  has  had  its  maxima  at  ascertainable 
periods;  and  that  the  types  which  alone  show  any  ability  to  accHmatize  or 
to  amalgamate  with  the  indigenous  "Mediterranean  race"  are  of  the 
"Alpine"  group,  not  the  blond  giants  of  "Northern"  stock. 

It  may  be  that  Myers  goes  somewhat  too  far  in  his  conclusion 
as  to  the  rapidity  with  which  all  traces  of  invading  stocks  dis- 
appear. Nevertheless,  there  seems  to  be  overwhelming  evidence 
that  his  general  proposition  is  correct.  Hence  it  would  seem  that 
the  fundamental  fact  as  to  the  Greeks  is  that  the  basis  of  the 
population  consists  of  a  Mediterranean  race,  the  Pelasgians,  or 
iEgeans.  These  people  have  made  httle  or  no  contribution  to 
history,  and  appear  to  have  changed  very  Httle  throughout  the 
five  thousand  years  during  which  we  have  more  or  less  evidence 
of  their  existence.  Their  importance  lies  not  in  their  relation  to 
the  briUiant  epochs  of  Greece,  but  in  the  fact  that  after  immigra- 


THE  CONTRAST  BETWEEN  GREEKS  AND  IRISH  239 


tion  has  given  rise  to  brilliant  progress  the  Pelasgians  have  in- 
variably ousted  the  invaders.  They  have  not  done  this  by  war 
or  violence,  but  by  intermarriage  and  the  absorption  or  dilution 
of  the  new  blood,  or  else  through  natural  selection.  They  have 
been  able  to  endure  the  long,  hot  summers  and  the  malaria  and 
other  diseases  of  Greece,  while  the  invaders  have  been  less  re- 
sistant. Hence  we  may  think  of  Greece  as  a  country  whose  his- 
tory would  have  been  relatively  placid,  uneventful,  and  of  little 
importance  to  the  rest  of  the  world  if  it  had  been  inhabited  only 
by  Pelasgians.  But  because  it  received  invaders  and  because 
migrations  so  regularly  pick  out  the  especially  able  types,  Greece 
has  risen  to  greatness  at  several  epochs. 

The  first  such  rise  was  due  to  the  coming  of  the  Minoans  or 
Cretans.  The  Cretans,  it  will  be  remembered,  developed  a  won- 
derful civilization  which  dawned  some  three  thousand  or  more 
years  before  Christ,  and  was  in  its  prime  a  thousand  or  fifteen 
hundred  years  later.  The  Minoan  palaces  with  their  labyrinths, 
which  gave  rise  to  the  tale  of  Theseus  and  the  Minotaur,  have 
become  widely  familiar  in  recent  years.  So,  too,  have  the  remark- 
ably modern  clothing  of  the  early  Cretans  and  their  high  ability 
in  commerce  and  the  arts.  The  record  of  the  early  relations  be- 
tween Cretans  and  Greeks  consists  mainly  of  ruins  upon  the 
iEgean  Islands  and  at  the  heads  of  many  bays  which  open  south- 
ward on  the  Greek  mainland.  Whether  the  Cretans  first  came 
as  merchants,  pirates,  or  warriors,  or  as  colonists  escaping  from 
trouble  at  home,  no  one  yet  knows.  But  in  Homer,  where  first 
we  have  mention  of  the  Minoans,  they  are  leaders,  even  after 
Greece  has  been  conquered  by  the  Achasans.  ^Xolonists  on  a 
large  scale,' ^  as  Leaf  well  says  {Homer  and  History)  "go  as  con- 
querors—they are  conscious  of  their  own  worth,  and  confident  in 
the  future  before  them."  In  other  words,  if  the  difficulties  which 
they  overcome  are  great  enough,  such  colonists  are  usually  a 
selected  people,  who  hand  down  their  ability  by  inheritance. 
That  such  was  the  case  with  the  Minoans  appears  from  the  fact 
that  they  imposed  upon  the  Pelasgians  a  rule  which  apparently 
lasted  many  centuries.    Moreover,  they  not  only  introduced 


240 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


Minoan  art,  but  developed  it  along  lines  of  their  own  until  it 
became  the  famous  Mycenaean  art  which  prevailed  in  Argos  and 
other  parts  of  Greece  at  the  epoch  of  the  Trojan  War  about 
1 200  B.  C.  Homer  gives  minute  descriptions  of  the  products  of 
this  first  outburst  of  genius  in  Greece,  an  outburst  due  largely,  it 
would  seem,  to  the  coming  of  selected  invaders  from  Crete.  Yet 
in  the  days  of  Homer,  Mycenaean  art  was  deteriorating.  The 
Minoans  had  reached  a  splendid  climax,  but  through  intermar- 
riage with  the  Pelasgians  or  for  some  other  reason  were  begin- 
ning to  decline. 

The  next  step  was  further  migrations,  Achaean,  Dorian,  and 
Ionian.  These  probably  began  far  north  of  Greece,  perhaps  in 
the  fifteenth  century  B.  C,  and  ended  in  the  eighth  or  ninth. 
The  three  migrations  were  closely  connected,  and  apparently 
involved  only  one  race— the  Greeks  who  gave  Greece  its  glory — 
although  different  tribes  were  concerned.  The  fact  that  there  is 
some  doubt  as  to  how  distinct  the  Achasan  migration  may  have 
been  from  the  Dorian  makes  no  difference  in  our  general  argu- 
ment. The  Achaeans,  to  follow  Leaf,  were  apparently  the  van- 
guard of  a  flood  of  blond  incomers  from  the  north,  whose  first 
wave  overwhelmed  Greece  in  the  fourteenth  century  B.  C,  and 
passed  on  to  Crete,  where  its  ravages  are  seen  in  the  destruction 
of  the  famous  palace  of  Knossos,  the  most  noteworthy  of  the 
labyrinths.  In  Greece  itself,  however,  the  conquerors  did  not 
destroy  the  old  civilization.  On  the  contrary,  like  the  Norsemen 
in  Normandy  and  their  Norman  descendants  in  Sicily,  they 
appear  merely  to  have  seized  the  castles  and  strongholds  and 
ousted  many,  though  by  no  means  all,  of  the  old  Minoan  rulers. 
Then  they  assimilated  the  Minoan  or  Mycenasan  art  and  even 
encouraged  its  practise  by  the  survivors  of  the  old  dominant  class. 

Like  all  people  who  have  migrated  far  or  traveled  widely, 
the  Achaeans,  and  likewise  the  Dorians  who  followed  them,  ap- 
pear to  have  been  a  highly  adaptable  people,  able  easily  to 
assume  new  customs  and  a  new  culture.  Their  long  migration 
presumably  from  the  grassy  plains  of  the  north,  may  have  fos- 
tered this  spirit  of  adaptability  and  of  hospitahty  to  new  ideas, 


THE  CONTRAST  BETWEEN  GREEKS  AND  IRISH  241 


but  it  seems  to  be  still  more  true  that  it  was  the  innate  posses- 
sion of  this  spirit  or  temperament  which  made  the  Achaeans  will- 
ing and  able  to  keep  on  migrating.  Those  of  their  original  num- 
ber who  lacked  this  spirit  presumably  tended  to  stay  in  the  old 
homes  or  to  give  up  the  onward  movement  long  before  the  sea 
was  reached  in  Greece. 

In  later  times  [as  Leaf  says]  the  people  who  most  markedly  of  all  the 
Greeks  showed  this  readiness  to  imitate  and  adopt  foreign  manners,  even 
after  the  distinction  between  Greek  and  barbarian  was  fully  developed, 
were  the  Asiatic  lonians.  Whatever  the  real  origin  of  the  lonians  may 
have  been,  it  is  hardly  to  be  doubted  that  the  Achaeans  had  a  large  share 
in  their  formation.  In  this  almost  excessive  adaptability  we  may  fairly 
see  an  inherited  type. 

The  Trojan  War  is  an  illuminating  episode  in  the  develop- 
ment of  the  Greece  of  classical  times.  The  leaders  were  largely 
Achaeans  with  a  few  Minoans,  while  the  common  people,  although 
called  Achaeans,  were  presumably  in  large  measure  Pelasgians. 
The  Greek  expedition  from  the  mainland  across  the  ^gean  may 
in  some  ways  be  counted  as  the  beginnhig  of  the  Ionian  migra- 
tion which  later  gave  to  the  western  shore  of  Asia  Minor  a  thor- 
oughly Greek  character.  Many  of  the  greatest  Greeks,  including 
Sappho,  Alcaeus,  and  presumably  Homer,  came  from  that  region. 
The  real  reason  for  the  Trojan  War  is  unknown.  It  may  have 
been  a  conscious  desire  to  conquer  the  lands  across  the  ^Egean 
and  hold  the  control  of  the  Hellespont,  but  it  is  doubtful  whether 
the  Greeks  of  that  day  thought  in  such  broad  terms  or  could  get 
together  so  many  independent  princelings  for  any  such  endeavor. 
It  seems  more  likely  that  an  ambitious  leader  was  able  to  crys- 
tallize a  general  state  of  unrest  and  commotion,  and  thus  to  lead 
an  army  to  a  region  where  there  were  possibilities  of  plunder  and 
settlement.  The  reason  for  this  unrest  may  have  been  the  later 
heavings  of  the  Achaean  migration,  or  the  first  waves  of  the 
Dorian  migration  which  broke  in  full  force  a  little  later. 

There  is  a  constant  tendency  for  the  historian  to  crystallize 
migrations  into  a  single  clear-cut  event.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
primitive  migrations  usually  consist  of  a  long  series  of  move- 


242 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


ments,  a  few  of  which  involve  the  sudden  inrush  of  a  fairly  large 
number  of  people,  but  most  of  which  consist  of  the  far  slower 
infiltration  of  small  groups.  Viewed  in  this  way  the  Achaean, 
Dorian,  and  Ionian  migrations  are  all  parts  of  a  single  move- 
ment whereby  the  Greeks  finally  gained  control  of  Greece  proper, 
the  iEgean  Islands,  and  the  western  shores  of  Asia  Minor.  First 
came  the  Achaean  tribes,  chiefly,  we  may  suppose,  by  filtration, 
but  perhaps  with  a  sudden  onrush  at  one  time  which  took  some 
of  them  across  to  Crete.  The  pressure  of  those  who  kept  wander- 
ing down  from  the  north  presumably  helped  to  induce  some  of 
those  who  had  come  earlier  to  attempt  conquests  east  of  the 
iEgean.  Thus  perhaps  arose  the  Trojan  War,  which  may  be 
counted  as  the  beginning  of  the  Ionian  migration.  Two  or  three 
generations  later  another  somewhat  sudden  and  violent  incursion 
of  new  tribes  from  the  north  is  known  as  the  Dorian  invasion. 
This  and  the  influx  of  new  people  which  followed  during  the 
next  two  or  three  centuries  made  such  commotion  in  Greece  and 
disturbed  the  earlier  comers  so  much  that  many  of  them,  to- 
gether with  some  of  the  old  Minoan  leaders,  migrated  across  the 
sea  to  the  Asiatic  coast.  This  seaward  movement  is  known  as 
the  Ionian  migration.  It  produced  famous  Greek  settlements 
like  Chios,  Ephesus,  and  Miletus.  But  in  reality  it  was  merely 
the  outflow  of  the  Achaeans  and  Minoans  who  were  displaced  by 
the  Dorians  or  retired  in  disgust  because  of  the  political  and 
social  confusion. 

In  this  connection  a  passage  from  Thucydides  is  most  illu- 
minating. He  is  evidently  talking  about  the  centuries  of  migra- 
tion and  disturbance  which  we  have  just  been  describing.  He 
not  only  states  the  general  conditions  clearly  and  forcibly,  but 
indicates  that  the  settlement  of  Attica  was  largely  due  to  the 
Ionian  migration,  even  though  Attica  lies  west  of  the  ^Egean. 
Moreover,  he  gives  an  important  hint  as  to  one  reason  for  the 
greatness  of  Athens. 

The  country  that  is  now  called  Hellas  was  not  regularly  settled  in  an- 
cient times.    The  people  were  migratory,  and  readily  left  their  homes 


THE  CONTRAST  BETWEEN  GREEKS  AND  IRISH  243 


whenever  they  were  overpowered  by  numbers.  There  was  no  commerce 
I  and  they  could  not  safely  hold  intercourse  with  one  another  either  by  land 
i  or  sea.  The  several  tribes  cultivated  their  own  soil  just  enough  to  obtain 
a  maintenance  from  it.  But  they  had  no  accumulations  of  wealth,  and  did 
not  plant  the  ground;  for  being  without  walls,  they  were  never  sure  that 
an  invader  might  not  come  and  despoil  them.  Living  in  this  manner  and 
knowing  that  they  could  not  anywhere  obtain  a  bare  subsistence,  they 
were  always  ready  to  migrate;  so  that  they  had  neither  great  cities  nor 
any  considerable  resources.  The  richest  districts  were  most  constantly 
changing  their  inhabitants;  for  example  the  countries  which  are  now  called 
Thessaly  and  Bceotia,  the  greater  part  of  the  Peloponnesus,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  Arcadia,  and  all  the  best  parts  of  Hellas.  For  the  productiveness 
of  the  land  increased  the  power  of  individuals;  this,  in  turn,  was  a  source 
of  quarrels  by  which  communities  were  ruined,  while  at  the  same  time  they 
were  more  exposed  to  attacks  from  without.  Certainly  Attica,  of  which 
the  soil  was  poor  and  thin,  enjoyed  a  long  freedom  from  civil  strife,  and 
therefore  retained  its  original  inhabitants.  And  a  striking  confirmation 
of  my  argument  is  afforded  by  the  fact  that  Attica  through  immigration 
increased  in  population  more  than  any  other  region.  For  the  leading  men 
of  Hellas,  when  driven  out  of  their  own  country  by  war  or  revolution, 
sought  an  asylum  at  Athens;  and  from  the  very  earUest  times,  being  ad- 
mitted to  rights  of  citizenship,  so  greatly  increased  the  number  of  inhabi- 
tants that  Attica  became  incapable  of  containing  them,  and  was  at  last 
obliged  to  send  out  colonies  to  Ionia. 

In  ancient  times  both  the  Hellenes,  and  those  barbarians  whose  homes 
were  on  the  coast  of  the  mainland  or  in  islands,  when  they  began  to  find 
their  way  to  one  another  by  sea  had  recourse  to  piracy.  They  were  com- 
manded by  powerful  chiefs,  who  took  this  means  of  increasing  their  wealth 
and  providing  for  their  poorer  followers.  They  would  fall  upon  the  un- 
walled  and  straggling  towns,  or  rather  villages,  which  they  plundered,  and 
maintained  themselves  chiefly  by  the  plunder  of  them;  for,  as  yet,  such  an 
occupation  was  held  to  be  honorable  and  not  disgraceful.  On  land  also 
neighboring  communities  plundered  each  other — all  Hellenes  carried 
weapons  because  their  homes  were  undefended  and  intercourse  unsafe; 
like  the  barbarians  they  went  armed  in  their  everyday  life.  And  the  con- 
tinuance of  this  custom  in  certain  parts  of  the  country  indicates  that  it 
once  prevailed  everywhere.    (Bk.  I,  par.  5.) 

Even  in  the  age  which  followed  the  Trojan  War,  Hellas  was  still  in 
process  of  ferment  and  settlement,  and  had  no  time  for  peaceful  growth. 
The  return  of  the  Hellenes  from  Troy  after  their  long  absence  led  to  many 
changes;  quarrels,  too,  arose  in  nearly  every  city,  and  those  who  were  ex- 
pelled by  them  went  and  founded  other  cities.    (Bk.  I,  par.  12.) 

This  quotation  is  interesting  not  only  because  it  shows  that 
during  and  after  the  period  of  migrations  Greece  long  suffered 


244 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


from  a  state  of  chaotic  confusion,  but  because  it  states  that  the 
people  who  were  forced  to  migrate,  or  who  chose  to  migrate,  were 
the  leaders.  The  common  people,  the  old  Pelasgians,  remained 
in  their  homes;  the  Minoan,  Achaean,  and  Dorian  leaders  were 
the  ones  who  chiefly  migrated.  The  case  was  like  that  which 
we  have  seen  suggested  in  connection  with  Cambodia  and  which 
we  shall  see  unmistakably  in  Norway.  From  among  a  people 
already  highly  selected  by  the  nomadic  life  of  the  grasslands  of 
Asia  and  by  prolonged  and  strenuous  migrations  continued  prob- 
ably for  hundreds  of  years,  there  was  yet  another  selection  where- 
by Ionia  and  especially  Attica  received  a  peculiarly  large  pro- 
portion of  the  ablest  leaders,  those  who  thought  it  well  to  seek 
new  homes  rather  than  yield  to  the  invaders  or  endure  an  end- 
less struggle. 

It  seems  to  me  that  this  concentration  of  able  people  in  Attica 
goes  far  toward  explaining  the  preeminence  of  that  region.  If 
the  Pelasgians  had  been  expelled,  as  stated  by  Hecataeus,  the 
"original  inhabitants''  mentioned  by  Thucydides  must  have 
been  Achasans.  Therefore  Attica  had  no  helots  and  was  one  of 
the  few  places,  perhaps  the  only  one  of  any  size,  where  the  popu- 
lation was  almost  purely  Greek.  Certain  other  conditions  tended 
to  intensify  and  perpetuate  this  group  of  unusually  capable  peo- 
ple. For  example,  the  very  poverty  of  Attica  led  the  leading 
families  to  concentrate  in  Athens,  which  probably  increased  the 
chances  that  the  upper  classes  would  marry  in  their  own  group 
and  not  among  the  groups  below  them.  Again,  after  the  earlier 
period  of  colonization,  that  is  the  Ionian  migration,  Athens  "took 
no  prominent  part  in  these  later  colonizing  movements,  prefer- 
ring to  concentrate  her  resources  at  home.''  (Edwards.)  More- 
over, her  citizens  J  as  distinguished  from  the  lower  classes,  kept 
out  of  commerce  and  devoted  themselves  largely  to  affairs  of 
state.  Commerce  was  carried  on  by  slaves  and  by  the  metics,  or 
ahens.  This  again  helped  to  prevent  the  upper  classes  from  wan- 
dering to  other  regions.  Much  the  same  was  true  in  Sparta, 
where  also  the  display  of  genius  was  unusually  great. 

Another  important  condition  was  that  in  Attica,  as  in  Sparta, 


THE  CONTRAST  BETWEEN  GREEKS  AND  IRISH  245 


the  cleavage  between  the  aristocracy  and  the  lower  classes  wa^ 
unusually  sharp.  The  Athenian  serf,  as  Abbott  puts  it  in  his 
History  of  Greece^  ^Vas  degraded  to  a  position  in  comparison  to 
which  the  Helot  of  Sparta  was  happy."  Hence  intermarriage 
was  less  likely  than  in  places  where  the  separation  was  not  so 
great.  Thus  the  less  competent  Greeks  were  excluded  from  con- 
tributing their  weaknesses  to  later  generations  of  the  dominant 
classes.  This  was  the  more  true  because  the  Athenians  were  very 
proud  of  their  descent  and  very  jealous  of  any  admission  of  the 
children  of  women  of  the  lower  classes  into  the  upper  classes,  no 
matter  who  the  father  might  be.  "To  you,  men  of  Athens,  who 
are  citizens  by  descent,"  says  Demosthenes,  "it  is  fitting  that 
no  sum  of  money  however  great  should  be  preferred  to  respecta- 
ble birth,"  but  for  freemen  who  have  no  pride  of  birth  the  case 
is  quite  otherwise.  A  further  limitation  against  the  loss  of  the 
pure  Athenian  inheritance  is  found  in  the  law  that  an  heiress 
must  marry  her  eldest  paternal  uncle  or  eldest  cousin  who  is  the 
son  of  one  of  her  father^s  brothers.  Again,  intermarriage  be- 
tween famihes  of  different  states  or  cities  continued  down  to 
the  early  fifth  century,  but  at  that  time  Athens  became  too  ex- 
clusive to  permit  this.  Here  again  is  another  of  the  many  evi- 
dences that  the  Athenians  of  the  upper  classes  guarded  their 
inheritance  with  pecuHar  care.  If  Athens  were  unique  in  this 
respect,  we  might  conclude  that  her  care  had  nothing  to  do  with 
her  greatness.  But  inasmuch  as  we  find  many  other  cases,  like 
the  Parsis  of  India,  where  selection  seems  to  give  unusual  ability 
and  the  ability  persists  as  long  as  the  inheritance  remains  unim- 
paired, it  seems  as  though  the  greatness  of  Athens  might  be 
connected  with  the  fact  that  her  people  were  almost  purely 
Greeks,  not  Pelasgians;  they  were  the  sifted  remnants  of  a  long 
and  hard  migration;  they  were  to  a  large  degree  the  leading 
families  among  the  early  migrants  from  other  parts  of  Greece; 
and  they  preserved  their  inheritance  unmixed  to  a  peculiar  degree. 

In  spite  of  their  inheritance,  Greece  and  Athens  fell  into 
decay.  No  doubt  this  arose  partly  and  perhaps  largely  from 
poHtical  and  social  causes  unconnected  with  inheritance.  Yet 


246 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


there  was  apparently  a  change  of  inheritance.  We  have  aheady 
quoted  from  Myers  a  widely  held  opinion  that  the  Mediterranean 
climate  and  its  diseases,  especially  malaria,  tend  strongly  to 
weed  out  the  non-Mediterranean  types,  especially  the  blond 
northern  races.  It  seems  quite  clear  that  the  upper  classes  of 
ancient  Greece  were  a  fair-haired  people,  for  otherwise  it  is  al- 
most impossible  to  explain  their  ideals  of  beauty  as  disclosed  in 
literature  and  in  the  blond  shades  in  which  their  statues  were 
painted.  But  to-day  the  blond  element  has  practically  disap- 
peared from  Greece.  I  am  not  one  of  those  who  thinks  that  all 
the  world's  ability  is  concentrated  in  any  one  race,  but  in  this 
case  it  happens  that  such  a  race  has  experienced  a  pecuHarly 
strong  natural  selection.  The  process  by  which  the  blond  race 
died  out  seems  to  be  indicated  in  some  statistics  which  have 
been  collected  by  Mayor  in  A  Companion  to  Greek  Studies, 
Judging  by  the  statements  of  Thucydides  and  the  figures  as  to 
the  distribution  of  grain  in  445  B.  C.,  the  number  of  Athenian 
citizens  at  the  beginning  of  the  Peloponnesian  War  (431  B.  C.) 
was  about  35,000  in  the  three  upper  classes,  and  20,000  Thetes 
of  the  lower  class,  together  with  10,000  or  15,000  metics  or  ahen 
residents  who  did  not  enjoy  citizenship.  A  century  and  a  quar- 
ter later  the  census  of  Demetrius  Phalerus  (317-307  B.  C.)  shows 
a  reduction  to  21,000  citizens  of  all  classes,  but  the  number  of 
metics,  10,000,  does  not  seem  to  have  fallen  nearly  so  much. 
Part  of  this  great  loss  among  the  citizens  was  due  to  the  plague 
in  430  B.  C,  part  to  the  Peloponnesian  War,  and  part  to  other 
causes.  At  Sparta  in  early  days  there  are  said  to  have  been 
9,000  lots  or  portions  for  fully  privileged  citizens,  and  30,000 
for  lower  citizens.  Herodotus  says  there  were  8,000  full  citizens 
at  the  time  of  the  Persian  War  (490  B.  C),  but  Xenophon  in- 
dicates only  about  1,500  at  the  time  of  the  battle  of  Leuctra 
(371  B.C.);  Aristotle,  before  300  B.C.,  gives  the  number  as 
1,000,  while  in  the  days  of  Cleomenes  (240-220  B.  C.)  there 
were  said  to  be  700.  In  the  first  century  after  Christ  the  whole 
of  Greece  is  reported  to  have  been  able  to  produce  only  3,000 
heavy-armed  hopHtes. 


THE  CONTRAST  BETWEEN  GREEKS  AND  IRISH  247 


Whatever  may  be  the  exact  figures,  it  is  obvious  that  from 
about  400  B.  C.  onward  there  was  an  ominous  and  increasingly 
rapid  decHne  in  the  Greek  population.  So  far  as  figures  are 
available  they  suggest  that  the  upper  classes  suffered  most.  The 
present  Greeks  suggest  the  same  thing:  they  are  almost  univer- 
sally brimets  of  the  Mediterranean  type;  the  blond  type,  which 
seems  to  have  predominated  in  the  upper  class  of  ancient  times, 
is  practically  gone.  Elsewhere  I  have  shown  that  one  reason  for 
this  may  be  an  apparent  change  of  climate.  During  the  great 
age  of  Greece  the  climate  appears  to  have  been  stormier,  a  trifle 
cooler,  and  decidedly  more  bracing  than  now.  Malaria  likewise 
appears  to  have  been  relatively  scarce  and  to  have  done  little 
harm.  These  conditions  were  presumably  an  important  element 
in  allowing  the  selected  Greek  migrants  to  rise  to  such  heights 
of  achievement.  When  the  climate  changed  for  the  worse,  espe- 
cially from  about  300  to  200  B.  C.,  a  great  adverse  selection 
seems  to  have  taken  place  whereby  the  fair  Greeks  of  the  intel- 
lectual classes  died  out,  thus  leaving  only  the  old  Pelasgian  stock 
as  progenitors  of  the  modern  Greeks.  In  other  words,  Greece 
apparently  agrees  with  many  other  parts  of  the  world  in  show- 
ing that  rigid  selection  produces  a  competent  race,  but  the  de- 
gree of  achievement  of  that  race  and  the  permanence  of  its 
virility  depend  largely  upon  the  amount  of  mixture  with  other 
races  and  the  kind  of  climate. 

Now  let  us  cross  Europe  and  glance  for  a  moment  at  Ireland. 
Because  that  island  lies  on  the  extreme  margin  of  Europe,  one 
might  expect  that  it  would  have  been  a  terminal  area  into  which 
many  migrations  would  have  poured,  thus  giving  it  a  peculiarly 
selected  and  competent  population.  But  this  has  been  the  case 
to  only  a  moderate  degree.  At  an  early  date  Ireland  received 
Mediterranean  migrants  who  were  presumably  quite  capable 
when  they  first  came,  but  whose  capacity  may  have  diminished 
because,  like  the  Pelasgian  Greeks,  they  have  not  been  subjected 
to  the  stronger  types  of  natural  selection.  In  later  times  other 
migrants  have  come  to  Ireland;  but  only  in  the  case  of  the 
Scotch-Irish  of  Ulster  have  they  become  a  permanent  and  dis- 


248 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


tinct  element  of  the  population.  It  seems  to  me  that  much  of 
the  difference  between  Ireland  and  England  is  attributable  to 
two  geographical  facts :  first,  Ireland  lies  farther  from  continental 
Europe  than  does  England  and  is  separated  from  the  continent 
by  the  larger  island;  second,  although  Ireland  has  a  fairly  good 
climate,  it  is  too  damp,  the  crops  are  limited,  famines  occur  now 
and  again,  and  the  difficulties  of  getting  a  living  are  much  greater 
than  in  the  neighboring  island.  In  neither  case  is  the  differ- 
ence between  Ireland  and  England  great,  but  both  are  im- 
portant. 

England  has  been  the  final  resting-place  of  large  groups  of 
competent  migrants— Kelts,  Romans,  Angles,  Saxons,  Danes, 
Normans,  Huguenots  from  France,  and  various  others.  These 
newcomers  have  in  most  cases  been  much  more  competent  than 
the  average  of  the  countries  or  races  from  which  they  have  come. 
Therefore  England  has  been  greatly  stimulated.  In  many  cases 
these  same  migrants  have  spilled  over  into  Ireland,  but  generally 
that  has  been  all.  Because  Ireland  is  more  remote  than  England 
and  because  the  force  of  migration  has  been  broken  by  England, 
and  also  because  Ireland  is  on  the  whole  less  desirable  than 
England,  the  Emerald  Isle  has  received  Kttle  more  than  the 
splashings  of  the  migrations. 

But  something  else  has  likewise  happened.  Ireland's  cloudi- 
ness, dampness,  famines,  and  remoteness  from  the  centres  of 
Europe  have  constantly  tended  to  drive  away  the  most  able  of 
her  sons.  The  chances  for  a  career  have  been  far  greater  in  Eng- 
land or  France  than  in  Ireland.  Life  in  those  other  countries  has 
been  pleasanter,  and  the  rewards  of  success  much  greater.  So 
the  young  leaders  have  made  the  easy  journey  across  the  water, 
while  the  less  competent  peasants  have  stayed  by  the  "stuff"  at 
home.  In  later  years  the  same  process  has  taken  place  on  a  still 
greater  scale.  For  several  decades  or  generations  during  the 
late  eighteenth  and  early  nineteenth  centuries,  a  comparatively 
dry  period  and  the  absence  of  summer  frosts,  such  as  that  which 
ruined  the  potato  crop  in  1739,  seem  to  have  given  Ireland  ex- 
cellent crops  most  of  the  time.  Hence  the  population  increased 


THE  CONTRAST  BETWEEN  GREEKS  AND  IRISH  249 


rapidly.  In  1845,  in  spite  of  six  seasons  of  dearth  which  almost  / 
led  to  local  famines  between  1831  and  1842,  the  population 
reached  a  maximum  of  8,300,000.  Then  came  a  series  of  damp,  \ 
rainy  years  with  such  complete  failure  of  the  potato  crop  that  | 
200,000  to  300,000  people  died  of  starvation  and  fever.  The 
British  Government  provided  work  for  over  700,000  people  at 
one  time,  but  this  was  not  enough.  Then  food  was  distributed  in 
enormous  quantities,  and  over  3,000,000  people  were  at  one 
period  supplied  with  rations.  Nevertheless  such  great  discontent 
arose  that  in  1848  a  rebellion  was  attempted. 

Perhaps  the  most  important  result  of  the  over-population  of 
Ireland  coupled  with  the  distress  due  to  famine  was  that  it  set 
the  Irish  to  talking  about  migration.  The  talk  was  not  idle,  for 
a  rapid  migration  to  America  began  in  1846.  In  five  years  the 
population  had  diminished  to  6,600,000,  or  about  20  per  cent. 
During  succeeding  years  the  climatic  conditions  were  fairly  dry 
and  favorable  and  migration  declined  rapidly,  as  is  shown  in  the 
following  table.  In  the  eighties,  however,  another  prolonged  wet 
period  with  poor  harvests  again  brought  home  to  Ireland  its 
great  handicaps  of  over-population  and  a  poorly  organized  social 
system.  People  again  flocked  to  America.  This  Irish  migration 
is  one  of  the  most  wholesale  known  to  recent  history. 


POPULATION  IN  IRELAND 


Date 


Population 


Decrease  in 
Population 


Percentage  of 
Decrease 


1841 
1851 
1861 
1871 
1881 
1891 
1901 
1911 


8,200,000 
6,600,000 
5,800,000 
5,400,000 
5,100,000 
4,700,000 
4,500,000 
4,400,000 


1,630,000 
770,000 
390,000 
240,000 
470,000 
240,000 
80,000 


There  can  be  little  question  that  the  migration  was  selective. 
Doubtless  many  competent  Irishmen  still  live  in  the  Old  Coun- 
try. But  there  is  equally  little  doubt  that  on  the  whole  it  was 


250 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


the  more  energetic,  wide-awake,  adaptable,  and  industrious 
Irish  who  left  their  old  homes  and  fared  forth  across  the  sea. 
That  is  perhaps  one  of  the  chief  reasons  why  Ireland  has  had 
only  about  one-sixth  as  many  eminent  men  in  proportion  to  the 
population  as  have  its  two  EngHsh-speaking  neighbors,  England 
and  Scotland,  as  appears  in  Figure  12.  For  hundreds  of  years 
England  has  been  getting  the  cream  of  Ireland,  and  during  the 
past  century  America  has  scooped  off  most  of  the  top  milk.  On 
the  blue  liquid  which  still  remains  some  cream  may  rise,  but  it 
would  be  contrary  to  the  lesson  of  history  to  expect  that  a  coun- 
try which  has  been  so  depleted  shall  thrive  as  does  a  country 
into  which  fresh,  creamy  milk  has  just  been  poured.  The  pros- 
pects would  be  sad,  indeed,  were  it  not  that  a  race  like  the  Irish 
possesses  so  highly  mixed  an  inheritance  that  high  types  con- 
tinue to  appear  now  and  again  in  spite  of  the  constant  removal 
of  such  types  by  migration.  With  proper  selection  there  is  little 
doubt  that  Ireland  could  again  possess  a  large  body  of  compe- 
tent leaders. 

England,  like  Ireland,  has  suffered  from  migration,  as  have 
most  of  the  countries  of  Europe.  But  England  has  had  a  great 
safeguard  in  her  aristocracy  and  her  system  of  primogeniture. 
Gibes  at  the  British  aristocracy  are  common,  but  in  proportion 
to  its  numbers  that  aristocracy  has  probably  produced  more  men 
of  genius  than  almost  any  similar  group  except  the  Athenians,  the 
Jews,  the  Icelanders,  and  a  few  others.  To-day,  in  spite  of  all 
that  may  be  said  in  comic  operas  and  novels,  I  would  rely  on  a 
hundred  average  British  aristocrats  with  more  certainty  than  upon 
an  average  hundred  picked  at  random  from  almost  any  other 
group  of  men.  These  aristocrats,  simply  because  they  belong  to  a 
ruling  class,  have  largely  remained  in  England.  Many  younger 
sons  have  indeed  gone  to  new  lands,  but,  thanks  to  primogeniture, 
the  oldest  sons,  and  the  heirs  when  those  sons  have  died,  have 
ahnost  invariably  made  England  their  permanent  home.  Thus, 
although  England  has  been  sadly  drained  of  her  middle  classes, 
a  fact  which  perhaps  aggravates  her  present  difficulties,  she  still 
has  a  large,  strong  body  of  gentry  who  inherit  not  only  a  social 


THE  CONTRAST  BETWEEN  GREEKS  AND  IRISH  251 


tradition  of  public  service,  but  a  physiological  capacity  for  honest, 
painstaking,  and  often  brilhant  leadership.  That  is  her  salvation. 
It  is  Ireland's  misfortune  to  have  lost  practically  all  of  that  type 
together  with  a  large  share  of  her  middle  class. 


CHAPTER  XVII 


THE  DISPERSAL  OF  THE  NORTHMEN 

If  the  reader  reviews  the  Hne  of  reasoning  pursued  thus  far 
in  this  book  he  may  be  surprised,  as  I  have  been,  at  the  concen- 
tration of  advantages  around  the  North  Sea  and  southern  Scan- 
dinavia. The  northern  location  of  those  regions  and  the  preva- 
lence of  westerly  winds  from  the  Atlantic  keep  the  summers  cool 
and  invigorating.  In  winter,  however,  those  same  winds  come 
from  an  ocean  which  is  warmed  by  the  Gulf  Stream  and  Atlantic 
Drift,  so  that  its  waters  are  not  much  colder  in  winter  than  in 
summer.  Hence  harmful  extremes  of  temperature  are  rare. 
Again,  in  this  northwestern  section  of  Europe  cyclonic  storms  are 
especially  abundant.  Therefore,  not  only  is  there  plenty  of  rain 
and  atmospheric  moisture  at  all  seasons,  but  stimulating  varia- 
tions of  the  weather  are  frequent.  These  conditions  of  climate 
produce  two  highly  desirable  results:  First,  they  make  it  possible 
for  people  to  get  a  good  living  by  agriculture,  but  do  not  make 
this  easy  unless  people  are  highly  industrious  and  have  a  strong 
spirit  of  thrift.  Second,  they  tend  to  make  the  inhabitants  healthy 
and  active  to  a  degree  almost  unparalleled  elsewhere. 

The  North  Sea  region  and  especially  Scandinavia  have  still 
other  advantages.  They  were  among  the  last  parts  of  the  world 
to  be  freed  from  ice;  hence  their  cooler  parts,  at  least,  have  been 
inhabited  only  a  few  thousand  years.  Again,  this  part  of  the 
world  is  remote  from  regions  whence  it  could  be  repopulated 
after  the  last  ice  age.  Accordingly  its  inhabitants  had  to  migrate 
far  and  undergo  strong  natural  selection  before  settling  in  their 
final  homes.  Inasmuch  as  most  of  the  Scandinavian  and  North 
Sea  people  reached  their  homes  quite  late,  their  inheritance  has 
as  yet  been  relatively  Httle  impaired  by  adverse  selection  or  by 
the  mere  cessation  of  the  selective  action  of  migration.  More- 
over, the  earliest  of  the  selected  migrants  found  in  their  new 

252 


THE  DISPERSAL  OF  THE  NORTHMEN  253 


homes  no  inefficient  aborigines.  Even  the  latest  invaders  found 
a  population  which  was  presumably  fairly  competent,  and  which 
did  not  usually  tend  to  replace  the  newcomers  because  of  its 
numbers  or  because  it  was  better  adapted  to  the  climate. 

Another  significant  fact  arises  from  the  climatic  vicissitudes 
of  the  glacial  period,  together  with  the  relation  of  Europe  to  the 
African  and  Asiatic  deserts.  Because  of  these  conditions  the 
races  which  invaded  northwestern  Europe  had  presumably  been 
subjected  to  an  almost  unprecedented  degree  of  racial  mixture 
and  natural  selection  before  they  experienced  the  final  renewal 
of  these  processes  during  the  repeopHng  of  Europe. 

As  a  result  of  these  advantages  the  people  of  northwestern 
Europe  have  been  able  to  assimilate  and  utilize  new  ideas  and 
inventions  while  still  in  the  freshness  and  vigor  of  racial  youth. 
Hence  it  has  been  their  privilege  to  rise  especially  high  in  such 
matters  as  the  use  of  bronze  and  iron,  the  Christian  religion,  rep- 
resentative government,  and  many  other  modern  ideas  and  in- 
stitutions. From  such  conditions  of  environment  and  selection, 
then,  arises  in  considerable  measure  the  present  undoubted  su- 
premacy of  the  Nordics.  From  this  also  arises  the  groundless 
fiction  that  practically  all  progress  everywhere  is  due  to  Nordic 
infusion. 

Having  seen  how  the  Nordics  reached  their  high  racial  level, 
let  us  inquire  what  lessons  may  be  learned  from  the  history  of 
one  of  their  most  typical  branches,  the  Northmen  or  Norse  who 
lived  in  Denmark,  southern  Norway,  and  southern  Sweden  in 
the  eighth  century.  At  the  end  of  that  century  they  appear  to 
have  been  Hving  in  relative  quiet  for  some  three  centuries,  with- 
out any  special  migrations  or  wars  other  than  the  ceaseless  local 
struggles  which  are  almost  universal  among  energetic  barbarians. 
Then  something  happened,  and  the  Norse  suddenly  began  mi- 
grating in  all  directions.  In  their  open  boats  they  swarmed  along 
every  coast,  plundering,  ravaging,  pillaging,  burning,  enslaving, 
and  killing.  At  first  they  merely  landed  on  the  coast,  commonly 
using  an  island  as  a  base,  and  making  a  swift  dash  upon  the 
inhabitants.  Then  they  made  camps  where  they  stayed  a  few 


254 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


weeks  while  part  of  them  made  forays  up  the  rivers.  Next  they 
spent  the  winter  and  made  more  extensive  raids,  harassing  the 
country  for  hundreds  of  miles.  Finally  they  estabHshed  them- 
selves permanently.  In  Ireland  they  founded  Dublin  and  there 
set  up  a  kingdom  which  lasted  about  three  hundred  years,  or 
from  about  851  A.  D.  to  the  Norman  invasion  from  England  in 
1 1 55.  In  Scotland  and  northern  England  they  did  Ukewise,  and 
finally  in  1015  Canute  became  king  of  all  southeastern  Britain. 
At  the  mouths  of  the  Elbe,  Rhine,  Somme,  Seine,  Loire,  and 
Garonne  the  Norsemen  also  estabhshed  themselves  more  or  less 
permanently.  In  northern  France  they  actually  forced  the  French 
to  cede  to  them  the  territory  of  Normandy  to  which  they  gave 
their  name.  Farther  south  these  Norse  Vikings  made  predatory 
raids  around  Spain,  upon  the  African  shore,  and  along  the  Medi- 
terranean coast  to  the  mouth  of  the  Rhone  and  North  Italy.  In 
another  direction,  eastward  from  their  home,  they  migrated  into 
Russia  under  Rurik  and  his  brothers.  Rus  they  were  called,  and 
thereby  Russia  received  its  name  after  the  Norse  had  estabHshed 
a  kingdom  at  old  Novgorod.  From  there  wandering  bands  went 
down  the  Dnieper  and  reached  Constantinople,  where  for  genera- 
tions the  Byzantine  emperors  had  a  famous  Varangian  Guard  of 
Norse  soldiers.  Thus  Europe  was  almost  encircled  by  these  wild, 
bold,  barbarous  adventurers.  One  other  migration  took  place  at 
this  time,  westward  to  newly  discovered  Iceland.  This,  unlike 
all  the  others,  was  peaceful,  for  there  were  no  inhabitants  in  Ice- 
land aside  from  a  few  Irish  monks. 

The  degree  of  permanence  in  the  Norse  settlements  varied 
greatly,  as  did  the  extent  to  which  the  Norse  retained  their  racial 
inheritance.  In  Iceland  practically  all  the  settlers  were  Norse, 
and  they  have  remained  unmixed  for  a  thousand  years.  In  Nor- 
mandy the  Norse  exterminated  many  of  the  former  inhabitants 
and  took  a  considerable  area  for  their  own  possession.  Neverthe- 
less, being  a  highly  adaptable  people  they  adopted  the  French 
language,  religion,  and  customs,  and  in  due  time  became  so  amal- 
gamated with  the  surrounding  people  that  they  are  now  almost 
indistinguishable,  as  is  also  the  case  farther  north  in  Belgium  and 


THE  DISPERSAL  OF  THE  NORTHMEN 


255 


Holland.  This  was  easy  and  natural,  because  many  of  the  people 
of  northern  France  were  closely  allied  to  the  Norse  in  race.  Nev- 
ertheless, before  the  Norman  Norse  had  wholly  lost  their  racial 
individuality  they  sent  out  two  sets  of  migrants  who  have  played 
an  important  part  in  history.  One  set  established  a  Norman 
Kingdom  in  Sicily  and  South  Italy;  the  other  followed  William 
the  Conqueror  to  England. 

In  England  itself,  two  centuries  more  or  less  before  the  Nor- 
man conquest,  the  Norse — partly  Danes  and  partly  Norwegians 
— had  settled  in  such  numbers  that  they  not  only  established  a 
kingdom,  but  imposed  their  speech  upon  certain  small  areas,  for 
example,  in  Yorkshire  and  Lincolnshire.  Nevertheless,  in  Britain, 
as  in  France,  the  Norse  ultimately  adopted  the  language,  religion, 
and  customs  of  their  fosterland,  and  amalgamated  with  the 
former  inhabitants,  especially  the  upper  classes,  who  were  their 
close  racial  kin.  Since  England  received  a  second  important 
Norse  addition  when  the  Normans  came  in  1066,  and  since  it 
had  no  large  outward  migrations  like  those  from  Normandy,  it 
owes  more  of  its  blood  and  its  character  to  the  Norse  than  does 
any  other  country  except  those  of  Scandinavia  and  Iceland. 

In  Ireland  along  the  north  and  east  coasts  the  Norse  were  an 
important  element  for  a  while,  but  like  every  other  upper  class 
they  tended  to  move  away  from  that  country.  Many  migrated 
to  Iceland  within  a  generation  or  two  after  coming  to  Ireland, 
while  others  at  later  dates  went  to  England  and  the  continent. 
Thus  the  Norse  inheritance  has  played  a  relatively  minor  part  in 
Ireland.  In  Russia  much  the  same  is  probably  true.  Although 
the  Rus  may  not  have  migrated  from  Russia  so  quickly  as  many 
of  their  kinsmen  did  from  Ireland,  they  were  absorbed  in  the 
great  mass  of  Slavs  around  them  and  soon  lost  their  individuahty. 
Elsewhere  except  on  the  Swedish  border  of  Finland,  the  Norse 
appear  to  have  been  a  more  or  less  ephemeral  element. 

But  note  one  important  fact.  Wherever  the  Norse  went  they 
were  dominant.  This  is  not  strange,  for  we  have  already  seen 
how  rigid  had  been  the  selection  by  which  the  pioneer  qualities 
had  been  evolved  in  them.   Moreover,  it  was  the  best  of  the 


256 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


Norse  who  went  on  Viking  raids.  Even  before  the  great  period 
of  migration  it  was  the  common  thing  for  young  Norsemen  to  go 
"a- viking,"  much  as  the  eighteenth-century  young  man  in  Eng- 
land took  a  year  of  travel.  But  it  was  only  the  young  men  of 
relatively  good  birth  and  position  who  could  afford  to  do  this. 
Even  the  retainers  who  accompanied  them  were  "trained  war- 
riors, chosen  for  their  high  spirit"  (Enc.  Brit.,  vol.  IX,  p.  468). 
When  Canute's  great  army  went  to  England  in  1015  it  was  a 
picked  host  which  contained  "not  a  thrall  or  a  freedman."  Many 
of  that  particular  army  returned  to  Denmark,  but  the  other 
Viking  hordes  which  settled  in  foreign  lands  were  also  largely  of 
the  upper  classes. 

When  the  Norse  first  began  to  spread  abroad  over  the  coasts 
of  Europe,  their  homeland  contained  three  chief  classes  of  peo- 
ple, Thralls,  Karls,  and  Jarls.  The  first  or  typical  Thrall  is  thus 
described  in  the  Elder  Edda  known  as  Rigsmal: 

"Edda  a  child  brought  forth,  whose  swarthy  skin 
With  water  then  was  sprinkled,  and  its  name  was  ThraU. 
And  as  it  grew,  it  throve,  but  on  its  hands 
Were  fingers  thick,  a  shriveled  skin,  and  knotted  knuckles. 
A  hideous  face  it  had,  a  curving  back. 
And  sharp,  protruding  heels.  As  it  gained  strength. 
It  proved  its  might  by  binding  bast  in  heavy  loads; 
And  carrying  faggots  home  unwearied  all  day  long." 

The  Thralls,  we  are  told,  "erected  fences,  manured  the  fields, 
tended  swine,  kept  goats,  and  dug  turf."  Perhaps  they  represent 
the  bleached  Proto-Negroid  element  which  Dixon  beHeves  that 
he  finds  among  the  Nordics. 

The  Karl  stood  higher  than  the  ThraU.  The  Rigsmal  does 
not  tell  much  of  his  personal  appearance  except  that  when  the 
first  Karl  was  born  his  eyes  twinkled  and  his  mother  swathed 
his  ruddy  head  in  linen.   When  he  grew  up, 

"He  learned  to  tend  the  oxen,  make  a  plow. 
Build  barns  and  houses,  fashion  carts,  and  turn  the  furrows." 

His  occupation  was  not  very  different  from  that  of  the  Thrall, 
but  he  owned  land,  and  in  those  days  that  was  everything.  The 


THE  DISPERSAL  OF  THE  NORTHMEN 


257 


Karls  perhaps  were  the  Mediterranean  and  Alpine  elements  of 
the  population. 

Highest  in  the  social  scale  were  the  Jarls  or  Earls,  whose  de- 
scription suggests  that  they  were  pure  Nordics,  or  possibly  of 
Dixon's  Caspian  race.  Of  the  first  JarFs  noble  parents  we  are 
told: 

''The  husband  sat  and  twisted  strings  and  bent  his  bow, 
And  arrow  shafts  prepared;  but  his  good  wife 
Glanced  down  at  her  fair  arms,  smoothed  out  her  flowing  veil, 
Fastened  her  sleeves  and  made  her  headdress  straight. 
A  clasp  was  on  her  breast,  holding  her  ample  robe. 
Her  sark  of  heavenly  blue  seemed  dull,  for  her  bright  brow 
And  neck  and  breast  were  whiter  than  the  driven  snow.'* 

When  this  fair  wife  brought  forth  a  boy, 

"In  silk  they  wrapped  him;  then  with  water  sprinkled, 
And  named  him  Jarl.  Light  was  his  hair,  bright  were  his  cheeks, 
And  his  young  eyes  gleamed  keen  as  any  serpent's. 
In  his  own  home  he  grew,  learning  to  hold  the  shield. 
To  draw  the  twanging  bow  string,  bend  the  bow, 
And  shape  the  arrow  with  a  smooth  and  deadly  shaft. 
He  likewise  learned  the  javelin  to  hurl, 
The  spear  to  brandish,  the  fleet  horse  to  ride  apace. 
Dogs,  too,  he  managed,  and  he  learned  to  wield 
The  sword,  and  boldly  swim  through  fierce  and  boisterous  waves." 

A  little  later  he  was  taught  the  ancient  runes,  given  a  new  name, 
and  told  that  he  was  now  of  age  to  possess  his  own  lands  and  the 
dwellings  of  his  fathers.  Then  his  nobles  went  forth  to  a  hall 
where  dwelt  a  great  chief. 

"There  they  found  a  slender  maiden, 
Fair  and  most  elegant.  Erna  her  name. 
Her  they  demanded  and  soon  led  her  home. 
So  Jarl  espoused  her." 

It  was  the  Jarls  who  went  a-viking,  taking  with  them  the 
best  Karls  and  only  a  few  chosen  Thralls.  Thus  it  was  the  ablest 
of  the  Norse  who  spread  themselves  abroad  over  the  coasts  of 


258 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


Europe.  After  the  first  preliminary  raids  they  took  their  wives 
with  them,  although  many,  of  course,  married  the  women  of  the 
conquered  countries.  They  were  a  prolific  race,  and  the  most 
successful  leader  had  the  most  children.  Harold  Fairhair,  a  king 
of  Norway  of  whom  we  shall  shortly  hear  more,  divided  his 
kingdom  among  "about  twenty"  sons  at  his  death  in  933  A.  D. 

Almost  everyone  who  has  studied  the  Norse  migrations  with 
any  care  is  puzzled  to  account  for  the  comparatively  sudden  way 
in  which  the  Norse  in  all  three  of  the  Scandinavian  countries 
began  to  move  outward  at  the  same  time.  Two  political  events 
have  been  suggested  as  the  cause,  namely,  Charlemagne's  con- 
quest of  the  Saxons  and  advance  into  Denmark,  and  Harold 
Fairhair's  taxation  in  Norway.  It  appears  to  me,  however,  that 
movements  so  widespread  and  so  prolonged  cannot  have  been 
due  to  these  causes  alone,  although  they  unquestionably  were 
important.  Charlemagne's  war  on  the  Saxons  lasted  from  772 
to  785,  and  immediately  preceded  the  first  great  Norse  raid  on 
England,  787  A.  D.  But  it  is  scarcely  probable  that  the  effect  of 
Charlemagne's  intermittent  and  relatively  unimportant  war  on 
the  extreme  southern  edge  of  the  Norse  territory  could  last  a 
century  and  a  quarter  and  could  lead  to  a  widespread  and  pro- 
longed disturbance  in  all  three  of  the  Scandinavian  countries. 

Harold  Fairhair's  reign  (860-933)  did  not  begin  until  the 
Viking  raids  had  been  in  progress  nearly  a  century,  nor  can  his 
taxation  have  had  much,  if  any,  effect  on  countries  other  than 
Norway.  Nevertheless,  it  is  interesting  as  illustrating  how  a 
poHtical  cause  may  combine  with  other  causes  to  produce  migra- 
tion and  natural  selection.  It  is  likewise  important  because  it 
had  much  to  do  with  determining  the  kind  of  selection  which 
differentiated  the  Icelanders  from  the  Normans. 

The  whole  social  organization  of  the  ancient  Scandinavian 
communities  rested  upon  the  possession  of  land.  If  a  man  had 
no  land  he  was  inevitably  a  Thrall.  If  he  held  land  but  owed 
rent  or  tax  to  any  other,  even  the  community,  he  was  a  Karl.  If 
he  held  his  land  in  his  own  right,  free  and  untaxed,  he  was  a  Jarl 
or  Earl.  Now  it  happened  that  in  the  ninth  century  there  was  a 


THE  DISPERSAL  OF  THE  NORTHMEN 


259 


great  movement  in  Europe  toward  kingship.  Charlemagne  is  the 
outstanding  example,  for  it  was  he  who  made  the  kingship  real 
in  central  Europe.  In  England  in  the  ninth  century  the  West 
Saxon  Ethelbert  likewise  secured  the  supremacy  of  the  whole 
island.  In  Denmark  Gorm  established  a  monarchy.  In  Sweden 
Eirik  Eymundsson,  king  of  Upsala,  was  strengthening  the  tot- 
tering ^^overkingship"  which  then  existed  into  a  regular  sov- 
ereignty. In  Norway  this  consolidation  of  small  independent 
states  into  a  strong  monarchy  was  carried  out  by  Harald  Harfagr 
(Harold  Fairhair).  He  subdued  the  petty  kings  of  Norway  and 
after  a  hard  struggle  made  himseK  sole  ruler  over  the  whole 
country.  The  new  king  needed  revenue.  One  of  his  early  acts 
was  to  appropriate  to  himself  the  lands  which  had  formerly  been 
the  common  property  of  the  whole  community.  Thus  the  Karl 
who  had  formerly  paid  rent  to  the  community  became  a  tenant 
of  the  king.  Harold  also  levied  a  poll  tax,  but  this  was  no  inno- 
vation and  raised  no  complaint.  But  when  the  king  levied  a 
tax  on  the  land  of  Jarls,  the  free  proprietors  who  from  time  im- 
memorial had  lived  on  their  own  estates  free  from  all  impost, 
then  indeed,  as  Coneybeare  says,  "there  arose  a  universal  cry 
of  indignation  which  it  is  not  difficult  to  sympathize  with.  Not 
only  was  an  invasion  thus  attempted  of  the  most  cherished,  nay, 
sacred  rights  of  those  who  were  free  born  throughout  the  land, 
but  it  swept  away  the  only  distinction  which  raised  the  allodial 
lords  above  those  who  were  tenants  either  to  the  state  or  to 
private  freeholders.  For  in  those  early  times  it  was  the  free 
possession  of  land  that  conferred  social  and  poHtical  distinction; 
and  the  loss  of  such  property  necessarily  entailed  loss  of  condi- 
tion. Long  after  our  present  social  system  had  grown  up,  did 
the  same  idea  linger  in  the  minds  of  the  old  landed  gentry  of 
England.'' 

One  result  of  Harold's  taxation  was  to  increase  the  migration 
from  Norway  which  had  already  been  in  progress  for  a  century. 
Many  of  the  proud  Jarls  who  might  not  have  left  Norway  as 
raiders  now  went  as  settlers;  some  to  England,  but  most  to  Ice- 
land.  So  great  was  this  migration  that  Harold  Fairhair,  fearing 


260 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


that  his  reahn  would  be  left  barren,  imposed  a  tax  on  all  who 
wished  to  leave  the  country. 

In  addition  to  political  causes,  such  as  Charlemagne's  wars 
and  Harold's  taxation,  three  others  may  be  suggested  as  reasons 
for  the  outburst  of  the  Norse  at  the  end  of  the  eighth  century. 
One  is  the  inherent  character  of  the  Norse,  their  curiosity,  bold- 
ness, initiative,  physical  vigor,  and  ability  to  fend  for  themselves. 
But  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  this  was  any  more  marked 
in  900  A.  D.  when  viking  raids  were  at  their  height  than  in  600 
or  700,  when  the  raids  were  of  a  mild  character  and  involved 
merely  a  little  plundering  instead  of  wholesale  destruction  of 
towns  and  permanent  occupation  of  distant  territories.  Another 
possibility  is  over-population.  Although  no  exact  data  are  avail- 
able, it  may  well  be  that  the  population  of  the  Norse  territories 
had  been  increasing,  and  had  reached  such  a  point  that  some 
relief  was  necessary.  It  hardly  seems  probable,  however,  that  a 
mere  gradual  increase  would  cause  so  sudden  an  outburst  unless 
supplemented  by  some  other  event  which  would  serve  to  bring 
matters  to  a  crisis. 

It  appears  to  me  that  such  an  event  is  probably  found  in 
vagaries  of  climate,  and  hence  in  changes  in  the  capacity  of  the 
land  to  support  population.  Unfortunately,  no  direct  evidence 
is  available  as  yet  from  Scandinavia,  but  there  is  considerable  of 
an  indirect  kind.  The  rings  of  growth  of  the  great  Sequoia  trees 
of  California,  as  I  have  explained  in  The  Climatic  Factor ^  give  an 
approximate  record  of  climatic  changes  which  is  fairly  reliable 
for  two  thousand  years.  Archaeological  and  historical  evidence 
shows  that  the  California  curve  of  tree  growth  can  be  used  as  a 
key  to  the  climatic  changes  in  other  parts  of  the  world.  Only  in 
certain  places,  to  be  sure,  do  the  changes  appear  to  have  been  of 
the  same  type  as  those  of  California,  while  in  others  they  seem 
to  have  been  of  a  directly  opposite  type,  and  in  still  others  inter- 
mediate. Now  in  Iceland,  Ireland,  England,  and  Scandinavia 
there  is  considerable  evidence  that  since  about  the  twelfth  cen- 
tury the  main  fluctuations  of  climate  have  been  essentially  the 
same  as  in  California,  although  they  may  have  varied  consider- 


THE  DISPERSAL  OF  THE  NORTHMEN  261 


ably  in  details.  The  evidence  is  particularly  strong  in  respect  to 
a  period  of  diminished  storminess  and  rainfall  in  the  twelfth  and 
thirteenth  centuries,  and  another  of  increased  rainfall  in  the 
fourteenth,  as  I  have  explained  in  Climatic  Changes.  As  to  earlier 
times  the  data  are  very  scanty,  but  there  seems  to  be  reason  to 
think  that  the  same  degree  of  agreement  has  prevailed. 

If  the  California  curve  of  climatic  changes  really  applies  in  a 
general  way  to  Scandinavia,  it  may  help  to  explain  the  raids  of 
the  Vikings.  From  the  time  of  Christ  until  the  middle  of  the 
seventh  century,  in  spite  of  certain  distinct  exceptions,  there  was 
presumably  a  general  tendency  for  the  climate  to  become  less 
stormy,  drier,  and  more  mild,  as  may  be  seen  in  Figure  1 5.  Scan- 
dinavia lies  so  far  north  and  has  so  many  storms  that  such  a 
tendency  is  highly  advantageous,  for  it  increases  the  produc- 
tivity of  the  soil,  and  makes  it  easier  to  get  a  living.  Thus  from 
before  the  middle  of  the  seventh  century  until  after  the  middle 
of  the  eighth,  Scandinavia  probably  enjoyed  one  of  the  most 
favorable  climatic  periods  in  its  whole  history.  Presumably 
there  was  a  general  condition  of  prosperity,  and  the  population 
increased  until  there  was  Httle  or  no  room  for  more,  according 
to  the  standards  of  production  which  then  prevailed. 

In  the  latter  part  of  the  eighth  century  a  change  apparently 
set  in  and  the  climate  became  more  stormy,  so  that  there  was 
more  danger  that  the  crops  would  fail.  Whether  the  change  was 
of  the  same  general  magnitude  as  is  indicated  in  Figure  15,  we 
do  not  yet  know.  Even  if  it  were  no  larger  than  appears  in  the 
diagram,  it  might  cause  grave  difficulties  if  the  country  were  near 
the  limit  of  population,  and  especially  if  there  were  a  few  espe- 
cially wet  years  when  the  crops  did  not  ripen  well.  The  hypoth- 
esis, then,  which  I  would  advance  is  that  the  combination  of 
Charlemagne's  wars  upon  the  Saxons  and  of  a  series  of  poor  crops 
together  with  the  normal  increase  in  population  led  to  a  strained 
situation.  In  accordance  with  the  innate  character  of  the  Norse, 
this  suddenly  reheved  itself  in  a  series  of  unusually  severe  raids. 
The  first  of  any  magnitude  reached  England  in  787,  France  in 
789,  and  Ireland  in  795.  When  once  the  Norse  had  undertaken 


262 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


such  distant  raids  and  had  discovered  how  exciting  and  profitable 
they  were,  and  how  easily  they  could  be  carried  out  because  of 
the  fear  which  the  Vikings  inspired,  they  continued  them.  Thus 
they  ravaged  the  Frisian  coast  of  Holland  in  808,  harried  Ireland 
unmercifully  in  succeeding  years,  raided  the  French  coast  in  841, 
and  appeared  in  Russia  in  859. 

All  the  Norse  movements  thus  far  described  were  mainly 
plundering  expeditions.  Not  till  after  866  did  real  settlement  of 
the  Danes  begin  in  England.  Then  followed  a  period  of  about 
sixty  years,  870  to  930,  when  the  Norse  from  Denmark  settled 
in  considerable  numbers  in  England;  those  from  Norway,  to- 
gether with  a  considerable  number  from  Ireland,  went  to  Ice- 
land; while  many  from  Sweden  went  to  Russia.  The  maximum 
migration  especially  to  Iceland,  took  place  in  the  forty  years 
from  880  to  920.  Now  this,  it  will  be  noticed,  was  the  time  of 
Harold  Fairhair^s  taxation,  but  that  applied  only  to  Norway. 
It  was  also  a  time  of  unfavorable  cHmate,  if  we  may  judge  by 
Figure  15.  Therefore  it  seems  reasonable  to  suppose  that  at  this 
time,  just  as  had  happened  about  a  century  earlier,  economic 
distress  due  to  unfavorable  seasons  combined  with  political 
exigencies  to  cause  migration  in  addition  to  the  raids  that  had 
previously  taken  place.  By  940  A.  D.  the  last  movements  of  this 
particular  period  seem  to  have  died  away  in  some  minor  Danish 
raids  in  England.  Then  for  a  generation  or  two  the  Norsemen 
left  the  rest  of  the  world  in  peace.  But  in  the  last  decades  of  the 
tenth  century  the  poHtical  and  economic  causes  again  combined. 
Judging  by  the  conditions  in  California,  it  would  seem  that  the 
period  from  990  to  loio  must  have  been  very  unfavorable  in 
Scandinavia.  If  that  is  so,  it  may  help  to  explain  why  the  Norse 
again  began  making  raids  in  England  in  991.  At  the  same  time 
political  events  were  moving  in  such  a  way  as  to  culminate  in  the 
conquest  of  England  by  Canute  and  his  picked  army  in  1015. 

In  this  dispersal  of  the  Norsemen,  as  in  their  earlier  migra- 
tion into  Scandinavia,  we  seem  to  find  that  many  causes,  physi- 
cal, social,  and  political,  have  probably  combined.  All  appear 
to  have  exerted  a  more  or  less  selective  effect,  so  that  the  Norse 


THE  DISPERSAL  OF  THE  NORTHMEN  263 


who  went  out  from  their  homes  during  the  period  from  797  to 
1015  A.  D.  were  not  only  a  picked  group,  but  were  divided  into 
two  distinct  types  whose  fortunes  we  shall  follow  in  the  next 
chapter. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 
WARLIKE  NORMANS  AND  PEACEFUL  ICELANDERS 

The  Norse  who  migrated  to  other  lands  fall  into  two  general 
classes.  One  class  migrated  primarily  because  they  were  warriors 
in  search  of  plunder.  Only  incidentally  did  they  become  colo- 
nists. Such,  in  the  main,  were  the  earlier  raiders  upon  the  coasts 
of  England,  Scotland,  Ireland,  the  Low  Countries,  France,  and 
countries  even  more  remote.  Their  most  typical  settlement  was 
Normandy,  which  came  into  their  possession  because  the  French 
feared  their  further  depredations.  The  other  class  of  Norse  mi- 
grants went  out  primarily  as  colonists.  Some  of  this  type  doubt- 
less went  to  Normandy,  more  to  Ireland,  and  many  to  England, 
but  the  greatest  number,  or  at  least  the  most  compact  and 
homogeneous  group,  went  to  Iceland.  Of  course  there  is  no 
sharp  line  of  cleavage  between  the  two  groups,  but  the  difference 
is  real  and  important.  One  group,  intent  on  plunder,  selects  a 
goal  that  is  rich,  prosperous,  and  not  too  well  defended.  The 
other,  determined  to  escape  from  political  and  economic  trouble 
at  home,  selects  a  remote  goal  with  scanty  resources,  but  where 
there  will  be  no  need  of  fighting.  Distinctly  different  types  are 
attracted  in  each  case.  How  far  this  difference  explains  the 
obvious  differences  in  the  history  of  the  two  groups  we  cannot 
tell,  for  many  other  factors  enter  into  the  matter.  Nevertheless, 
it  will  be  instructive  to  compare  the  history  of  the  Normans  with 
that  of  the  Icelanders. 

One  of  the  most  conspicuous  facts  about  the  Normans  is 
their  conquests.  Almost  everyone  knows  that  in  1066  William 
the  Conqueror,  a  Norman  at  the  head  of  an  army  whose  leaders 
were  largely  Normans,  and  whose  rank  and  file  were  probably  one 
third  Norman,  came  to  England  and  made  himself  king.  He 
and  his  army  settled  in  England,  and  other  Normans  followed. 
They  at  first  exterminated  great  numbers  of  the  Saxons,  but  later 
amalgamated  with  them  and  were  soon  almost  indistinguishable 

m 


I      WARLIKE  NORMANS  AND  PEACEFUL  ICELANDERS  265 

from  their  Danish  and  Norwegian  kinsmen  who  had  come  to 
England  in  the  earher  Norse  migrations  and  who  had  already  be- 
come more  or  less  mixed  with  the  older  Saxon  aristocracy.  Less 
I  familiar,  but  no  less  important  from  our  point  of  view,  is  the 
Norman  conquest  of  the  two  Sicilies,  that  is,  South  Italy  and 
Sicily.  This  began  in  1017  and  in  a  generation  or  two  gave  rise 
to  a  kingdom  "second  to  none  in  Europe  for  wealth  and  mag- 
nificence. .  .  .  This  Norman  conquest  of  Sicily  forms  the  most 
romantic  episode  in  mediaeval  Italian  history. "    (Enc.  Brit.) 

In  the  articles  on  Normandy  and  Sicily  in  the  Encyclopaedia 
Britannica  the  historian  Freeman  gives  a  vivid  picture  of  the 
achievements  and  character  of  the  Normans.  When  they  went 
to  England  they  had  already  abandoned  their  Norse  religion, 
language,  and  national  traditions,  and  had  adopted  those  of  their 
Gallic  neighbors.  They  apparently  had  no  sense  of  kinship  with 
the  Nordic  Saxons,  and  it  is  even  doubtful  whether  they  knew 
that  their  name  meant  Northmen.  The  war-song  which  Taillefer  * 
chanted  as  they  marched  to  battle  was  not  a  Viking  saga,  but 
the  song  of  Roland  and  the  peers  of  Charlemagne.  They  had 
adopted  the  art  of  their  French  home  so  completely  that  though 
they  developed  the  Romanesque  style  more  fully,  there  is  no 
evidence  that  their  coming  caused  any  recognizable  break  in 
English  architecture.  Yet  they  brought  much  to  England  in  the 
way  of  language  and  of  the  spirit  of  feudalism.  Even  in  these 
respects,  however,  the  steady  progress  of  England  along  lines 
already  established  was  scarcely  interrupted.  This  is  not  strange, 
for  the  Angles,  Saxons,  Danes,  Norse,  and  Normans  all  appear 
to  have  been  closely  related  branches  of  a  single  great  stock. 
Hence  both  the  Viking  and  the  Norman  invasions  of  England 
merely  represent  an  accretion  of  new  and  able  people  to  strengthen 
the  old  stock.  Since  the  newcomers  experienced  no  great  change 
of  environment  either  physically  or  socially  they  simply  mingled 
with  their  more  or  less  warlike  kindred  and  helped  to  give  the 
England  of  to-day  its  strength.  Much  of  the  old  Nordic  inheri- 
tance still  survives  and  is  perhaps  one  great  reason  why  England 
has  been  the  greatest  of  colonizing  nations  and  likewise  has  never 


266 


THE  CHARACTER  OP  RACES 


lost  a  war  except  when  it  fought  with  a  chosen  band  of  its  own 
children  in  America.  Even  now  it  is  especially  the  Norman  type 
both  in  body  and  spirit  which  surges  forth  to  the  ends  of  the 
earth.  It  was  perhaps  the  latest  Norse  warriors  whom  Gibbs 
describes  in  Now  It  Can  Be  Told.  During  the  Great  War,  as  he 
watched  the  soldiers  in  the  old  cathedral  at  Amiens,  the  Aus- 
tralian soldier  boys  with  "their  clean-cut  hatchet  faces,  sun- 
baked, tanned  by  rain  and  wind,  their  simple  blue-gray  eyes,  the 
fine  strong  grace  of  their  bodies,  as  they  stood  at  ease  in  this 
place  of  history,  struck  me  as  being  wonderfully  like  all  that  one 
imagines  of  those  English  knights  and  squires — ^Norman-EngHsh 
— ^who  rode  through  France  with  the  Black  Prince.  It  is  as  though 
Australia  had  bred  back  to  the  old  strain." 

The  spirit  which  in  modern  times  makes  the  AustraHan  and 
New  Zealand  soldiers  rank  so  high  caused  the  Normans  to  con- 
quer southern  Italy  and  Sicily  nine  hundred  years  earher,  and 
made  them  extremely  vigorous  and  enterprising  as  Crusaders. 
The  career  of  the  Normans  in  Sicily  throws  an  interesting  light 
on  their  character.  They  did  not  adopt  either  of  the  two  lan- 
guages of  the  island,  Greek  or  Arabic,  but  in  other  respects  they 
adopted  Sicilian  habits  instead  of  imposing  their  own.  Since  most 
of  the  Sicilians  were  Christians,  there  was  no  need  of  change  in 
this  respect,  but  one  would  at  least  expect  that  the  newcomers 
would  impose  some  traces  of  themselves  upon  literature,  art,  and 
architecture.  But  when  the  Normans  came  to  Sicily  the  Saracens 
had  already  been  in  possession  for  two  hundred  and  thirty  years. 
Their  advance  in  civilization  was  so  great  and  their  style  of  ar- 
chitecture so  good  that  the  Norman  kings  simply  studied  and  pro- 
moted Saracen  literature,  and  always  called  in  Saracens  for  any 
special  work  of  engineering  or  architecture.  The  Normans,  as 
Freeman  puts  it,  came  into  the  inheritance  of  the  two  most 
civilized  nations  of  the  time,  the  Greeks  and  Arabs,  and  allowed 
the  two  to  flourish  side  by  side.  Sicily's  most  brilliant  period  be- 
gan with  the  coming  of  the  Normans.  Yet  the  Normans  did  noth- 
ing new;  they  simply  maintained  order,  and  let  the  Saracens 
build  their  palaces  and  churches.    So  completely  was  this  the 


WARLIKE  NORMANS  AND  PEACEFUL  ICELANDERS  267 


case  that  if  we  judged  solely  by  the  architecture,  we  should  never 
know  that  the  Normans  had  set  foot  in  Sicily. 

As  to  the  character  of  the  Norse  we  are  told  by  Keary  that 
they  were  filled  with  an  immense  joy  in  battle,  a  kind  of  mad  fury 
which  made  them  proof  against  everything,  including  even  super- 
stition. They  had  need  for  such  courage,  for  more  than  most 
men  they  attempted  every  kind  of  adventure.  They  went  to  sea 
in  little  ships  that  would  now  be  considered  quite  unseaworthy; 
they  also  made  long  expeditions  inland,  using  horses  and  the  other 
paraphernalia  of  warfare  on  land.  Cruelty  and  faithlessness  were 
almost  as  characteristic  of  them  as  was  boldness,  at  least  among 
that  portion  of  the  Vikings  who  became  famous  as  raiders. 
Nevertheless,  these  same  men  had  an  uncommon  capacity  for 
government  and  for  peaceful  organization.  That  is  why  Sicily 
was  so  prosperous,  while  Keary  calls  Normandy  the  best-governed 
part  of  France  in  the  eleventh  century.  In  this  connection  Free- 
man points  out  that  even  in  their  most  unbridled  acts  the  Norse 
and  the  Normans  had  a  peculiarly  high  respect  for  the  forms  of 
law.  In  Iceland  we  shall  see  this  fully  exemplified.  In  England 
it  led  William  the  Conqueror  and  his  followers  to  make  the  most 
elaborate  attempts  to  find  legal  justification  for  dispossessing 
the  former  owners  of  the  soil.  Among  all  the  qualities  of  the  Norse 
none  is  more  noticeable  than  their  adaptability.  It  was  this  which 
made  them  adopt  Saracenic  art  in  Sicily,  the  French  language  and 
the  Christian  religion  in  Normandy,  and  British  customs  and 
modes  of  thought  and  speech  after  they  reached  England.  This 
same  quality  is  emphasized  by  MacDougall  in  his  discussion  of 
the  Nordic  race,  as  we  have  already  seen;  it  is  one  of  the  chief 
reasons  why  Japan  rivals  many  European  nations  in  no  small 
number  of  ways. 

The  quality  of  adaptability  upon  which  Freeman  lays  so 
much  stress  has  also  come  to  our  attention  as  pre-eminently  char- 
acteristic of  the  Greeks.  The  reason  is  probably  the  same; 
namely,  that  only  the  most  adaptable  people  can  or  will  persist 
to  the  end  of  a  long  and  arduous  migration.  Leaf  seems  to  be 
right  when  he  points  out  in  Homer  and  History  that  "the  Nor- 


268 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


man  invasion  of  Italy  is  in  fact  a  type  of  a  whole  class  of  inva- 
sions—the conquest  of  a  decaying  civilization  by  a  comparatively 
small  number  of  warlike  adventurers."  He  might  have  added 
that  the  Normans  did  not  necessarily  lack  originality  as  Freeman 
seems  to  imply.  It  is  more  likely  that  they  were  so  busy  adopting 
and  adapting  to  their  own  use  the  new  things  that  they  found,  and 
were  so  engrossed  in  the  business  of  governing,  that  they  had  no 
time  for  new  inventions.  It  took  the  Greeks  and  the  Khmers  at 
least  a  century  or  two  before  they  began  to  display  the  great 
originality  for  which  they  are  renowned.  But  in  Sicily  the  Nor- 
mans were  swamped  before  they  reached  that  stage.  It  was  their 
misfortune  to  be  a  relatively  small  band,  and  to  migrate  to  a 
country  farther  south  than  Greece.  They  went  to  an  unfavor- 
able climate  at  a  time  when  it  appears  to  have  been  deteriorating 
to  perhaps  its  worst  level,  and  when  malaria  is  known  to  have 
been  a  most  terrible  scourge.  They  appear  to  have  intermarried 
freely  with  the  Christian  part  of  the  population.  All  these  con- 
ditions presumably  tended  to  cause  the  richly  endowed  inheri- 
tance of  the  Normans  to  be  extinguished  within  a  few  genera- 
tions. Their  fate  was  like  that  of  the  Greeks,  the  Khmers,  and 
many  other  similar  invaders.  It  was  remarkable  chiefly  because 
it  came  upon  them  so  soon.  A  small  minority  of  uncommon 
abihty  was  quickly  swamped  in  a  large  majority,  presumably 
because  the  selective  processes  which  had  sorted  out  the  ability 
ceased  to  be  effective.  Constructive  evolution  through  migration 
was  superseded  by  racial  mixture  and  destructive  selection 
through  climate  and  disease. 

Now  turn  to  Iceland.  There  we  are  confronted  by  a  slightly 
different  initial  selection  and  by  an  almost  diametrically  differ- 
ent later  evolution.  Here  is  what  Coneybeare  says  about  the 
original  movement  to  Iceland: 

It  was  indeed  a  migration  en  masse,  and  that,  too,  not  of  the  meanest  of 
the  population;  ...  on  the  contrary,  the  noblest  and  worthiest  of  the 
land,  the  most  peaceably  disposed,  and  the  most  cultivated,  formed  the 
bulk  of  the  migrant  host.  While  the  most  warHke  of  the  nation  sailed 
southward  and  founded  a  new  Norman  kingdom  in  Gaul,  the  richest  land 


WARLIKE  NORMANS  AND  PEACEFUL  ICELANDERS  269 


owners  eventually  settled  in  Iceland;  which  fact,  coupled  with  the  neces- 
sity imposed  upon  them  of  trading  with  the  British  Isles  for  the  supply  of 
many  of  their  wants,  accounts  for  the  peaceable  and  even  mercantile 
spirit  which  characterized  the  Icelanders. 

It  must  not  be  supposed,  however,  that  the  Norse  who  mi- 
grated to  Iceland  were  peaceable  according  to  our  standards. 
They  are  called  by  Bryce  a  people  whose  chief  occupation  was 
to  kill  one  another."  But  in  those  days  all  men  who  amounted 
to  much  had  to  fight.  The  Jarl,  by  his  very  position,  was  a  fighter, 
and  the  Karls  who  followed  them  were  doubtless  in  many  cases 
chosen  for  their  abihty  to  fight.  Nevertheless,  Coneybeare  is 
almost  certainly  right  in  saying  that  the  Norse  who  went  to  Ice- 
land were  more  peaceful  and  more  inclined  to  mercantile  pur- 
suits than  were  those  who  harried  the  countries  farther  south. 
Thus  the  original  Icelanders  were  a  highly  selected  group  of 
people.  In  the  first  place,  the  Norse  as  a  whole  appear  to  be  one 
of  the  world's  competent  races.  Second,  the  Jarls  were  Jarls  be- 
cause their  ancestors  had  shown  unusual  ability  to  fight,  to 
organize,  and  to  hold  their  conquests,  and  they  themselves  main- 
tained their  position  largely  by  virtue  of  an  inheritance  of  abihty. 
Third,  from  among  this  most  gifted  group  in  an  uncommonly 
able  race  there  were  selected  first  those  who  loved  freedom  more 
than  the  favor  of  kings,  and  second  those  who  were  inclined  to 
try  their  chances  in  a  new  and  difficult  land  rather  than  gain  a 
living  by  fighting  and  plundering.  Thus  it  was  the  best  of  the 
best  who  founded  Iceland,  and  they  created  there  what  Bryce 
calls  "an  almost  unique  community  whose  culture  and  creative 
power  flourished  independently  of  any  favoring  material  conditions 
and  indeed  under  conditions  in  the  highest  degree  unfavorable." 

The  migrants  to  Iceland  included  a  fair  sprinkling  of  Swedes 
and  Goths,  and  some  from  the  Norse  settlements  in  Scotland  and 
Ireland,  but  apparently  not  a  single  Dane.  Among  the  others,  as 
among  those  from  Norway,  there  was  an  unusually  large  per- 
centage of  high-born  Jarls.  For  example,  Queen  Aud,  the  widow 
of  Olaf  the  White,  the  Norse  king  of  Dublin,  was  preceded  and 
followed  by  a  large  number  of  her  kinsmen  and  relations,  many 


270 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


of  whom  like  herself  were  Christians.  Some  of  the  other  migrants 
were  also  Christians,  but  the  great  majority  were  heathen.  Many 
of  the  Norse  chiefs  had  Hved  for  a  long  time  in  foreign  lands. 
Thus  while  there  was  remarkable  uniformity  of  race,  abihty,  and 
social  condition,  there  was  some  diversity  of  ideas.  This  uni- 
formity deserves  notice,  for  it  is  unique.  Other  migrations,  such 
as  that  of  the  Puritans,  have  perhaps  comprised  an  equally  uni- 
form body  of  people,  but  in  most  such  cases  there  has  soon  been 
much  diversity  through  further  immigration  or  through  mixture 
with  previous  inhabitants  of  the  new  country.  In  Iceland  noth- 
ing of  the  kind  took  place.  By  930  A.  D.  the  population  of  that 
island  appears  to  have  amounted  to  30,000  to  50,000,  a  number 
which  probably  was  not  much  exceeded  down  to  the  census 
of  1823.  Practically  no  immigrants  have  gone  to  the  island  since 
the  first  migration.  Thus  for  a  thousand  years  Iceland  has  been 
the  home  of  a  peculiarly  homogeneous  people. 

In  almost  every  respect  the  new  Icelandic  home  of  the  Norse 
was  less  favorable  than  their  old  home.  Both  Norway  and  Ice- 
land are  highly  mountainous,  with  only  a  few  plains  here  and 
there,  chiefly  in  the  south.  Both  regions  likewise  have  depressed 
coasts  where  the  ocean  penetrates  far  into  innumerable  pic- 
turesque fiords.  Deep  sheltered  harbors,  steep  cliffs,  sparkling 
waterfalls,  grim  canyons,  and  cold  glaciers  are  also  numerous, 
but  give  to  neither  country  any  special  advantage.  But  the 
Icelandic  mountains  are  a  much  greater  handicap  than  those  of 
Norway  in  one  respect,  for  they  are  volcanic.  Time  and  again 
Iceland  has  suffered  terribly  from  eruptions  and  earthquakes, 
especially  in  the  last  part  of  the  thirteenth  century.  In  1362 
Oeraefa  JokuU,  the  loftiest  mountain  in  Iceland,  6,424  feet  high, 
swept  forty  farms,  together  with  their  inhabitants  and  livestock, 
bodily  into  the  ocean.  In  1783  an  eruption  of  Laki  spread  so 
much  dust  over  the  island  that  it  occasioned  the  loss  of  53  per 
cent  of  all  the  cattle,  77  per  cent  of  the  horses,  and  82  per  cent 
of  the  sheep  which  form  the  main  source  of  livelihood.  After 
that  the  island  was  visited  by  a  famine,  which  destroyed  9,500 
people,  or  one-fifth  of  the  total  population. 


WARLIKE  NORMANS  AND  PEACEFUL  ICELANDERS  271 


Sometimes  the  volcanoes  cause  destruction  in  more  indirect 
ways.  For  example,  many  of  the  Icelandic  volcanoes  during 
their  periods  of  quiescence  are  covered  with  ice  and  snow.  When 
an  outbreak  occurs  these  melt  and  give  rise  to  sudden  floods. 
Katla  has  caused  serious  damage  in  this  way  by  converting  sev- 
eral cultivated  districts  into  barren  wastes.  Earthquakes,  like- 
wise, are  a  frequent  menace.  In  the  southern  lowland  in  1784 
some  92  farmsteads  were  totally  destroyed  by  an  earthquake, 
and  372  farmsteads  and  11  churches  were  seriously  damaged. 
Again  in  1896  a  series  of  earthquakes  destroyed  161  farmsteads 
and  damaged  155  others. 

Although  earthquakes  and  volcanoes  figure  largely  among  the 
disasters  chronicled  by  the  historian,  they  seem  to  exert  no  seri- 
ous check  upon  progress.  They  are  temporary  accidents,  and  if 
people  are  energetic,  the  material  damage  that  they  do  is  usually 
soon  repaired,  as  in  Japan,  southern  Italy,  and  California.  In 
the  famine  and  distress  which  follow  such  disasters,  the  more 
provident,  industrious,  and  intelligent  inhabitants,  to  be  sure, 
are  least  likely  to  die,  but  such  conditions  last  so  short  a  time 
and  recur  so  infrequently  that  they  probably  have  little  effect 
upon  racial  character.  Yet  in  one  important  respect  they  have 
probably  had  an  important  effect  on  Iceland.  They  have  joined 
with  other  factors  in  rendering  the  island  relatively  unattractive, 
thus  helping  to  prevent  immigration  and  thereby  preserving  the 
purity  of  the  original  Icelandic  blood.  At  the  same  time  they 
have  presumably  encouraged  some  Icelanders  to  migrate  back 
to  the  old  country.  During  the  Middle  Ages  many  able  Iceland- 
ers went  to  Norway,  and  some  of  them  became  bards  and  ad- 
visers at  the  courts  of  Scandinavian  kings.  We  are  told  that 
among  230  bards  practically  all  were  Icelanders.  Most  of  these, 
however,  returned  to  Iceland.  Nevertheless,  some  remained  in 
Norway  and  Denmark.  The  memory  of  the  volcanoes  can 
scarcely  have  been  an  incentive  to  go  back  to  Iceland.  At  any 
rate,  we  know  that  in  modern  days  volcanic  eruptions  have  played 
a  not  inconsiderable  part  in  stimulating  migration  to  Canada. 

Another  marked  feature  of  the  geographical  environment  of 


272 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


Iceland  is  isolation.  Distances  of  six  hundred  miles  from  the 
Norwegian  coast  and  five  hundred  from  the  nearest  part  of  Scot- 
land may  not  be  great  for  ocean  liners,  but  they  were  very  great 
for  the  small  vessels  of  more  primitive  times.  Only  a  bold,  ad- 
venturous spirit  would  brave  a  journey  between  Europe  and 
Iceland  in  one  of  the  low,  half -open  boats  of  the  early  Norse;  for 
the  voyage  lies  across  one  of  the  stormiest  seas.  Iceland's  isola- 
tion presumably  kept  the  timid  and  weak  at  home  when  the 
island  was  settled.  In  later  days  it  has  probably  been  much 
more  effective  than  the  volcanoes  and  earthquakes  in  preventing 
either  immigration  or  emigration,  and  thus  has  been  a  factor  in 
preserving  the  original  inheritance  and  making  the  Icelanders 
one  of  the  most  homogeneous  peoples  on  the  face  of  the  earth. 
How  homogeneous  they  are  is  illustrated  by  the  fact  that  even 
as  late  as  1920  there  were  only  710  foreigners  in  Iceland  out  of 
95,000  people,  and  of  the  foreigners  507  were  Danes  and  Norse. 
The  Icelanders  are  equally  homogeneous  in  religion,  for  in  1920 
only  463  were  dissenters  from  the  Lutheran  Church,  which  has 
long  been  the  established  form  of  religion. 

Mineral  resources  are  another  of  the  respects  in  which  Ice- 
land, according  to  conamon  standards,  is  even  worse  off  than 
Norway.  There  are,  to  be  sure,  some  deposits  of  the  peculiar  pure 
form  of  calcite,  called  Iceland  spar;  and  sulphur  from  the  vol- 
canic deposits  was  exported  to  England  as  early  as  the  thirteenth 
century;  but  there  is  no  coal,  no  petroleum,  no  iron,  no  copper, 
no  gold  or  silver;  none,  in  fact,  of  the  mineral  resources  whose 
importance  in  our  day  is  so  much  emphasized.  This  may  have 
been  a  disadvantage  in  early  times,  and  it  has  probably  retarded 
modern  Iceland  somewhat  in  the  domain  of  manufacturing. 
Even  now  the  island  sends  most  of  its  abundant  wool  to  Europe 
instead  of  making  it  into  cloth  at  home.  But  the  countries  that 
have  developed  manufacturing  in  the  last  century  are  likely  to 
pay  dearly  for  the  privilege*,  rThey  have  herded  their  people  into 
great  and  unhealthful  cities;  they  have  in  some  cases  introduced 
vast  numbers  of  immigrants  whose  racial  inheritance  is  none  too 
high  and  who  as  individuals  appear  to  be  much  below  the  aver- 


WARLIKE  NORMANS  AND  PEACEFUL  ICELANDERS  273 


age  of  their  respective  races.  To-day  in  far  northern  Spitzbergen 
the  presence  of  coal  is  drawing  a  group  of  laborers  who  are  igno- 
rant, rough,  and  unprincipled.  They  appear  to  be  mostly  men 
who  do  not  succeed  well  at  home  but  who  have  some  love  of  ad- 
venture and  so  take  a  chance  in  the  far  north.  If  Iceland  had  to 
receive  ten  or  twenty  thousand  such  men  to  work  coal  mines,  her 
racial  inheritance  would  at  once  be  greatly  altered  for  the  worse. 
But  she  can  easily  get  coal  from  England.  Moreover,  she  has  nu- 
merous waterfalls  which  are  already  beginning  to  be  developed  and 
which  in  time  will  probably  supply  her  cheaply  with  power,  light, 
and  heat,  without  introducing  a  great  number  of  low-grade  miners. 

The  greatest  disadvantage  of  Iceland  compared  with  south- 
ern Norway,  whence  came  most  of  the  Norse  settlers,  is  the  cli- 
mate. In  no  other  country  has  a  genuine  center  of  civihzation 
grown  up  in  such  high  latitudes.  This  does  not  mean  that  Ice- 
land is  really  cold,  for  its  shores  are  washed  by  the  relatively 
warm  Atlantic  Drift,  so  that  the  average  January  temperature  at 
Reykjavik,  the  capital,  is  about  30°  F.,  or  essentially  the  same  as 
that  of  New  York  City  and  central  Denmark.  In  summer,  how- 
ever, Iceland  is  cool.  Even  in  the  warmest  places  the  average 
temperature  of  July  is  only  about  50°  F.,  or  the  same  as  that  of 
the  northern  coast  of  Alaska,  the  mouth  of  the  Lena  River,  and 
the  southern  tip  of  Tierra  del  Fuego.  Elsewhere  such  summer 
temperatures  are  associated  with  people  like  the  Eskimos,  the 
Lapps  of  northern  Europe,  and  the  degraded  Indians  of  Tierra 
del  Fuego.  Only  among  the  Incas  of  Peru  does  any  people  ever 
seem  to  have  risen  to  a  high  degree  of  civilization  or  maintained 
such  a  civilization  for  any  length  of  time  where  the  summer  tem- 
perature was  so  low.  Cuzco,  the  Inca  capital,  11,400  feet  above 
the  sea,  has  an  average  temperature  of  only  about  52°  F.  in 
November,  the  warmest  month.  Its  coldest  month,  July,  how- 
ever, averages  46°  F.,  so  that  the  growing  season  is  far  longer  than 
in  Iceland.  The  Icelanders,  like  the  Incas,  present  the  remark- 
able spectacle  of  a  race  where  a  unique  inheritance  seems,  for  a 
while  at  least,  to  have  overcome  the  almost  incalculable  disad- 
vantages of  a  cold  summer. 


274 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


The  real  importance  of  temperature  to  Iceland  is  seen  in  its 
effect  on  agriculture  and  forests.  Agriculture  in  the  sense  of 
raising  crops  is  almost  impossible.  Potatoes,  turnips,  and  cab- 
bages can  indeed  be  raised  in  fair  quantities  in  the  southern  part 
of  the  island,  but  there  are  only  a  few  hundred  gardens  all  told. 
The  raising  of  grain  is  practically  impossible,  although  occasion- 
ally an  attempt  is  made  to  raise  rye  or  barley.  Forests  are  like- 
wise lacking.  There  are,  to  be  sure,  many  trees  on  the  island, 
but  most  of  them  are  little  birches  three  to  ten  feet  high. 
Only  in  a  few  areas  do  the  birches  reach  a  height  of  twenty 
feet.  Willows,  too,  are  fairly  abundant,  but  are  generally  only 
seven  to  ten  feet  high.  The  largest  trees  are  a  few  moimtain  ash, 
some  of  which  attain  a  height  of  thirty  feet.  None  of  the  trees 
are  large  enough  to  be  of  any  appreciable  value  for  lumber,  and 
even  as  fuel  they  are  of  small  use. 

One  reason  why  vegetation  and  agriculture  are  so  hampered 
in  Iceland  is  the  extreme  variations  in  the  temperature  of  the 
same  month  from  year  to  year.  If  the  winds  blow  from  any 
direction  between  southwest  and  east  they  come  from  relatively 
warm  parts  of  the  Atlantic  where  the  Gulf  Stream,  after  ceasing 
to  move  as  a  distinct  current,  spreads  out  and  forms  the  Atlantic 
Drift.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  winds  blow  from  the  west  and 
north  they  cross  an  arctic  current  and  may  bring  great  fields  of 
polar  ice  against  the  Icelandic  coasts.  Thus  from  year  to  year 
there  may  be  enormous  differences  in  the  temperature  of  the 
same  month.  In  1856  at  Stykkishohn  the  average  temperature 
of  the  month  of  March  was  40.1°  F.,  for  the  winds  blew  from  the 
southwest;  but  in  1866  when  the  winds  blew  from  the  north  or 
northwest  the  same  month  averaged  12.4°  F.,  while  in  1881  the 
month  of  March  averaged  only  7.6"^  F.  In  few  parts  of  the  world 
are  there  such  great  differences  in  the  same  month  from  year  to 
year.  If  the  ice  closes  in  and  cold  winds  blow  in  summer,  the 
season  may  be  so  wet  and  cool  that  the  hay  cannot  be  dried. 
The  grass  may  grow  abundantly  under  such  circumstances  and 
generally  does,  and  the  cattle  and  sheep  grow  fat,  but  when  win- 
ter comes  there  is  little  for  them  to  eat.  An  unusually  waraa 


WARLIKE  NORMANS  AND  PEACEFUL  ICELANDERS  275 


and  rainy  summer  may  produce  the  same  result,  as  in  1870. 
Even  though  the  grass  is  cut  and  tended  most  carefully  it  rots. 
In  1759  conditions  such  as  these  caused  a  famine  in  which  10,000 
people  died.  This  was  followed  in  1762  by  a  disease  which  caused 
280,000  sheep  to  die  or  be  slaughtered. 

Because  of  the  climate  the  only  important  resources  of  Ice- 
land are  grass  and  fish,  and  these  determine  how  perhaps  nine- 
tenths  of  the  people  live.  A  fine,  dense  growth  of  grass  covers 
all  the  lower  parts  of  the  island,  especially  in  the  south.  It  is 
rich  and  nutritious  and  admirably  adapted  to  animals.  Horses 
and  cattle  thrive  fairly  well  and  sheep  admirably.  In  192 1  Ice- 
land had  49,300  horses,  or  as  many  as  Iowa  in  proportion  to  the 
population;  its  23,700  cattle  were  proportionally  rather  less 
numerous  than  in  most  parts  of  the  United  States,  but  its  554,000 
sheep,  or  six  for  every  inhabitant,  gave  it  relatively  more  than  in 
any  State  except  Nevada  and  Wyoming.  In  proportion  to  the 
population  Iceland  has  more  horses  than  any  other  country  ex- 
cept Argentina  and  Canada.  It  has  relatively  about  as  many 
cattle  as  Austria,  Germany,  and  Great  Britain,  while  its  sheep 
are  proportionally  more  numerous  than  those  of  any  countries 
except  New  Zealand,  Uruguay,  Australia,  and  Argentina.  Few 
countries  are  forced  to  depend  upon  animals  more  completely 
than  Iceland. 

The  truth  of  this  last  statement  becomes  more  apparent  when 
it  is  realized  that  aside  from  domestic  animals  the  other  great 
resource  of  Iceland  is  fish.  According  to  the  Census  of  19 10  the 
population  of  Iceland  depends  upon  the  following  sources  for  a 
living : 


Agriculture  43,400 

Fishing   15,900 

Day  laborers  and  domestic  ser- 
vants  10,103 

Industry   6,031 


Commerce  and  transport   3, 940 

Immaterial  production   2,602 

Relieved  by  public  assistance...  1,660 

Pensioners  and  capitalists   902 

Profession  not  stated   644 


Among  the  agriculturists,  however,  a  great  many  follow  the 
sea  part  of  the  time,  so  that  fishing  is  much  more  important  than 


276 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


would  appear  from  this  table.  In  191 5  the  exports  of  fish  prod- 
ucts amounted  to  about  70,000  tons  or  three  tons  for  every  man 
over  twenty  years  of  age. 

Such,  then,  was  the  unfavorable  environment  in  which  the 
relatively  peaceable,  thoughtful,  and  mercantile  group  of  Norse 
settlers  found  themselves  after  their  migration  to  Iceland.  Ac- 
cording to  all  the  ordinary  standards,  the  volcanoes  and  earth- 
quakes of  Iceland,  its  isolation,  its  lack  of  minerals,  its  cold  simi- 
mers  and  consequent  lack  of  practically  all  resources  except  ani- 
mals and  fish,  and  worst  of  all  its  severe  and  recurrent  famines, 
make  that  island  a  far  less  favorable  place  than  the  old  Norwe- 
gian home  from  which  it  was  settled.  Compared  with  Normandy 
and  England  it  is  hard  to  find  any  respects  in  which  the  Icelandic 
environment  is  superior.  Even  Sicily,  in  spite  of  its  malaria, 
would  be  counted  much  better  than  Iceland  by  the  vast  majority 
of  mankind.  Yet  the  Norse  migrants  to  Iceland,  although  greatly 
handicapped,  have  rivaled  England  in  their  achievements,  and 
have  far  surpassed  Sicily.  What  ground  there  is  for  this  asser- 
tion we  shall  see  in  the  next  chapter. 


CHAPTER  XIX 


THE  PERSISTENCE  OF  A  SELECTED  INHERITANCE 

Iceland  is  an  astonishing  country.  In  spite  of  its  physical 
disadvantages  it  has  stood  in  the  forefront  of  civihzation  for  a 
thousand  years.  It  may  almost  claim  that  in  proportion  to  its 
population  its  contribution  to  human  progress  has  been  greater 
than  that  of  any  other  region  except  ancient  Greece  and  Palestine. 

If  this  seems  extravagant,  consider  the  facts.  A  real  though 
crude  measure  of  the  influence  of  a  country  is  the  extent  to  which 
the  country  and  its  doings  are  discussed.  The  Library  of  Yale 
University  has  no  special  interest  in  Iceland,  but  its  catalogue 
contains  approximately  326  cards  imder  that  heading.  About  haK 
deal  with  the  geography,  history,  and  general  description  of  the 
island,  120  are  devoted  to  the  Icelandic  language,  and  50  to  Ice- 
landic literature.  Ireland,  with  a  population  approximately  forty- 
five  times  that  of  Iceland,  has  only  about  1,440  cards,  and  no 
section  devoted  to  literature.  Again,  Mexico  is  almost  twenty 
times  as  large  as  Iceland  and  has  about  one  hundred  and  sixty 
times  as  many  people.  It  speaks  a  language  which  is  more  easily 
understood  by  Americans  than  Icelandic,  and  which  is  known  to 
literally  hundreds  of  thousands,  while  Icelandic  is  known  only 
to  scores.  Yet  that  country,  so  large,  so  populous,  so  near,  so 
rich,  and  so  intimately  connected  with  the  commercial  progress 
of  the  United  States,  has  only  about  1,200  cards  in  a  great  rep- 
resentative library— one-fortieth  as  many  as  Iceland  in  propor- 
tion to  the  population. 

Another  rough  measure  of  the  importance  of  a  country  is  its 
men  of  eminence.  The  Encyclopaedia  Britannica,  as  we  have 
seen,  furnishes  perhaps  as  good  a  summary  of  the  world's  opinion 
as  can  be  found  in  any  single  source.  It  gives  accounts  of  nine 
Icelanders,  bom  since  1600,  while  many  others  are  discussed  in 

277 


278 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


connection  with  the  golden  Icelandic  age  when  the  Sagas  were 
written.  In  proportion  to  the  population  in  1800  this  gives  Ice- 
land three  times  as  many  eminent  authors  as  Ireland,  France,  or 
Switzerland,  three  and  one-half  times  as  many  as  Germany,  six 
and  one-half  times  as  many  as  Belgium,  and  twenty- three  times 
as  many  as  Austria.  Iceland's  representation  in  the  Encyclopaedia 
Britannica  during  the  last  three  centuries  is  proportionally  greater 
than  that  of  any  other  country  outside  England  and  Scotland. 

A  third  measure  of  the  importance  of  a  country  is  the  opinion 
of  men  of  sound  judgment.  Lord  Bryce  perhaps  sums  up  such 
opinions  as  well  as  any  one.  Here  is  what  he  says: 

Iceland  is  a  country  of  quite  exceptional  and  peculiar  interest,  not  only 
in  its  physical  but  also  in  its  historical  aspects.  The  Icelanders  are  the 
smallest  in  number  of  the  civilized  nations  of  the  world.  Down  till  our  own 
days  the  island  has  never  had  a  population  exceeding  seventy  thousand, 
yet  it  is  a  Nation,  with  a  language,  a  national  character,  a  body  of  tradi- 
tions that  are  all  its  own.  Of  all  the  civilized  countries  it  is  the  most  wild 
and  barren,  nine-tenths  of  it  a  desert  of  snow  mountains,  glaciers,  and  vast 
fields  of  rugged  lava,  poured  forth  from  its  volcanoes.  Yet  the  people  of 
this  remote  isle,  placed  in  an  inhospitable  Arctic  wilderness,  cut  off  from 
the  nearest  parts  of  Europe  by  a  stormy  sea,  is,  and  has  been  from  the  be- 
ginning of  its  national  life  more  than  a  thousand  years  ago,  an  intellectually 
cultivated  people  which  has  produced  a  literature  both  in  prose  and  in 
poetry  that  stands  among  the  primitive  literatures  next  after  that  of 
ancient  Greece  if  one  regards  both  its  quantity  and  its  quality.  Nowhere 
else,  except  in  Greece,  was  so  much  produced  that  attained,  in  times  of 
primitive  simplicity,  so  high  a  level  of  excellence  both  in  imaginative  power 
and  in  brilliance  of  expression. 

Not  less  remarkable  is  the  early  political  history  of  the  island.  During 
nearly  four  centuries  it  was  the  only  independent  repubhc  in  the  world,  and 
a  republic  absolutely  unique  in  what  one  may  call  its  constitution,  for  the 
government  was  nothing  but  a  system  of  law  courts,  administering  a  most 
elaborate  system  of  laws,  the  enforcement  of  which  was  for  the  most  part 
left  to  those  who  were  parties  to  the  lawsuits. 

In  our  own  time  Iceland  has  for  the  student  of  poHtical  institutions  a 
new  interest.  After  many  years  of  a  bloodless  constitutional  struggle  be- 
tween its  people  and  the  Danish  Crown,  Denmark  conceded  to  Iceland  a 
local  legislature,  and  an  autonomy  under  that  legislature  which  has  greatly 
improved  the  relations  between  the  two  countries  and  furnished  another 
argument  to  those  who  hold  that  peace  and  progress  are  best  secured  by 
the  application  of  the  principles  of  Uberty  and  self-government. 


PERSISTENCE  OF  A  SELECTED  INHERITANCE  279 


One  more  important  fact  needs  to  be  emphasized  in  order  to 
appreciate  Iceland.  Not  only  did  that  country  stand  remarkably 
high  nearly  a  thousand  years  ago,  but  it  has  sturdily  maintained 
an  enviable  place  among  the  nations  in  spite  of  periods  of  de- 
pression. In  the  sixteenth  century,  for  example,  printing  was 
introduced  into  Iceland  and  soon  became  common.  In  Europe 
the  first  book  was  printed  in  Mainz  in  1455.  During  the  next 
half  century  the  art  of  printing  spread  slowly  to  Italy  in  1465, 
France  1469,  England  1476,  and  Denmark  and  Sweden  1482- 
1483.  In  1490  a  book  was  printed  in  Constantinople,  but  even 
in  Scotland  1507  was  the  date  of  the  earliest  book.  All  these  are 
European  countries,  easy  of  access,  and  with  populations  num- 
bering millions  or  at  least  many  hundred  thousands.  Iceland 
was  far  away  across  a  stormy  sea,  and  had  a  population  of  only 
perhaps  50,000.  It  had  been  through  a  period  of  terrible  depres- 
sion and  was  only  weakly  in  touch  with  the  rest  of  the  world. 
Yet  in  1530  a  printing-press  was  introduced,  and  between  1540 
and  1600  at  least  forty-six  books  were  published.  In  Norway  it 
was  not  till  1651  that  the  first  book  was  printed. 

That  the  old  ability  has  not  been  lost  is  evident  from  the 
fact  that  even  during  the  last  century  Iceland  had  four  native 
sons  sufficiently  eminent  in  literature  to  find  a  place  in  the  En- 
cyclopaedia Britannica  and  others  of  the  same  sort,  such  as  the 
sculptor  Thorwaldsen  and  the  explorer  Stefansson,  who  were 
born  of  Icelandic  parents  in  other  countries.  Nor  are  its  great 
men  Iceland's  only  claim  to  fame.  Iceland  to-day  is  highly  pro- 
gressive politically  and  socially.  For  example,  it  is  one  of  the  few 
countries  which  have  a  well-managed  system  of  old-age  pensions. 
Judging  by  the  figures  for  1 908-1 91 3,  which  are  the  last  for  a 
normal  period,  the  death-rate  in  Iceland,  14.8  per  thousand  in- 
habitants, averages  lower  than  in  any  country  in  Europe  except 
England,  the  Netherlands,  and  the  three  Scandinavian  countries. 
Such  advanced  countries  as  France,  Germany,  and  Switzerland 
have  distinctly  higher  death-rates  than  Iceland.  Still  more  sig- 
nificant is  the  fact  that  in  Iceland  the  reduction  in  the  death-rate 
between  the  decades  187 6-1 885  and  1906-19 15  was  greater  than 


280 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


during  the  corresponding  period  in  all  but  one  of  the  seventeen 
regions  of  Europe  for  which  data  are  available.  In  Iceland  the 
death-rate  in  the  later  period,  when  reduced  to  what  is  called  a 
standard  population,  was  only  58  per  cent  of  the  rate  in  the 
earher  period;  in  Saxony  the  corresponding  figure  was  56,  but  in 
Prussia  it  was  69,  in  France  and  England  75,  and  in  Ireland  84. 

Another  evidence  of  the  progressiveness  of  modern  Iceland  is 
its  large  number  of  learned  institutions.  Remember  that  we  are 
talking  about  an  island  whose  poor  and  widely  scattered  inhabi- 
tants are  about  as  numerous  as  those  of  the  three  northern  coun- 
ties of  New  Hampshire,  and  are  scattered  over  an  area  one-fourth 
larger  than  the  combined  area  of  Vermont,  New  Hampshire, 
Massachusetts,  Rhode  Island,  and  Connecticut.  Remember  that 
the  island  is  as  hilly  as  those  three  New  Hampshire  counties, 
which  contain  the  White  Mountains,  and  that  its  largest  city  is 
about  the  size  of  their  largest  city,  Berlin.  Remember,  too,  that 
in  July  the  temperature  even  in  the  warmest  places  is  only  about 
2°  F.  above  that  of  the  top  of  Mt.  Washington.  Yet  Iceland 
has  a  university  with  schools  of  theology,  medicine,  law,  and 
philosophy.  At  the  university  Denmark,  France,  and  Germany, 
at  least  until  the  World  War,  maintained  lecturers  to  give  instruc- 
tion in  their  respective  languages  and  literatures.  Iceland  has 
also  a  normal  school,  a  school  of  navigation,  and  two  agricultural 
schools,  as  well  as  all  sorts  of  scientific  societies,  a  Bible  Society, 
a  national  picture-gallery,  and  an  archaeological  society  which 
has  published  dozens  of  volumes. 

Still  another  evidence  of  Iceland's  present  position  is  the 
literacy  of  its  people.  Only  a  few  countries  like  New  Zealand 
and  Finland  have  so  small  a  percentage  of  illiteracy.  For  a  long 
time  legal  marriage  was  forbidden  to  a  girl  until  she  could  read 
and  write.  Schools  are  scarce  because  the  population  is  extremely 
scattered;  often  a  community  consists  of  only  a  few  widely 
separated  families.  Yet  so  highly  do  the  Icelanders  appreciate 
literacy  that  almost  every  mother  is  a  schoolmistress  and  well-nigh 
every  child  is  taught  at  home.  It  is  significant  that  the  age  when 
attendance  at  school  is  required  is  from  ten  to  fourteen  years. 


PERSISTENCE  OF  A  SELECTED  INHERITANCE  281 


In  many  places  the  younger  children  cannot  go  to  school  because 
of  their  isolation.  Nevertheless  education  is  compulsory.  So 
interested  are  the  Icelanders  in  their  books  that  the  favorite  rec- 
reation is  reading  aloud  during  the  long  winter  evenings.  A 
'traveler  reports  a  boy  of  twelve  who  was  studying  botany  from 
a  Latin  text-book  while  he  was  tending  his  flock  of  a  thousand 
sheep.  In  another  place  a  girl  of  fourteen  had  the  duty  of  carry- 
ing the  milk  to  the  creamery  every  day.  She  carried  it  on  horse- 
back, two  cans  tied  together  and  slung  over  the  back  of  each 
horse.  She  tied  her  horses  together  in  a  string,  nose  to  tail,  as  is 
the  custom,  and  rode  ahead  on  her  own  horse,  reading  as  she  went. 

Books  are  a  necessity  in  every  family,  even  in  the  isolated 
northern  island  of  Grimsey, 

whose  sorely  isolated  people  look  out  upon  the  boundless  boreal  seas  be- 
yond the  Arctic  circle.  They  form  the  northernmost  indigenous  little  com- 
munity of  our  Germanic  race — living  by  fishing  in  the  most  frigid  of  waters, 
and  by  capturing,  at  the  peril  of  their  lives,  the  stormbirds  which  build 
their  nests  on  the  almost  inaccessible  cliffs  bounding  the  eastern  shores  of 
their  tiny  home.  Dwelling  on  a  dozen  sterile  farms,  they  maintain,  with 
difficulty,  three  or  four  score  of  sheep,  and  half  a  dozen  cattle  and  ponies, 
whose  existence,  like  that  of  their  owners,  is  one  of  perennial  hunger.  Yet 
they  have  a  little  church  and  an  intelligent  pastor,  and  a  much-read  island- 
library  of  a  few  hundred  volumes  (many  of  them  on  birds  and  fishes). 
(Mimir.) 

Another  extraordinary  fact  about  Iceland  is  the  high  moral 
standards  which  seem  to  prevail.  According  to  Hygeia  (Decem- 
ber, 1923),  a  journal  pubHshed  by  the  American  Medical  Asso- 
ciation, syphilis  has  never  been  common  in  Iceland. 

Block  states  that  syphilis  was  not  observed  in  Iceland  until  1753,  when 
it  was  recognized  among  certain  employees  in  a  manufacturing  establish- 
ment at  Reykjavik.  It  appears  that  even  then  this  disease  did  not  gain  a 
foothold  on  the  island,  and  soon  it  disappeared  altogether.  Finsen,  who 
practised  medicine  in  Iceland  for  nine  years  in  the  twenties  of  the  last  cen- 
tury, stated  that  the  disease  was  introduced  for  a  second  time  in  1824,  but 
that  he  saw  only  five  cases  and  these  were  confined  to  foreigners.  Finsen 
remarks  that  it  is  strange  that  notwithstanding  the  fact  that  Iceland  is 
visited  annually  by  the  men  from  hundreds  of  trading  and  fishing  boats, 


282 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


the  disease  has  not  spread  among  the  natives.  If  this  is  true,  there  can  be 
but  one  explanation,  and  that  is  that  sexual  promiscuity  does  not  prevail 
among  the  natives  of  Iceland  as  it  does  in  Europe  and  America. 

In  reply  to  this  it  may  be  said  that  about  thirteen  per  cent 
of  the  Icelandic  births  are  illegitimate.  In  all  probability,  how- 
ever, this  merely  means  that  in  about  one  case  out  of  fifteen 
or  so,  young  couples  consummate  marriage  without  waiting  for 
the  wedding  ceremony.  This  is  a  common  practice  where  clergy- 
men are  scarce  and  the  people  are  isolated.  It  does  not  mean 
immorality. 

Perhaps  the  most  surprising  fact  about  Iceland  is  that  this 
high  development  of  culture  and  ability  exists  among  a  people 
whose  mode  of  life  is  not  merely  humble,  but  arduous,  monoto- 
nous, and  in  certain  respects  almost  repulsive.  Most  of  the  Ice- 
landers, as  we  have  seen,  are  of  necessity  either  farmers  or  fish- 
ermen. The  majority  dwell  in  one-story  houses  with  enormously 
thick  walls  of  stones  stuffed  with  moss  and  turf.  To  get  into  the 
house  one  must  pass  through  a  long,  low,  dark  passage,  where 
the  newcomer  is  almost  sure  to  bump  his  head.  This  leads  into 
the  combined  kitchen  and  living-room,  which  is  often  also  a 
sleeping-room.  Only  in  that  room  is  there  a  fire.  Ventilation  is 
almost  lacking,  for  the  windows  are  very  small  and  are  rarely  or 
never  opened  during  eight  months  of  the  year.  The  stench  is 
intolerable  to  those  who  are  not  used  to  it,  for  not  only  do  the 
Icelanders  rarely  bathe,  as  is  usually  the  custom  in  such  cool  cli- 
mates; but  aside  from  black  bread  made  of  imported  rye  or  bar- 
ley, their  food  is  largely  fish  which  are  often  half-decayed,  milk 
which  is  usually  sour,  and  butter  which  is  purposely  allowed  to 
become  rancid.  Their  woolen  clothes  are  often  wet  with  rain, 
their  boots  are  foul  from  walking  among  the  sheep  and  cattle. 
The  combination  of  smells  is  almost  indescribable,  especially 
when  it  is  mingled  with  smoke  from  the  fire  and  from  poorly 
trimmed  kerosene  lamps. 

The  work  of  the  Icelanders  is  as  humble  as  their  dwellings. 
In  February  the  fishermen  begin  to  go  out  on  the  stormy  sea, 
and  a  large  share  of  the  men  from  the  farms  go  with  them.  In 


PERSISTENCE  OF  A  SELECTED  INHERITANCE  283 


little  boats  manned  by  four  to  ten  men  they  brave  the  storms 
and  fogs,  catching  many  kinds  of  fish,  but  especially  the  cod, 
which  is  one  of  their  main  sources  of  food.  Often  the  weather  is 
so  bad  that  the  fish  rot  even  when  properly  cleaned  and  salted. 
In  May  the  farmers  usually  go  back  to  the  farms.  One  of  their 
first  tasks  is  to  cut  the  peaty  turf,  which  is  almost  the  only  fuel. 
But  by  July  a  much  more  weighty  task  is  before  them,  for  the 
winter's  supply  of  hay  must  be  cut  and  cured.  The  cutting  in 
itself  is  a  heavy  task,  but  the  part  which  occasions  trouble  is  the 
drying,  for  Iceland  is  a  rainy,  foggy  country.  All  too  soon  the 
short  summer  nears  its  close.  While  the  warm  weather  lasts  the 
farmers  must  collect  the  sheep  which  have  been  wandering  wild 
among  the  mountains.  The  wool  must  be  plucked  off,  for  it  has 
become  loose  as  the  new  growth  begins  to  make  the  animals  ready 
for  the  ensuing  winter.  To  shear  the  sheep  would  remove  the 
long,  coarse  hair  which  is  needed  as  a  protection  against  the  rain. 
During  this  same  busy  season  the  houses  must  be  repaired,  the 
cracks  must  be  stuffed  once  more,  the  turf  which  has  been  slowly 
drying  during  the  cool  summer  must  be  brought  home,  and  the 
precious  hay-fields  must  be  manured  as  soon  as  the  hay  is  re- 
moved. Perhaps  the  women  make  a  gay  excursion  into  the 
interior  to  gather  the  lichen  known  as  Iceland  moss,  but  their 
chief  work  is  to  care  for  the  animals,  milk  them,  make  butter, 
and  tend  the  home.  Supplies,  too,  must  be  laid  by  against  the 
winter,  when  snow-storms  may  hold  the  people  at  home  for  weeks 
at  a  time.  That  may  mean  a  long  trip  on  horseback  to  the  near- 
est town,  where  imported  food  and  manufactured  goods  are  for 
sale.  Aside  from  the  weekly  church  services  and  the  occasional 
weddings,  such  trips  are  almost  the  only  break  in  a  life  that  is 
peculiarly  monotonous. 

Then  comes  the  early  winter,  for  Iceland  has  neither  spring 
nor  autumn.  That  is  the  most  demoralizing  part  of  the  year, 
for  there  is  little  to  do,  and  the  tendency  is  to  sit  idle  day  after 
day.  Perhaps  that  is  why  the  Icelanders  have  obtained  among 
some  travelers  the  reputation  of  being  lazy.  This  is  far  from  the 
truth,  for  though  the  Icelander  is  physically  slow  and  is  not 


284 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


quickly  aroused,  he  is  wonderfully  persistent  and  competent 
when  once  he  bestirs  himself.  The  long  winters  when  there  is 
little  or  nothing  to  do  except  feed  the  animals  are  often  called 
the  cause  of  the  great  love  of  books  among  the  Icelanders.  They 
are  a  condition  rather  than  a  cause,  for  the  cause  lies  in  Icelandic 
character.  But  the  long  winter  evenings  certainly  give  an  oppor- 
tunity for  the  expression  of  that  love,  and  the  habit  of  reading 
aloud  is  almost  universal.  Perhaps  the  love  of  books  would  wane 
if  the  Icelanders  could  enjoy  themselves  out  of  doors  at  almost 
all  seasons  as  freely  as  do  the  people  of  Italy.  While  one  of  the 
family  reads,  the  rest  are  usually  busy  making  ropes  and  saddles, 
knitting  stockings  and  mittens,  or  embroidering  bed-covers. 

In  spite  of  the  seemingly  unfavorable  conditions  under  which 
the  Icelanders  live,  they  appear  still  to  retain  much  of  their  old 
ability.  Yet  they  do  not  seem  to  be  quite  the  same  as  their  an- 
cestors. They  are  more  peaceful,  slower,  more  cautious,  less 
vivacious,  and  perhaps  less  ready  to  take  the  initiative,  although 
by  no  means  backward  in  attempting  new  things  when  once  they 
are  persuaded  to  try  them.  And  possibly  they  are  more  honest. 
At  least  the  habits  of  robbery  and  piracy  which  stand  out  among 
their  ancestors  are  no  longer  noticeable,  while  almost  every  trav- 
eler is  impressed  with  the  extraordinary  honesty  of  the  Icelanders 
of  to-day.  They  are  indeed  well  able  to  drive  a  sharp  bargain, 
and  do  not  hesitate  to  charge  a  good  price  to  the  superciKous 
foreigner  who  looks  down  upon  them  and  makes  disagreeable 
comments  upon  their  poor  food  and  ill-smelling  houses.  But  let 
a  foreigner  go  among  them  in  a  spirit  of  appreciation  and  good- 
will, and  they  not  only  give  him  their  best  ungrudgingly,  but 
guard  him  from  discomfort  wherever  possible.  Russell,  for  ex- 
ample, in  his  book  called  Iceland,  reports  that  he  lost  a  riding- 
belt,  but  did  not  think  it  worth  while  to  go  back  and  hunt  for  it. 
Three  weeks  later  it  was  handed  to  him,  having  been  passed  from 
hand  to  hand  and  from  farm  to  farm  along  his  route. 

According  to  the  hypothesis  of  this  book,  the  original  cause 
of  Iceland's  greatness  was  the  repeated  selection  to  which  its 
people  were  subjected.  When  the  last  selection  had  brought  to 


PERSISTENCE  OF  A  SELECTED  INHERITANCE  285 


the  island  a  peculiarly  homogeneous,  sober-minded,  and  com- 
petent group  of  people,  there  ensued  within  a  century  or  two  a 
wonderful  outburst  of  genius  which  produced  the  famous  sagas 
and  sent  Icelandic  bards  and  advisers  on  more  or  less  temporary 
pilgrimages  to  the  courts  of  northern  Europe.  In  our  own  day,  a 
thousand  years  later,  Iceland  still  has  the  right  to  boast  of  her 
people's  character  and  achievements.  A  selected  inheritance, 
when  isolated,  protected,  and  kept  up  to  the  mark  by  further 
selection,  seems  to  be  able  to  persist  indefinitely. 


CHAPTER  XX 


■"TIE  DIRECT  EFFECT  OF  ENVIRONMENT  ON  CHARACTER 

In  trying  to  explain  the  character  of  a  race,  we  must  con- 
stantly remind  ourselves  that  character  as  it  displays  itseK  be- 
fore our  eyes  is  the  complex  result  of  three  great  factors.  One  of 
these,  as  we  have  seen  again  and  again,  is  inheritance;  a  second 
is  physical  environment,  with  its  multitudinous  effects  upon 
nutrition,  health,  occupations,  and  modes  of  life;  and  the  third  is 
social  environment  and  the  vast  mass  of  ideas,  habits,  inven- 
tions, and  discoveries  which  are  handed  down  from  one  genera- 
tion to  another.  Even  in  a  country  like  Iceland,  where  the  im- 
portance of  inheritance  is  especially  clear,  the  other  factors  have 
also  been  highly  important  and  may  even  have  changed  the 
biological  inheritance  to  a  certain  extent. 

An  example  of  the  effect  of  environment  is  the  fact  that  be- 
cause of  the  dangers  of  seafaring,  the  death-rate  among  the  young 
men  of  Iceland  is  very  high.  Although  only  about  a  sixth  of  the 
islanders  are  classified  as  fishermen,  a  large  part  of  the  farmers 
also  engage  in  this  occupation  part  of  the  time.  Figure  i6  shows 
the  effect  of  this  occupation,  together  with  that  of  the  dangers 
due  to  herding  sheep  and  cattle  in  a  rough  and  foggy  land  full  of 
bogs  and  cliffs.  The  solid  curved  line  indicates  the  number  of 
deaths  among  Icelandic  men  and  boys  for  every  hundred  deaths 
among  women  and  girls.  In  infancy  about  125  boys  die  for  every 
100  girls,  partly  because  more  boys  than  girls  are  born  and 
partly  because  boys  are  less  resistant.  By  the  age  of  four  or  five, 
the  deaths  among  the  two  sexes  are  practically  equal,  while  at 
the  age  of  ten  there  are  more  deaths  among  girls  than  boys. 
Then  the  normal  sequence  of  events  is  completely  shattered,  for 
in  spite  of  the  dangers  to  young  women  incident  to  the  bearing 
of  children,  the  deaths  among  young  men  enormously  exceed 
those  among  their  wives  and  sisters.  The  dotted  line  in  Figure 

286 


EFFECT  OF  ENVIRONMENT  ON  CHARACTER  287 


1 6  shows  the  conditions  in  Switzerland,  where  the  men  are  en- 
gaged in  ordinary  farming,  and  in  relatively  healthful  industrial 
occupations.  There  the  number  of  deaths  among  men  is  less 
than  among  women,  up  to  the  age  of  thirty.  This  is  the  normal 
condition  in  most  parts  of  the  world.  If  Iceland  were  a  normal 
country  it  would  presumably  have  about  95  deaths  among  young 
men  between  the  ages  of  fifteen  and  twenty-four  for  every  100 
deaths  among  young  women.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  for  the  forty 
years  from  1876  to  1915  the  ratio  of  deaths  at  those  ages  was  169 
for  young  men,  compared  with  100  for  young  women.  Put  in 
another  way,  this  means  that  as  soon  as  the  boys  become  old 
enough  to  go  out  in  the  fishing-boats  upon  the  stormy  Atlantic 
or  to  tend  the  sheep  upon  the  remoter  mountains  they  begin  to 
be  killed  in  large  numbers.  In  no  other  country  where  accurate 
records  are  available  is  there  any  such  enormous  killing  off  of  the 
young  men  in  early  manhood.  Even  in  Norway,  where  seafaring 
is  more  prevalent  than  in  almost  any  country  except  Iceland,  the 
excess  of  deaths  of  young  men  over  young  women  at  the  ages 
from  fifteen  to  twenty-four  is  only  25  per  cent,  as  appears  in  the 
dash  line  in  Figure  16. 

What  effect  has  aU  this  on  racial  character?  It  must  have 
some  effect,  and  it  may  have  much.  Although  the  excessive 
death-rate  of  men  compared  with  women  continues  to  old  age,  it 
is  greatest  among  the  young  lads  when  they  first  go  to  sea.  Many 
boys  who  in  a  few  years  would  be  married  and  become  the  fathers 
of  the  next  generation  are  killed,  and  many  young  fathers  are  killed 
before  their  families  are  complete.  This  ruthless  slaughter  of  the 
young  men  does  not  happen  occasionally,  like  the  destruction  due 
to  a  volcanic  eruption.  It  happens  every  year,  and  it  has  hap- 
pened every  year  for  ten  centuries.  It  is  a  steady,  inexorable, 
selective  factor  which  affects  every  generation  and  practically 
every  part  of  the  Icelandic  population.  No  demonstration  is 
needed  to  show  that  in  general  the  careless,  the  rash,  the  slow- 
witted,  those  who  do  not  get  on  well  with  their  fellow  boatmen, 
and  those  who  lose  their  heads  in  an  emergency  are  the  ones 
most  likely  to  lose  their  lives. 


288 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


The  total  number  killed  in  any  one  year  is  not  large,  but  think 
what  happens  when  a  process  of  selection  like  this  goes  on  for  a 
thousand  years.  Every  year  takes  from  among  the  people  a  cer- 
tain group  who  have  the  qualities  described  above.  Remember 
that  those  who  are  thus  picked  out  are  chiefly  young  men  who 
in  many  cases  are  not  yet  fathers.  Thus  the  fathers  of  the  next 
generation  tend  constantly  to  be  those  whose  lives  have  been 
spared  because  they  are  cautious,  careful,  level-headed,  and  at 
the  same  time  quick,  alert,  and  strong,  able  to  co-operate  with 
their  fellows,  resourceful,  observant  of  winds  and  waves,  and 
able  quickly  to  draw  correct  conclusions  in  the  face  of  danger 
and  death.  Read  a  book  like  Stefansson's  The  Friendly  Arctic, 
There  one  sees  a  concrete  picture  of  those  quahties  and  their  re- 
sults. In  the  whole  reakn  of  exploration  few  books  exemplify  a 
greater  capacity  for  careful,  accurate  observation,  for  caution 
combined  with  daring,  and  for  correct  inferences  from  natural 
phenomena.  Not  all  the  Icelanders  have  these  quahties  to  such 
a  degree  as  Stefansson,  but  on  the  whole  they  are  the  quahties 
which  stand  out  in  Icelandic  character.  Doubtless  something  of 
this  character  had  already  become  part  of  the  Norse  racial  inheri- 
tance before  the  migration  to  Iceland,  but  it  seems  probable  that 
these  qualities  have  steadily  become  more  and  more  ingramed 
through  the  natural  selection  due  to  a  fisherman's  life  in  those 
far  northern  waters.  The  shepherd's  hfe  too  has  had  a  similar 
effect.  When  a  boy  is  lost  in  the  mist  and  is  in  danger  of  falling 
over  a  precipice  or  stumbling  into  a  bottomless  bog,  he  needs  not 
merely  a  sturdy  body  but  a  clear,  cool  head,  and  the  faculty  of 
observing  carefully  and  then  cahnly  deducing  accurate  conclu- 
sions. If  he  has  those  qualities,  he  may  survive  and  pass  them 
on  to  his  sons  and  daughters.  If  he  has  not,  he  perishes  and  his 
weaknesses  perish  with  him. 

The  climate  of  Iceland  probably  plays  a  direct  part  in  deter- 
mining Icelandic  character,  as  well  as  an  indirect  part  through 
inheritance.  On  the  whole  the  climate  appears  to  be  healthful. 
This  is  presumably  one  of  the  reasons  why  the  death-rate  in  Ice- 
land has  for  many  years  been  nearly  as  low  as  that  of  the  most 


EFFECT  OF  ENVIRONMENT  ON  CHARACTER  289 


advanced  countries  of  western  Europe,  in  spite  of  uncleanness 
and  poor  sanitation.  The  climate  itself  may  also  be  largely  re- 
sponsible for  the  lack  of  cleanliness.  So  far  as  I  am  aware,  this 
lack  prevails  among  every  people  who  live  in  a  cool,  moist  climate 
where  the  water  is  always  cold  and  where  animals  are  the  chief 
means  of  support.  This  is  true  of  the  present  Norse  as  well  as 
the  Lapps,  of  the  mountain  Swiss  as  well  as  the  Tibetans,  and  of 
Eskimos,  Kirghiz,  Tunguses,  and  a  host  of  others.  The  cleanest 
people  in  the  world  are  the  inhabitants  of  warm,  moist  countries, 
where  the  state  of  culture  requires  clothing,  and  where  there  is 
plenty  of  water.  The  Malays  of  Asia  and  the  Mayas  of  Yucatan 
are  extraordinarily  clean  because  in  their  climate  frequent  bath- 
ing is  a  pleasure  and  also  a  necessity  if  the  people  would  be  free 
from  insects  and  other  afElictions.  Their  case  is  not  at  all  like 
that  of  the  Icelanders  at  the  time  when  Christianity  was  intro- 
duced. That  conversion,  it  might  be  noted  incidentally,  was  a 
good  example  of  the  sane  way  in  which  Iceland  has  always  done 
things.  After  a  group  of  missionaries  had  preached  for  some 
time  the  Icelanders  met  in  their  Althing,  or  general  assembly,  to 
consider  whether  the  new  religion  should  be  adopted.  The  mat- 
ter was  finally  left  to  the  Speaker  of  the  Law,  as  the  head  of  the 
Althing  was  called.  He  deliberated  by  himself  for  two  days. 
Then  he  decided  that  Christianity  was  the  religion  of  the  future. 
Therefore  Christianity  was  adopted,  but  there  was  no  compul- 
sion. Those  who  wished  to  worship  the  old  gods  could  still  do  so. 
The  amusing  part  of  the  story  is  that  one  great  objection  to 
the  new  religion  was  that  it  required  baptism.  The  people  of 
northern  Iceland  objected  especially,  because  they  did  not  want 
to  be  plunged  into  cold  water.  They  were  not  used  to  bathing. 
Finally  it  was  agreed  that  they  should  be  baptized  in  the  hot 
springs  at  Reykir,  and  everything  was  harmonious.  To-day  the 
descendants  of  these  early  Christians  rarely  learn  to  swim  be- 
cause the  Icelandic  waters  are  too  cold,  especially  in  the  north. 
This  doubtless  tends  to  increase  the  death-rate  among  the  fisher- 
men. 

The  climate  of  Iceland  is  not  only  healthful  but  stimulating. 


290 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


Among  European  races  physical  activity  appears  to  be  greatest 
when  the  temperature  averages  not  far  from  65°  F.,  whereas 
mental  activity  seems  to  be  greatest  at  a  lower  temperature, 
averaging  perhaps  40°.  The  ideal  is  a  climate  like  that  of  Eng- 
land, which  ranges  from  the  physical  optimum  in  summer  to  the 
mental  optimum  in  winter.  While  Iceland  cannot  rival  such  a 
climate,  its  temperature  fluctuates  about  the  average  which 
seems  to  be  best  for  mental  activity.  Another  highly  important 
element  in  stimulating  mental  activity  seems  to  be  variabiHty. 
Here  again  Iceland  is  much  favored.  It  hes  close  to  the  path 
where  storms  are  most  numerous.  One  of  the  things  which  are 
especially  noticeable  in  Iceland  is  the  clear  skies  following  rain  or 
snow.  Since  most  of  the  people  Hve  near  the  coast,  they  rarely 
experience  extremely  low  temperatures,  such  as  prevail  in  con- 
tinental North  America;  yet  they  pass  through  a  great  number 
of  stimulating  changes.  In  this  respect  Iceland  is  far  better  off 
than  Sicily  or  than  the  cool  home  of  the  Incas  in  Peru,  where  the 
temperature  resembles  that  of  Iceland,  but  the  changes  from  day 
to  day  are  negligible. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  facts  about  Iceland  is  that  the 
climate  seems  to  have  fluctuated  back  and  forth  near  a  certain 
level  above  which  the  conditions  are  quite  favorable,  while  below 
they  are  repressive.  When  the  cHmate  has  become  repressive,  an 
actual  change  in  Icelandic  character  seems  almost  to  have  oc- 
curred. The  racial  inheritance  has  presumably  remained  un- 
changed, but  the  stress  of  the  environment  has  inhibited  it  from 
expressing  itself  in  progress.  Let  us  briefly  review  the  history  of 
Iceland  with  this  in  mind.  When  the  Norse  Jarls  with  their 
attendant  Karls  migrated  from  Norway  the  climate,  as  we  have 
seen,  was  probably  unusually  cool  and  rainy  (Figure  15,  page  232). 
After  930  A.  D.,  however,  the  climate  in  Californ-'a  appears  for  a 
generation  or  two  to  have  returned  part  way  toward  the  condi- 
tions of  the  seventh  century,  which  were  apparently  favorable 
for  Iceland  and  Norway.  In  Iceland  it  is  probable  that  the  miti- 
gation of  climate  was  greater  than  appears  in  Figure  15,  for  grain 
seems  to  have  been  cultivated,  and  that  is  now  almost  im- 


EFFECT  OF  ENVIRONMENT  ON  CHARACTER  291 


possible.  It  was  during  this  favorable  epoch,  although  by  no 
means  because  of  it,  that  the  Icelandic  constitution  took  form. 
After  an  early  period  of  discord  and  broils  the  leading  islanders, 
being  an  unusually  sensible  set  of  men,  agreed  that  some  central 
government  was  necessary.  They  sent  one  of  their  number, 
Ulflgot,  to  Norway  to  report  on  the  system  there  in  vogue.  The 
result  of  his  report  was  the  establishment  of  the  Althing.  This 
national  assembly  is  highly  peculiar.  Its  members  were  chiefly 
the  heads  of  the  various  local  districts.  Its  chief  was  caUed 
Speaker  of  the  Law.  The  Althing  met  once  a  year  in  the  latter 
half  of  June  on  a  green,  grassy  plateau  almost  surrounded  by  the 
rocky  cliffs  bordering  a  small  lake.  There  they  decided  what  the 
existing  law  was,  and  occasionally  framed  new  laws.  One  of  the 
Speaker's  main  duties  was  to  recite  the  whole  body  of  law,  section 
by  section,  completing  it  in  three  years;  if  any  one  asked  the  law 
it  was  also  his  duty  to  give  the  needed  information.  Neither  the 
Althing  nor  the  Speaker  had  any  authority  to  enforce  the  law. 
They  decided  the  cases  that  were  presented,  but  enforcement 
was  left  in  the  hands  of  the  people.  It  is  marvelous  that  the 
law  was  so  well  respected.  Many  times,  indeed,  the  legal  deci- 
sions were  enforced  by  violence,  or  even  ignored.  Usually,  how- 
ever, a  defendant  who  was  declared  to  be  in  the  wrong  yielded 
simply  through  the  force  of  public  opinion.  Until  Iceland  passed 
under  the  rule  of  Norway  in  12  62-1 2  64  this  same  system  con- 
tinued with  only  slight  modifications.  The  island  was  ruled  by 
law,  not  by  a  government.  In  a  weakened  form  the  Althing  con- 
tinued to  sit  until  1800,  and  was  revived  in  a  modified  form  in 
1843.  So  great  was  the  respect  of  the  Icelanders  for  the  law  that 
even  the  ghosts  of  dead  men  were  believed  to  respect  it.  One  of 
the  old  sagas,  as  quoted  by  Bryce,  contains  a  most  instructive 
story. 

A  chief  named  Thorodd,  living  at  Fro  d  in  Breidifjord,  on  the  west  side 
of  Iceland,  had  just  before  Yule-tide  been  wrecked  and  drowned  with  his 
boat-companions  in  the  fjord.  The  boat  was  washed  ashore,  but  the  bodies 
were  not  recovered.  Thereupon  his  wife  Thurio  and  his  eldest  son  Kjartan 
bade  the  neighbors  to  the  funeral  feast;  but  on  the  first  night  of  the  feast, 


292 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


as  soon  as  the  fire  was  lighted  in  the  hall,  Thorodd  and  his  companions 
entered,  dripping  wet,  and  took  their  seats  round  it.  The  guests  welcomed 
them:  it  was  held  that  those  would  fare  well  with  Ran  (the  goddess  of  the 
deep  sea)  who  attended  their  own  funeral  banquet.  The  ghosts,  however, 
refused  to  acknowledge  any  greetings,  and  remained  seated  in  silence  till 
the  fire  had  burnt  out,  when  they  rose  and  left.  Next  night  they  returned 
at  the  same  time  and  behaved  in  the  same  way,  and  did  so,  not  only  every 
night  while  the  feast  lasted,  but  even  afterwards.  The  servants  at  last 
refused  to  enter  the  fire-hall,  and  no  cooking  could  be  done,  for  when  a  fire 
was  lit  in  another  room,  Thorodd  and  his  companions  went  there  instead. 
At  last  Kjartan  had  a  second  fire  lit  in  the  hall,  leaving  the  big  one  to  the 
ghosts,  so  the  cooking  could  now  be  done.  But  men  died  in  the  house,  and 
Thurio  herself  fell  ill,  so  Kjartan  sought  counsel  of  his  uncle  Snorri,  an 
eminent  lawyer  and  the  leading  Godi  of  Western  Iceland.  By  Snorri's 
advice  Kjarten  and  seven  others  with  him  went  to  the  hall  door  and  for- 
mally summoned  Thorodd  and  his  companions  for  trespassing  within  the 
house  and  causing  men's  deaths.  Then  they  named  a  Door-Court  (Dy- 
radomr)  and  set  forth  the  suits,  following  all  the  regular  procedure  as  at  a 
Thing-Court.  Verdicts  were  delivered,  the  cases  summed  up,  and  judg- 
ment given;  and  when  the  judgment  word  was  given  on  each  ghost,  each 
rose  and  quitted  the  hall,  and  was  never  seen  thereafter. 

Ghosts  have  given  much  trouble  in  many  countries,  but  it  is  only  the 
Icelanders  who  have  dealt  with  them  by  an  action  of  ejectment. 

Another  extraordinary  example  of  respect  for  law  occurred  in 
1006  A.  D.  That  year  there  occurred  an  indecisive  duel  between 
the  poet  and  viking  Gunnlaug  Ormstunga  (Snake's  Tongue,  as 
he  was  called  from  his  satirical  powers)  and  another  poet,  Hrafn. 
Gunnlaug  had  been  betrothed  to  Helga  the  Fair,  one  of  the  most 
famous  Icelandic  heroines,  but  had  been  detained  by  King  Ethel- 
red  II  and  had  returned  to  Iceland  to  find  her  married  to  Hrafn. 
So  the  two  men  fought  for  Helga.  As  the  duel  was  indecisive 
Gunnlaug  wished  to  renew  the  fiight  and  Hrafn  was  willing.  But 
next  day  the  Althing  passed  a  law  prohibiting  formal  duels.  The 
duellers  obeyed  the  law,  but  went  to  Norway  to  avoid  it.  There, 
years  later,  they  fought  again,  and  killed  each  other. 

After  the  establishment  of  the  law  Iceland  was  fairly  prosper- 
ous for  a  few  years,  but  by  1000  A.  D.  a  period  of  decay  had  set 
in.  Then,  according  to  Burton: 

A  mighty  change  came  over  the  island  mind  when  Olafr  Tryggvason 
(Olaf  I,  Trustyson)  induced  the  Althing  to  accept  Christianity  as  the 


EFFECT  OF  ENVIRONMENT  ON  CHARACTER  295 


national  religion.  The  old  pagan  creed  had  become  age-decrepit.  .  .  .  The 
great  Sire  of  gods  and  men"  was  dying  or  dead,  a  gloomy  fate  which  equally 
awaits  superhuman  and  human  nature.  The  dechne  and  fall  of  Odinism 
only  repeated  the  religious  histories  of  Palestine,  Egypt,  and  India;  of 
Greece  and  of  Rome,  whose  maximum  of  effeteness  has  ever  been  at  the 
period  of  the  Christian  invasion. 

How  great  a  degeneration  there  really  was  at  this  time  it  is 
difficult  to  determine.  It  is  interesting  to  note  that  what  Burton 
calls  "the  maximum  of  effeteness came  at  a  time  when  Figure  15 
suggests  that  the  climate  may  have  been  quite  unfavorable.  This 
does  not  mean  that  it  was  worse  than  that  of  to-day,  for  as  to 
that  we  are  not  certain.  In  fact  the  tale  of  Burnt  Njal  seems  to 
speak  of  grain-fields  about  1000  A.  D.,  although  now  there  is 
practically  no  such  thing  in  the  whole  island.  But  perhaps  these 
were  merely  hay-fields.  At  any  rate  it  seems  probable  that  about 
1000  A.  D.  the  climate  was  colder  and  stormier  than  in  the  pre- 
ceding and  succeeding  centuries.  Whether  this  caused  degenera- 
tion we  cannot  say,  but  it  may  well  be  that  then,  as  at  a  later 
time,  discontent  and  poverty  were  so  great  that  the  people  were 
ready  for  a  change. 

After  the  introduction  of  Christianity  there  followed  a  won- 
derful period  of  two  or  three  hundred  years  diuring  which  Iceland 
rose  to  its  highest  level.  This  was  the  age  of  the  great  sagas, 
when  Iceland  almost  rivaled  Greece  in  its  literary  ability  and  in 
the  versatility  and  vigor  of  its  writing.  During  this  halcyon 
period  the  first  school  was  established  in  the  middle  of  the  elev- 
enth century;  a  little  later  hospitals  were  endowed  and  about  a 
half  dozen  monasteries  and  nunneries  were  established.  The 
people,  according  to  Burton,  became  "less  crafty  and  cruel."  It 
can  scarcely  be  doubted  that  Christianity  was  an  important  cause 
of  this  great  outburst  of  intellectual  activity,  economic  prosper- 
ity, and  moral  improvement.  There  may  also  be  much  truth  in 
the  idea  that  this  was  the  normal  flowering  of  Iceland's  racial 
genius.  Perchance  also,  as  some  would  say,  we  are  dealing  here 
with  a  mere  historic  accident. 

In  addition  to  all  this  it  may  be  pointed  out  that  the  golden 


294  .  .     THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


age  of  Iceland  not  only  followed  the  introduction  of  Christianity 
but  was  also  a  time  when  the  climate  was  becoming  more  and 
more  favorable,  as  is  suggested  in  Figure  15.  According  to  Pet- 
tersson  and  others  the  temperature  in  the  twelfth  century  was 
such  that  large  trees  grew  in  several  parts  of  the  island  and  were 
used  for  building  houses.  Such  areas  are  specifically  named  in 
the  Landnamabok,  which  gives  a  minute  account  of  Iceland  com- 
parable to  the  account  of  England  in  the  Domesday  Book.  Fruit- 
trees  were  raised,  and  grain  was  cultivated.  Communication  be- 
tween Iceland  and  Europe  was  relatively  easy,  for  there  was  lit- 
tle ice  even  on  the  north  coast.  Presumably  because  of  the  higher 
temperature,  prosperity  was  the  rule.  The  change  in  character 
noted  by  Burton  may  mean  merely  that  being  more  prosperous 
the  Icelanders  were  in  better  temper,  less  prone  to  fight  with  one 
another,  more  ready  to  be  friends  with  the  rest  of  the  world,  and 
hence  ^^less  crafty  and  cruel." 

Toward  the  end  of  this  prosperous  period  Iceland  was  annexed 
to  Norway  in  12  62-1 2  64.  This  was  partly  due  to  the  fact  that 
many  Icelanders  were  at  the  Norwegian  court,  a  condition  which 
may  have  been  accentuated  because  the  favorable  cHmate  not 
only  made  it  easy  to  travel  across  the  ocean,  but  helped  to  pro- 
vide products  for  export.  After  the  annexation  a  flood  of  troubles 
overwhelmed  the  island.  First  there  was  a  series  of  terrible 
eruptions  and  earthquakes.  Then  epidemics  began,  one  of  the 
worst  being  in  1306,  while  the  worst  of  all  was  the  Black  Death 
in  1348  and  again  in  1402.  During  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth 
centuries  the  Icelanders  were  reduced  to  a  "low  dead  level  of 
poor  peasant  proprietors  careless  of  all  save  how  to  Hve  by  as 
little  labour  as  possible,  and  pay  as  few  taxes  as  they  could  to 
their  foreign  rulers."  (Powell.)  This  depression  is  commonly 
ascribed  to  the  union  with  Norway,  but  an  interesting  sidehght 
is  thrown  on  this  conclusion  by  the  fact  that  during  this  same 
period  "all  spirit  seemed  to  have  died  with  the  commonwealth; 
even  shepherding  and  such  agriculture  as  there  had  been  sank 
to  a  lower  stage;  wagons,  ploughs,  and  carts  went  out  of  use  and 
knowledge;  architecture  in  timber  became  a  lost  art,  and  the 


EFFECT  OF  ENVIRONMENT  ON  CHARACTER  295 


fine  carved  and  painted  halls  of  the  heathen  days  were  replaced 
by  turf -walled  barns  half  sunk  in  the  earth;  the  large  decked  lug- 
gers of  the  old  days  gave  way  to  small  undecked  fishing-boats. 
.  .  .  The  early  falling  off  of  the  Norse  trade  threatened  to  de- 
prive the  island  of  the  means  of  existence;  for  the  great  epidemics 
and  eruptions  of  the  fourteenth  century  had  gravely  attacked  its 
pastoral  wealth  and  ruined  much  of  its  pasture  and  fishery." 
(Powell.) 

All  this  is  merely  the  normal  picture  of  what  must  inevitably 
happen  in  Iceland  if  the  climate  becomes  cold  and  stormy.  In 
Figure  15  it  appears  that  in  the  fourteenth  century  such  a  cli- 
matic change  actually  occurred  in  California;  abundant  local 
evidence  indicates  a  similar  occurrence  in  Iceland.  The  ancient 
records  tell  us  that  ice  began  to  crowd  against  the  north  shore  so 
that  communication  was  very  difficult.  After  the  Black  Death 
there  followed  a  winter  so  long  and  cold  that  it  destroyed  nearly 
all  the  cattle  and  nearly  ruined  the  country.  In  Norway  the 
summer  rains  were  so  frequent  and  the  summers  were  so  cold 
that  the  crops  failed  year  after  year.  In  England  similar  condi- 
tions produced  the  greatest  of  all  English  famines  from  1308  to 
1321,  with  others  in  135 1  and  1369.  In  Iceland  the  same  thing 
seems  to  have  happened.  We  have  already  seen  how  a  slight 
change  in  the  direction  of  the  wind  and  in  the  icepack  may 
greatly  alter  the  temperature.  Even  as  late  as  1866  and  1882 
Iceland  suffered  severely  because  cold  summers  and  the  conse- 
quent impossibility  of  curing  hay  led  to  the  destruction  of  vast 
numbers  of  sheep  and  cattle. 

From  1300  onward,  the  trade  of  Iceland  markedly  declined 
and  changed.  The  first  noteworthy  change  was  a  decline  in  com- 
merce with  Norway;  then  there  was  a  transfer  of  trade  from 
Norway  to  England,  and  an  increase  in  the  importance  of  fish 
compared  with  wool  as  an  Icelandic  export.  Finally  by  1440 
there  was  almost  no  commerce  with  Norway,  and  very  little  with 
England.  In  those  days  there  was  no  salt,  no  cloth,  no  bread  in 
Iceland,  nor  any  liquor  except  milk  and  water.  The  change  from 
architecture  in  wood  to  the  building  of  turf  houses,  the  giving  up 


296 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


of  the  use  of  the  plough  and  the  cart,  the  change  from  large- 
decked  luggers  to  small  undecked  fishing-boats,  the  decline  in 
trade  with  impoverished  Norway,  the  substitution  of  fish  for 
wool,  and  the  final  abject  poverty  and  absence  of  foreign  trade 
in  Iceland— all  these  are  what  would  be  expected  during  a  pro- 
longed period  of  cold  summers.  Doubtless  Norse  oppression 
helped  at  first  to  impoverish  Iceland,  but  that  was  scarcely  the 
reason  why  Iceland  fell  to  the  lowest  ebb  in  its  history.  The 
very  isolation  of  the  island,  and  the  ice  and  storms  which  then 
prevailed,  must  have  tended  to  prevent  intercourse  between  Ice- 
land and  Norway.  Moreover,  Norway  herself  in  the  fourteenth 
and  fifteenth  centuries  was  in  dire  straits  from  repeated  failures 
of  the  crops,  and  political  confusion  was  her  lot  partly  on  that 
account.  She  had  to  leave  Iceland  to  its  own  misery.  All  things 
considered,  it  appears  that  the  climatic  stress  of  the  fourteenth 
and  fifteenth  centuries  was  one  of  the  chief  factors  in  the  con- 
trast between  the  twelfth  century  with  its  great  intellectual 
activity  and  the  fourteenth  with  its  collapse  of  civihzation.  The 
inherent  character  of  the  Icelanders  probably  did  not  change, 
but  a  repressive  environment  held  them  down. 

When  this  time  of  climatic  stress  came  to  an  end  there  was  a 
new  awakening  in  Iceland.  By  1475  A.  D.  trade  had  begun  to 
revive;  in  15 18  some  three  hundred  and  sixty  British  merchants 
were  in  Hafna  Fjord  alone;  and  trade  continued  brisk  during 
the  first  half  of  the  sixteenth  century,  although  it  declined  in  the 
second  half.  It  would  be  unwarranted  to  say  that  the  more 
favorable  climatic  conditions  which  are  indicated  in  Figure  15 
at  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  century  were  the  cause  of  the  renewal 
of  relations  with  Europe  and  of  the  coming  of  the  Icelandic 
Reformation.  Nevertheless  it  is  a  fact  that  when  the  cHmate 
appears  once  more  to  have  become  relatively  favorable,  though 
perhaps  not  so  good  as  in  the  earlier  days,  Iceland  once  more 
revived  and  took  up  the  march  of  progress.  Printing  was  intro- 
duced, the  Bible  was  translated,  and  printed  books  began  to  be 
common. 

Then  came  another  change. 


EFFECT  OF  ENVIRONMENT  ON  CHARACTER  297 


The  progress  of  the  seventeenth  century  is  principally  marked  by  ad- 
verse events,  physical  evils,  and  the  rapacious  violence  of  men  who  united 
to  waste  this  miserable  island;  while  the  wretched  inhabitants,  long  un- 
accustomed to  the  use  of  arms,  could  offer  no  resistance  even  to  a  small 
band  of  pirates.  The  oppression  they  suffered  from  these  marauders  was 
extreme,  no  part  of  the  coast  being  for  a  moment  secure  from  their  attacks. 
It  is  a  melancholy  fact,  that  the  majority  of  them  were  French  or  English, 
as  if  the  two  most  powerful  and  civihzed  of  the  European  nations  had  com- 
bined to  oppress  the  poorest  and  most  helpless,  and  to  visit  on  their  de- 
scendants the  evils  which  had  been  endured  from  the  ancient  Northmen. 
In  1627  some  Algerine  corsairs,  too,  who  found  their  way  to  that  remote 
region  of  the  ocean,  spread  universal  dismay  round  the  whole  coast. 

The  last  part  of  the  seventeenth  and  the  whole  of  the  eigh- 
teenth century  are  described  as  a  period  not  only  of  physical 
disasters  but  of  increasing  superstition.  From  1660  to  1690  Ice- 
land like  other  parts  of  the  world  became  excited  over  witches, 
and  sixteen  persons  were  burnt  alive.  In  1707  smallpox  killed 
18,000  people,  a  third  of  the  population.  This  may  almost  be 
called  a  direct  result  of  isolation,  for  when  a  people  is  long  iso- 
lated it  loses  the  power  to  resist  epidemics.  In  the  middle  of  the 
eighteenth  century  the  seasons,  as  we  have  seen,  were  so  inclem- 
ent that  in  1759  a  famine  swept  away  10,000  people,  while  vast 
numbers  of  sheep  perished  in  1762.  A  volcanic  outbreak  in  1765 
and  the  terrible  eruption  of  Skaptaa  in  1783  spread  destruction 
far  and  wide.  After  the  eruption, 

The  noxious  vapors  that  for  many  months  infected  the  air  were  equally 
pernicious  to  man  and  beast,  and  covered  the  whole  island  with  a  dense 
fog  which  obscured  the  sun,  and  was  perceptible  even  in  England  and  Hol- 
land. The  steam  rising  from  the  crater,  or  exhaled  from  the  boiHng  waters, 
was  condensed  in  the  cooler  regions  of  the  atmosphere,  and  descended  in 
floods  that  deluged  the  fields  and  consolidated  the  ashes  into  a  thick  black 
crust.  A  fall  of  snow  in  the  middle  of  June,  and  frequent  showers  of  hail- 
stones of  unusual  magnitude,  accompanied  with  tremendous  thunder- 
storms tearing  up  huge  fragments  of  rock  and  rolling  them  down  into  the 
plains,  completed  the  scene  of  desolation.  The  grass  and  other  plants 
withered,  and  became  so  brittle  that  the  weight  of  a  man's  foot  reduced 
them  to  powder;  and  even  where  the  pastures  seemed  to  have  recovered, 
the  cattle  refused  to  touch  them,  dying  of  actual  starvation  in  the  midst  of 
the  most  luxuriant  herbage.  Small  unknown  insects  covered  many  of  the 
fields,  whilst  other  portions  of  the  soil  formerly  the  most  fertile  were  changed 


298 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


by  the  ashes  into  marshy  wastes  overgrown  with  moss  and  equiseta.  A 
disease  resembling  scurvy  in  its  most  maHgnant  type  attacked  both  men 
and  cattle,  occasioned  in  the  former  no  doubt  by  the  want  of  food,  and  the 
miserable,  often  disgusting,  nature  of  that  which  alone  they  could  obtain. 
Many  lived  on  the  bodies  of  those  animals  which  had  perished  from  hunger 
or  disease,  whilst  others  had  recourse  to  boiled  skins,  or  substances  still 
more  nauseous  and  unwholesome.  The  numerous  earthquakes,  with  the 
ashes  and  other  matter  thrown  into  the  sea,  caused  the  fish  to  desert  many 
parts  of  the  coast,  whilst  the  fishermen  seldom  daring  to  leave  the  land, 
enveloped  in  thick  clouds  during  most  of  the  summer,  were  thus  deprived 
of  their  usual  stock  of  winter  provisions.  We  cannot  better  conclude  this 
frightful  catalogue  of  evils  than  by  the  foUomng  summary  of  the  numbers 
of  men  and  cattle  more  or  less  immediately  destroyed  by  it  in  two  years. 
The  most  moderate  calculation  makes  these  amount  to  1,300  human  beings, 
19,488  horses,  6,801  horned  cattle,  and  129,937  sheep.  .  .  .  The  smallpox 
also  added  once  more  its  fatal  influence,  and  in  a  few  years  11,000  indi- 
viduals fell  victims  to  these  combined  attacks.  The  destruction  of  the 
fisheries  on  the  southern  coasts  was  an  evil  of  a  more  lasting  character,  and 
one  from  which  the  country  was  long  in  recovering."  (Nicoll.) 

The  last  great  recovery  of  Iceland  has  come  since  1850.  This 
apparently  has  been  helped  a  little  by  an  amelioration  of  climate, 
but  it  is  largely  the  result  of  modern  means  of  communication. 
Steam  has  partly  broken  down  the  isolation  of  the  island.  Thus 
contact  with  other  countries  has  given  a  new  impetus  to  Htera- 
ture  as  well  as  commerce. 

The  history  of  Iceland  may  be  summed  up  as  the  resultant  of 
three  main  factors — race,  climate,  and  isolation.  A  thousand 
years  ago  Iceland  began  its  historical  career  with  a  picked  group 
of  immigrants.  Only  in  a  few  places  like  New  England  and  New 
Zealand  has  the  population  of  a  country  been  so  rigidly  selected. 
Nowhere  else,  so  far  as  we  are  aware,  has  such  a  body  of  people 
been  so  nearly  isolated  for  a  thousand  years,  as  in  a  great  experi- 
ment, and  thus  allowed  to  show  what  happens  to  a  picked  racial 
stock  when  left  almost  unmixed  and  undepleted.  Does  tliis  ex- 
periment suggest  that  races  develop  to  a  certain  point  and  then 
inevitably  decay?  Does  it  indicate  that  racial  mixture  is  neces- 
sary in  order  to  maintain  the  vitality  and  power  of  a  race  ?  Does 
it  show  that  a  race  must  in  the  long  run  conform  to  the  type  of 
physical  environment  in  which  its  lot  is  cast?  Does  Icelandic 


EFFECT  OF  ENVIRONMENT  ON  CHARACTER  299 


history  support  the  view  that  the  introduction  of  new  poHtical 
and  social  institutions  is  the  main  basis  of  human  progress  as 
many  historians  seem  to  beheve  ? 

The  answer  to  all  these  questions  seems  to  be  negative.  The 
one  clear  lesson  of  Iceland  appears  to  be  that  no  one  theory 
accounts  for  the  history  and  character  of  a  people.  From  first 
to  last  three  great  facts  stand  out  in  Icelandic  history.  The  first 
is  the  persistence  of  racial  character.  The  earHest  Icelanders 
were  above  the  average  of  their  race  or  almost  any  other  race  in 
intellectual  abiHty:  the  modern  Icelanders  still  stand  above  the 
average  of  their  race.  But  there  has  been  a  change,  for  the 
second  great  fact  is  that  the  Icelander  to-day  is  different  from 
his  ancestors.  The  difference  is  hard  to  define,  but  it  seems  to 
lie  in  greater  caution,  greater  deliberation,  greater  seriousness, 
less  activity,  less  initiative,  perhaps  greater  power  of  self-pres- 
ervation, and  probably  a  stronger  tendency  toward  purely  in- 
tellectual as  opposed  to  physical  activity.  The  change  may  be 
partly  the  result  of  a  complete  minghng  of  Jarls  and  Karls  so 
that  the  Icelanders  are  extraordinarily  uniform  in  inheritance 
and  hence  in  character.  In  larger  measure,  however,  it  is  prob- 
ably the  result  of  natural  selection  whereby  the  more  daring, 
adventurous,  and  rash  young  men  have  been  killed  off  in  every 
generation.  The  more  nervous,  vivacious  types  seem  likewise  to 
have  been  weeded  out,  perhaps  because  they  are  less  able  to 
endure  anxiety  and  uncertainty. 

The  third  great  fact  is  that  in  Icelandic  history  we  seem  to 
see  a  constant  repetition  of  expansion  and  repression  in  response 
to  a  changing  environment.  When  the  Icelandic  climate  has 
been  mild,  life  has  been  comparatively  easy,  and  men's  minds 
have  been  free  from  the  constant  repression  and  discouragement 
which  are  inevitable  among  a  thoughtful  people  who  are  con- 
tinually on  the  verge  of  starvation  and  economic  ruin.  A  people 
with  lower  mentality  can  endure  such  conditions  with  much  less 
mental  strain  than  can  so  alert  a  people  as  the  Icelanders.  Dur- 
ing mild  epochs  the  people  have  also  been  better  nourished  than 
during  the  cold  periods,  for  in  the  worst  periods  they  are  almost 


300 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


restricted  to  fish  and  Iceland  moss,  whereas  in  the  good  periods 
the  islands  themselves  furnish  plenty  of  milk  and  meat  and  even 
a  little  grain  and  fruit,  while  an  abundance  of  flour,  salt,  and 
other  necessities  can  be  and  have  been  imported.  Thus  during 
the  periods  of  good  climate  the  diet  of  the  people  has  presumably 
caused  their  health  and  energy  to  be  better  than  in  the  periods 
of  repressive  climate,  while  at  the  same  time  the  direct  effect  of 
the  climate  in  stimulating  health  and  mental  activity  appears 
to  have  been  not  inconsiderable.  In  addition  to  all  this,  inter- 
course with  the  outside  world  has  been  relatively  easy  during 
the  periods  of  good  climate  and  of  expansion,  and  difficult  dur- 
ing the  periods  of  poor  climate.  This  is  not  merely  nor  even 
primarily  a  question  of  storms  and  ice  and  fog.  The  main  factor 
in  restricting  communication  with  the  rest  of  the  world  has  ap- 
parently been  poverty.  When  people  are  too  poor  to  keep  their 
boats  in  repair,  and  when  they  have  nothing  to  sell  to  the' rest 
of  the  world  and  no  means  of  paying  for  what  they  would  like 
to  buy,  commerce  must  decay,  no  matter  how  smooth  the  seas 
may  be.  Thus  the  environment  co-operates  with  natural  selec- 
tion, and  the  effects  of  both  are  profoundly  modified  by  inter- 
course with  other  peoples  and  the  introduction  of  new  ideas. 
Racial  character,  or  that  which  we  commonly  suppose  to  be 
racial  character,  arises  from  extremely  complex  causes. 


CHAPTER  XXI 


THE  SELECTION  OF  MODERN  AMERICANS 

Much  of  the  story  of  Iceland  is  repeated  in  that  of  the  early 
white  settlers  in  America.  To  tell  the  American  story  in  such 
detail  as  that  of  the  northern  island  is  not  feasible  in  this  book. 
We  can  merely  show  the  relation  of  two  noteworthy  examples  to 
our  general  theme.  We  shall  discuss  the  early  New  Englanders 
and  their  descendants  farther  west  in  the  prairies  and  California. 
We  might  with  almost  equal  profit  consider  the  French  and  Eng- 
lish in  Canada,  the  plantation  owners  and  negroes  of  the  south- 
ern United  States,  or  even  the  Spaniards  and  Portuguese  of 
Latin  America.  In  each  case  we  should  find  the  same  great  prin- 
ciples at  work,  but  with  an  almost  infinite  variety  of  absorbing 
details. 

For  reasons  which  are  but  dimly  understood,  the  sixteenth 
century  saw  in  England  a  great  awakening.  It  expressed  itself  in 
intellectual  leaders  like  Shakespeare  and  Bacon,  in  a  ruler  like 
Elizabeth,  in  explorers  like  Drake,  and  in  men  like  Raleigh,  who 
was  soldier,  explorer,  historian,  poet,  and  gentleman.  Among 
men  of  a  certain  type  the  awakening  took  the  form  of  questions 
as  to  moral  duties,  the  Bible,  and  man's  relation  to  God  and  to 
spiritual  authority.  In  some  it  led  to  strong  convictions  as  to 
duty  toward  their  fellows,  and  as  to  the  worship  of  God  accord- 
ing to  the  dictates  of  their  own  consciences,  or  according  to  their 
interpretation  of  the  Bible. 

In  the  first  forty  years  of  the  next  century  this  same  spirit 
produced  a  period  of  constitutional  conflict  at  home  in  England, 
and 

was  marked  by  an  outburst  of  romantic  activity  that  sent  hundreds  of 
Englishmen  out  into  the  western  seas  in  search  of  adventure  and  profit. 
Coincident  with  the  later  days  of  these  half-piratical  expeditions  and  or- 

301 


302 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


ganized  commercial  enterprises  were  the  migrations  of  those  who,  moved 
by  impulses  that  were  partly  religious,  partly  political,  and  partly  economic, 
sought  independence  of  worship  and  permanent  homes  in  the  New  World. 
Though  differing  widely  in  purposes  and  results,  these  journeyings  into  the 
unknown  West  were  often  closely  related  in  origin,  and  were  supported  by 
groups  of  men,  aristocrats,  commoners,  merchants,  and  adventurers,  who 
were  ready  to  promote  any  undertaking,  whether  commercial  or  religious, 
that  promised  a  profitable  return.  It  is  difi&cult  to  grasp  the  full  signifi- 
cance of  the  settlements  of  Virginia,  Maryland,  Massachusetts,  and  Say- 
brook,  without  a  knowledge  of  the  circumstances  under  which  the  colonies 
of  Bermiuda,  Barbadoes,  and  Old  Providence  were  estabhshed;  for  all  rep- 
resented in  different  forms  and  propositions  the  influences  at  work  in  the 
motherland  which  were  arousing  in  men  of  all  classes  the  spirit  of  adven- 
ture and  revolt.  No  single  motive  governed  the  men  who  voyaged  over 
seas  during  this  romantic  period.  The  zeal  of  the  viking  and  the  lust  of 
the  capitalist  were  inextricably  interwoven  with  the  hopes  of  the  godly  in 
the  task  of  opening  and  occupying  the  great  frontier  which  stretched  west- 
ward from  the  maritime  states  of  Europe.  (Andrews.) 

For  our  present  purposes  the  most  important  of  these  British 
adventurers  were  the  Puritans,  especially  the  more  daring  among 
them  who  fared  forth  across  the  sea. 

The  English  Puritans  formed  a  veritable  clan,  intimately  bound  together 
by  ties  of  blood,  marriage,  and  neighbourhood,  and  they  acted  together  in 
all  that  concerned  colonisation  on  one  hand  and  autocratic  rule  on  the 
other.  (Andrews.) 

They  attempted  to  found  colonies  not  only  in  New  England, 
but  in  and  around  the  Caribbean  Sea. 

The  founders  of  both  wished  to  provide  a  refuge  for  the  oppressed  vic- 
tims of  Laud's  ecclesiastical  regime,  each  was  to  be  a  sanctuary  where  the 
Puritans  might  worship  God  after  their  own  fashion,  each  was  to  be  a 
society  ordered  according  to  the  dictates  of  religion  and  governed  with  jus- 
tice and  equity,  but  upon  the  strictest  Puritan  pattern.  (Newton.) 

Before  we  follow  these  people  across  the  seas,  turn  back  a 
moment  to  their  origin.  The  majority  of  them  came  from  East 
Anglia,  that  is,  from  the  part  of  eastern  England  north  of  Lon- 
don and  the  Thames  and  south  of  The  Wash.  Now  this  region, 
as  Havelock  Ellis  discovered  in  his  Study  of  British  Genius^  is 
one  of  three  great  foci  of  intellectual  ability  in  England.  In  pro- 


THE  SELECTION  OF  MODERN  AMERICANS  303 


portion  to  its  population  the  East  Anglian  focus  appears  to  have 
made  the  greatest  contribution  to  British  genius.  Ethnologically 
it  is 

the  most  recent  of  the  three.  East  Anglia  is  a  region  very  open  to  invasion: 
Brythons,  Romans,  Angles,  and  Normans  all  seem  to  have  come  here  in 
large  numbers  [this  was  the  place  where  the  Danish  Viking  landed  in  great- 
est numbers]  and  it  differs  from  every  other  English  district  (except  to 
some  extent  Kent,  a  country  closely  allied  to  it)  in  continuing  to  welcome 
foreigners — Dutch,  Flemish,  Walloon,  French — all  through  mediaeval  times 
down  to  the  revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes  at  the  end  of  the  seventeenth 
century.  .  .  .  East  Anglia  is  productive  of  great  statesmen  and  great 
ecclesiastics;  it  is  also  a  land  of  great  scholars.  At  the  same  time  nearly 
half  the  British  musical  composers  and  more  than  a  third  of  the  painters 
have  come  from  this  region.  It  has  no  aptitude  for  abstract  thinking,  for 
metaphysics,  but  in  concrete  thinking,  in  the  art  of  treating  science  philo- 
sophically, it  is  easily  supreme.  Its  special  characters  seem  to  be  its  hu- 
manity, its  patience,  its  grasp  of  detail,  its  deliberate  fiexibihty  combined 
with  a  profound  love  of  hberty  and  independence.  The  characteristic  Eng- 
lish love  of  compromise  is  rooted  in  East  Anglia.  .  .  . 

It  may  be  noted  that  the  founders  of  New  England,  both  on  the  politi- 
cal and  the  religious  side,  were  largely  produced  by  East  Anglia.  The 
Washingtons  came  from  the  related  county  of  Northamptonshire;  the  Em- 
ersons  were  from  Suffolk;  Winthrop,  who,  it  has  been  said,  more  than  any 
other  man  moulded  Massachusetts,  which  moulded  New  England,  belonged 
to  Central  Suffolk.  (EUis.) 

Judging  by  these  quotations,  the  Puritans  were  a  selected 
migrant  group  derived  from  a  long  line  of  earlier  migrations  and 
selections.  Only  a  certain  type  of  strong-minded,  thoughtful, 
self-controlled,  and  self-sacrificing  people  accepted  the  new  doc- 
trines and  had  the  courage  and  determination  to  live  up  to  them. 
Out  of  the  whole  English  people  they  comprised  a  small  percent- 
age who  were  selected  because  they  possessed  certain  highly  val- 
uable qualities.  In  the  case  of  the  Pilgrims  who  eventually  came 
to  Plymouth  the  first  selection  was  followed  by  a  second.  Perse- 
cution and  contempt  weeded  out  the  Puritans  who  were  less 
steadfast,  and  then  led  some  to  migrate.  One  group  went  to 
Holland.  A  migration  to  a  new  country,  as  we  have  seen  again 
and  again,  is  never  a  light  matter.  This  is  especially  true  when 
the  migrants  leave  home  because  they  are  persecuted,  when  they 


S04 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


go  to  a  new  country  without  special  invitation,  and  most  of  all 
when  the  journey  is  long  and  dangerous.  From  among  the  peo- 
ple who  had  the  courage  and  temperament  to  become  Puritans 
only  a  small  and  highly  selected  nimiber  went  to  Holland.  Those 
who  went  were  in  general  the  ones  with  unusual  courage  and 
determination,  strong  convictions,  and  great  initiative. 

Again  there  occurred  a  third  selection,  and  the  Pilgrims  were 
the  result.  When  the  Pilgrims  left  Holland,  the  ones  who  braved 
the  dangers  of  the  long,  hard  voyage  were  in  general  those  most 
strongly  imbued  with  the  Puritan  temperament  and  the  spirit 
of  adventure,  and  likewise  highly  endowed  with  physical  vigor, 
initiative,  and  courage.  The  man  who  was  conscious  of  physical 
weakness  dared  not  go.  The  woman  who  was  timid  kept  back 
her  husband.  The  family  with  an  ailing  child  was  also  deterred. 
Thus  there  occurred  a  rigorous  selection  on  the  basis  not  only 
of  mental  and  moral  character,  but  of  health.  As  a  rule  it  was 
the  motor-minded,  determined,  conscientious,  religious,  adven- 
turous, and  physically  strong  who  embarked  in  the  Mayflower. 
Even  yet  the  selection  was  not  ended.  Before  the  voyage  was 
finished  death  had  set  its  hand  upon  the  little  band.  During  the 
first  winter  44  of  the  102  who  composed  the  original  Mayflower 
passengers  died  of  diseases  which  found  an  easy  prey  because  of 
exposure,  hunger,  and  weariness.  At  the  end  of  a  year,  when 
new  recruits  arrived,  half  had  succumbed.  Here  again  it  was 
the  weak  who  perished,  especially  those  who  were  weak  in  spirit 
as  well  as  body  and  therefore  gave  up  in  discouragement. 

The  experiences  of  the  Pilgrims  are  more  or  less  typical  of 
those  of  all  the  early  Puritans  who  came  to  America.  Through- 
out the  whole  period  of  migration,  from  the  time  the  emigrants 
first  left  England  until  they  had  become  comfortably  estabhshed 
after  some  years  in  America,  the  women  and  children  suffered 
most.  For  them  a  migration  is  always  harder  than  for  the  men, 
partly  because  they  are  by  nature  more  conservative,  partly  for 
purely  physical  reasons,  and  partly  because  the  responsibility  for 
the  children  and  the  pain  of  their  birth  and  death  fall  on  them 
far  more  than  on  the  fathers.  Hence  we  may  be  confident  that 


THE  SELECTION  OF  MODERN  AMERICANS  305 


in  many  a  case  the  men  of  a  family  were  ready  to  go,  but  the 
women  deterred  them.  After  the  new  land  was  reached  it  was 
still  the  women  among  whom  the  selection  was  greatest.  During 
the  first  sad  year  at  Plymouth  thirteen  of  the  eighteen  married 
women  were  laid  in  unmarked  graves,  and  most  of  them  were 
young.  In  cases  where  famiHes  returned  from  America  to  Eng- 
land we  may  be  certain  that  far  more  went  at  the  instigation  of 
the  women  than  of  the  men,  for  that  is  human  nature.  To  live 
in  early  America  as  well  as  to  go  there  required  a  higher,  stronger 
type  of  body,  mind,  and  spirit  among  the  women  than  among 
the  men. 

Those  early  Pilgrims  and  the  Puritans  who  followed  them  for 
a  century  more  or  less  may  have  been  too  stern  and  too  oblivious 
of  the  value  of  joy  and  beauty,  but  they  had  marvelous  quali- 
ties. Because  they  were  practically  all  selected  for  certain  re- 
ligious and  moral  qualities  plus  physical  strength,  hardihood, 
independence,  and  the  spirit  of  adventure  and  because  like  mated 
with  like,  their  various  characteristics,  their  racial  characteristics 
we  may  almost  say,  were  handed  down  for  generations.  They 
brought  to  America  certain  new  ideas  and  those  ideas  helped  to 
mold  the  society  of  early  New  England,  but  I  beheve  that  the 
selection  of  the  migrants  rather  than  the  ideas  was  the  main 
reason  for  the  great  progress  of  the  American  colonies. 

Although  the  Pilgrims  and  the  Puritans  of  New  England  were 
the  most  outstanding  example  of  the  process  of  selection  in  early 
America,  something  similar  occurred  on  a  different  scale  in  all 
the  colonies.  The  Huguenots  of  the  South,  the  Quakers  of  Penn- 
sylvania, and  various  other  groups  represent  the  same  type  of 
selection  as  the  Puritans.  In  some  of  the  Southern  States,  espe- 
cially Virginia  and  South  Carolina,  there  were  many  immigrants 
derived  from  the  best  famiHes  of  England,  younger  sons  who 
came  to  the  New  World  because  they  were  animated  by  a  spirit 
of  adventure  and  enterprise.  Their  case  was  very  different  from 
that  of  modern  immigrants.  It  is  one  thing  to  go  to  a  new  coun- 
try under  the  guidance  of  a  paid  agent  in  a  great  comfortable 
steamship  and  find  a  job  ready  at  the  other  end,  and  quite  an- 


306 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


other  to  go  to  a  new  country  in  a  small  sailing  vessel  and  es,tablish 
one's  self  in  the  face  of  naked  savages.  Thus  to  a  greater  or  less 
degree  the  colonists  along  the  whole  Atlantic  seaboard  from 
Maine  to  Georgia  were  a  selected  people. 

When  a  race  is  selected  in  this  way  certain  results  may  be 
expected.  The  history  of  the  American  colonies  illustrates  them. 
As  soon  as  the  period  of  fierce  struggle  for  existence  was  over, 
the  high  inheritance  of  the  colonials  began  to  assert  itself  in  new 
institutions.  It  was  not  the  institutions  which  made  the  people, 
as  is  so  often  imphed  and  even  asserted.  It  was  the  people  who 
made  the  institutions.  One  of  the  things  done  by  those  selected 
Americans  was  to  develop  a  remarkable  system  of  universal  edu- 
cation at  public  expense,  a  system  which  all  the  world  is  to-day 
copying.  They  also  devised  or  at  least  remodelled  the  town 
meeting,  and  made  it  an  astonishingly  effective  and  educative 
institution  of  government. 

When  the  time  was  ripe  the  Puritan  race  in  conjunction  with 
the  Quaker  race,  the  race  of  younger  sons  from  farther  South, 
and  other  sons  of  the  same  kind  fought  the  Revolutionary  War 
on  the  basis  of  an  old  English  doctrine  to  which  the  Americans 
gave  a  deeper  meaning:  "No  taxation  without  representation." 
In  later  days  that  doctrine  has  spread  in  every  direction  and  is 
still  spreading.  The  next  step  was  to  form  a  new  kind  of  govern- 
ment. Among  students  of  poHtical  history  it  is  almost  universally 
agreed  that  the  American  constitution  is  one  of  the  masterpieces 
of  human  invention.  It  stands  to-day  unshaken  and  is  being 
copied  all  over  the  world  because  its  authors,  descended  from 
Southern  aristocrats  as  well  as  Northern  Puritans,  were  men  of 
uncommon  insight  who  were  likewise  versatile  and  adaptable, 
and  therefore  gifted  with  that  strong  quahty  which  makes  a  man 
see  the  other  side  and  concede  something  for  the  sake  of  a  great 
result.  This  same  versatility,  together  with  a  high  degree  of  that 
curiosity  which  we  have  seen  to  be  so  strong  a  factor  in  producing 
pioneers,  presumably  had  much  to  do  with  the  great  outburst  of 
inventive  genius  which  has  sent  American  machinery,  telephones, 
telegraphs,  and  automobiles  all  over  the  world. 


THE  SELECTION  OF  MODERN  AMERICANS  307 


Many  other  ideas  and  institutions  were  evolved  in  early 
America  and  to-day  are  still  potent.  For  example,  one  of  the 
greatest  differences  between  Old  England  and  New  England  in 
the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries  was  the  position  of 
women.  The  women  of  America  had  far  greater  freedom  than 
their  sisters  in  Europe.  They  occupied  a  more  important  place 
in  society,  they  had  a  higher  degree  of  education,  they  were  ac- 
corded a  greater  freedom  in  choosing  their  husbands,  and  they 
became  the  teachers  of  both  boys  and  girls  not  only  at  home  but 
at  school.  To-day  women  are  probably  more  free  to  follow  what- 
ever career  they  may  choose  in  America  than  almost  anywhere 
else.  We  are  told  again  and  again  by  foreigners  that  we  spoil 
our  women,  partly  by  submitting  to  them  and  partly  by  pamper- 
ing them.  But  Europe  and  the  rest  of  the  world  are  more  or  less 
emulating  our  example.  All  this,  I  believe,  is  in  part  the  result 
of  the  great  selection  whereby  the  women  who  were  the  mothers 
of  the  first  American  generations  were  peculiarly  strong  both  in 
body  and  mind.  They  were  more  highly  selected  than  the  men; 
thus  they  rose  rapidly  toward  a  position  of  equaHty  with  their 
husbands.  A  similar  tendency  to  elevate  the  position  of  women 
seems  to  occur  in  almost  every  difficult  migration.  We  have  seen 
it  among  the  Hakkas,  the  Norse,  and  the  women  who  teach  their 
children  in  the  Icelandic  homes;  and  now  we  see  it  even  more 
clearly  in  America. 

Another  great  social  change  which  occurred  in  early  America 
was  the  abolition  of  class  distinctions.  Here  again  it  seems  to 
me  that  the  cart  has  often  been  put  before  the  horse.  Class  dis- 
tinctions were  not  abolished  in  America  because  some  one  intro- 
duced a  new  idea.  On  the  contrary  they  came  over  to  America 
in  full  force.  The  idea  of  abolishing  them  arose  out  of  the  actual 
conditions  of  life.  Only  in  rare  cases  has  so  large  a  group  of  peo- 
ple displayed  such  great  equality  of  ability.  Of  course  there  were 
weaklings  and  servants,  and  even  in  the  North  there  were  a  few 
slaves  before  the  Revolution.  Nevertheless,  in  those  days,  in  a 
general  way,  all  men  in  New  England  were  "free  and  equal." 
The  framers  of  the  constitution  did  not  give  expression  merely 


308 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


to  an  empty  aspiration  when  they  penned  those  words.  They 
put  into  writing  a  fact  of  observation  which  was  approximately 
true.  It  was  true  because  the  people  whom  they  represented  were 
descended  from  a  highly  selected  ancestry  and  were  themselves 
of  such  high  average  quality  that  the  vast  majority  were  really 
fit  to  take  some  part  in  solving  political  and  social  problems  of 
great  complexity.  To-day  the  same  idea  of  universal  equaHty  is 
abroad  in  the  world.  It  was  expressed  in  that  one  of  President 
Wilson's  fourteen  points  which  states  that  all  peoples  have  the 
right  to  self-determination.  The  President  beheved  what  he  said, 
perhaps  because  of  his  engrossing  study  of  early  American  his- 
tory. But  what  was  true  in  early  America  may  not  be  true  to- 
day in  the  world  as  a  whole,  for  other  countries  have  not  been 
through  the  same  process  of  rigid  natural  selection. 

After  the  American  Revolution  the  United  States  entered 
upon  a  new  phase  of  development.  Because  of  the  high  average 
abihty  of  her  sons  and  daughters  there  ensued  a  wonderful  growth 
in  transportation,  commerce,  manufacturing,  and  science,  a  rapid 
expansion  westward,  and  a  truly  marvelous  utilization  of  the 
great  resources  of  a  new  country.  Here  again  there  is  often  a 
curious  misapprehension.  Coal,  iron,  harbors,  and  broad  wiieat 
lands  did  not  make  America  great.  They  were  merely  tools 
which  were  effective  because  they  were  in  the  hands  of  unusually 
competent  people.  How  much  would  they  have  amounted  to  in 
the  hands  of  the  sub-normal  Chinese  whom  we  have  seen  in  some 
of  the  famine  areas  ?  But  gradually  a  great  change,  perhaps  a  great 
decline,  begins  to  appear  in  America.  Old  ideals  are  shattered  in 
many  places  and  there  is  a  more  insistent  search  for  mere  plea- 
sure and  excitement.  Is  this  the  result  of  wealth  and  luxury  ? 
Partly,  no  doubt,  but  I  beheve  that  it  is  due  still  more  to  a  defi- 
nite and  rapid  change  in  the  quality  of  the  people.  The  idea  that 
America  was  the  refuge  of  the  oppressed  and  the  land  of  the  free 
gradually  gave  place  to  the  idea  that  America  was  the  land  of 
the  dollar  where  the  poor  foreigner  could  live  in  comfort  and  the 
competent  American  could  make  a  fortune,  provided  labor  were 
cheap  and  abundant. 


THE  SELECTION  OF  MODERN  AMERICANS  809 


Thus  there  occurred  a  most  significant  change  in  the  type  of 
immigrants.  Whereas  at  first  the  strongest  incentives  were  the 
dictates  of  conscience  and  the  love  of  adventure,  the  dominant 
motive  later  became  the  desire  for  personal  prosperity.  At  the 
same  time  the  growth  of  steam  communication  made  it  more  and 
more  easy  for  even  the  incompetent  to  reach  America.  With 
steamship  agents  all  over  Europe  urging  people  to  come  to  the 
land  of  promise  and  making  it  easy  to  come,  the  selection  of 
immigrants  became  less  and  less  stringent.  Many  able  people 
still  came,  but  the  average  steadily  fell.  How  could  it  be  other- 
wise when  the  factors  which  had  formerly  exercised  such  rigid 
selection  became  more  and  more  inoperative  ? 

In  this  connection  a  little  table  prepared  by  Clarke  is  worth 
reproducing.  Among  the  thousand  leading  American  men  of  let- 
ters born  in  the  United  States  prior  to  185 1  the  number  who  were 
born  in  each  decade  per  million  of  the  white  population  is  as 
follows: 


Before  1771   10 

1771-1780   IS 

1781-1790   15 

1791-1800   23 

1801-1810   20 


1811-1820   22 

1821-1830   13 

1831-1840   II 

1841-1850   7 


This  table  furnishes  a  good  example  of  the  way  in  which  the 
same  facts  are  susceptible  of  diverse  interpretations  according  to 
whether  one  places  more  emphasis  on  nature  or  nurture,  on  in- 
heritance or  environment.  Clarke  is  inclined  to  see  in  the  table 
an  evidence  of  nothing  except  a  change  in  the  social  environment. 
He  believes  that  the  pronounced  way  in  which  the  births  of  emi- 
nent literary  men  reached  a  maximum  from  1790  to  1820  is  due 
to  the  opportunities  which  arose  after  the  Revolutionary  War. 
The  decline  from  1820  to  1850  is  attributed  to  the  fact  that  after 
the  middle  of  the  last  century,  that  is,  during  the  time  when  the 
men  born  between  1820  and  1850  were  making  their  reputations, 
the  temper  of  the  American  people  was  rapidly  changing  so  that 
the  demand  for  many  of  the  higher  types  of  literature  greatly 


310 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


diminished.  Still  more  important,  as  it  seems  to  me,  is  the  fact 
that  during  that  period  almost  boundless  new  opportunities  pre- 
sented themselves  for  achievement  along  commercial,  industrial, 
and  scientific  lines.  Many  men  who  in  an  earher  era  might  have 
become  authors  actually  became  railroad  men,  bankers,  chem- 
ists, and  the  like. 

My  own  work,  as  illustrated  in  Civilization  and  Climate^  for 
example,  has  dealt  so  largely  with  the  influence  of  environment 
that  I  am  naturally  inclined  to  accept  an  environmicntal  explana- 
tion whenever  possible.  Nevertheless,  I  cannot  help  raising  the 
question  whether  even  in  the  present  case  inheritance  may  not 
play  a  part.  In  the  year  1820  the  white  population  of  the  United 
States  numbered  7,867,000;  that  same  year  only  8,385  immi- 
grants were  admitted  and  very  few  had  come  for  at  least  two 
generations.  During  the  next  thirty  years  a  great  change  took 
place.  In  1850  the  white  population  numbered  19,553,000,  of 
whom  2,245,000  were  foreign  immigrants.  On  the  basis  of  the 
censuses  from  1870  onward,  for  which  alone  the  data  are  avail- 
able, these  foreign-born  immigrants  together  with  their  Ameri- 
can-born children  are  estimated  as  forming  at  least  one-quarter 
of  the  white  population  in  1850.  But  it  is  well  known  that  the 
immigrant  stocks  that  have  come  to  this  country  since  1820  have 
made  relatively  little  contribution  to  American  literature,  even 
though  they  came  from  the  same  countries  as  the  earlier  colonial 
stocks.  They  apparently  were  not  so  highly  selected  as  the 
earlier  migrants  or  were  selected  on  another  basis.  Hence  the 
inclusion  of  about  5,000,000  immigrants  and  their  children  would 
automatically  cause  us  to  expect  the  figures  in  Clarke's  table  to 
drop  from  22  in  1820  to  about  17  in  1850. 

During  this  same  period  another  factor  may  also  have  dimin- 
ished the  inherent  tendency  of  the  Americans  toward  literary 
achievement.  That  influence  was  the  decline  in  the  birth-rate 
which  is  now  so  noticeable  among  the  more  competent  parts  of 
the  American  people.  It  first  became  evident  in  America  at 
about  the  time  we  are  discussing  and  among  the  very  type  of 
people  from  whom  a  large  part  of  our  literary  men  have  origi- 


THE  SELECTION  OF  MODERN  A^VIERICANS  311 


nated.  The  decline  in  the  size  of  famihes  at  this  time  is  no  fig- 
ment of  the  imagination.  Here  are  the  figures  as  given  in  a  most 
illuminating  census  bulletin  entitled  A  Century  of  Population 
Groivth  in  the  United  States ,  1 790-1900. 


Number  of 
Children 
Under  i6 
Years  of  Age 
per  Thousand 

of  WTiite 
Population  in 
1790 

Decline  in  the  Nujnber  of  Such  Children 
per  Decade 

Number 
of  Such 
Children 
in  1900 

1790  to 
1820 

1820  to 
1850 

1850  to 

1880 

1880  to 
1900 

New  England  

Middle  States  

Southern  States  

470 
494 

502 

9.0 

3-7 
2.0* 

28.3 
26 . 7 
14.7 

16.3 

15-7 
II  .0 

9.0 
II  .0 
14-5 

291 
326 
402 

♦Increase. 


The  great  decHne  in  the  number  of  children  in  New  England 
and  the  Middle  States  between  1820  and  1850  is  especially  re- 
markable. Its  significance  is  increased  by  the  fact  that  the  pres- 
ence of  the  immigrants  \^ath  their  large  famihes  would  tend  to 
keep  the  proportion  of  children  at  a  high  level.  Nevertheless,  in 
the  three  decades  from  1820  to  1850  that  proportion  fell  19  per 
cent  in  New  England,  i6}4  per  cent  in  the  ^Middle  States,  and 
12  per  cent  in  the  countr}^  as  a  whole.  ^\mong  the  old  colonial 
families  it  can  scarcely  have  fallen  less  than  25  per  cent.  But  the 
decHne  in  the  birth-rate  was  more  rapid  among  the  cultured  peo- 
ple of  the  towns  than  among  the  farmers,  and  it  was  from  the 
townspeople  that  the  literar}'  men  were  derived  for  the  most 
part,  as  will  soon  appear  more  clearly.  Hence  on  the  basis  of  the 
birth-rate,  that  is,  from  the  point  of  view  of  inheritance  alone, 
we  should  expect  that  the  proportion  of  eminent  hterar}'  men 
per  million  of  the  white  inhabitants  would  have  fallen  off  not 
merely  to  17,  as  already  indicated  on  the  basis  of  immigration, 
but  to  a  decidedly  smaller  figure,  perhaps  as  low  as  12,  by  reason 
of  the  changing  birth-rate.  I  confess  that  I  am  much  surprised 
at  this  result,  for  when  I  began  to  study  Clarke's  table  I  supposed 
that  the  en\ironmental  causes  of  the  decline  in  American  literary 
achievements  were  stronger  than  the  biological  causes.  Now, 


S12 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


however,  I  am  forced  to  conclude  that  while  both  sets  of  causes 
are  operative,  the  biological  cause,  that  is,  the  actual  decHne  in 
the  proportion  of  people  carrying  a  high  inheritance,  is  probably 
the  more  important  of  the  two. 

Since  1850  the  further  lowering  of  the  inherited  mental  and 
moral  fiber  of  the  United  States  through  unselected  immigration 
has  apparently  accelerated  the  tendencies  which  have  already 
come  under  our  attention.  Take,  for  example,  the  scientific  men 
of  the  country.  Among  the  one  thousand  most  eminent  scientists, 
as  indicated  by  asterisks  in  the  third  edition  of  American  Men  of 
Science,  Visher  finds  that  the  nationalities  forming  the  bulk  of 
our  recent  immigration  do  not  furnish  nearly  so  large  a  propor- 
tion as  do  those  whence  the  earlier  immigrants  were  derived. 
The  first  column  of  figures  in  the  accompanying  table  shows  the 
actual  number  of  starred  scientists  born  as  natives  in  each  coun- 
try and  living  in  the  United  States;  the  second  column  shows  the 
number  of  men  over  twenty-one  years  of  age  who  were  born  in 
each  country  and  lived  in  the  United  States  in  1900;  while  the 
third  column  shows  the  number  of  such  foreign-born  men  per 
starred  scientist.  Immigration  from  the  countries  of  Group  I 
seems  really  to  help  American  science,  for  they  excel  the  standard 
of  native  white  Americans  among  whom  there  is  only  one  starred 
scientist  for  about  21,000  men  over  twenty-one  years  of  age  in 
1900.  Notice  that  four  of  the  countries — Belgium,  Holland, 
Scotland,  and  England — encircle  the  North  Sea  and  lie  in  the 
center  of  the  most  favored  part  of  Europe.  Japan  has  a  special 
advantage  in  this  classification  because  immigration  from  that 
country  is  limited  to  the  higher  callings;  Switzerland  leads  Europe 
in  its  general  scientific  aptitudes,  as  we  saw  in  an  earHer  chapter; 
Canada  is  almost  like  part  of  the  United  States;  while  the  eminent 
Russians  are  practically  all  Jews.  Thus  there  is  some  special 
and  obvious  reason  for  the  supremacy  of  each  group. 

Group  II  is  composed  largely  of  the  countries  of  central 
Europe.  Whatever  may  be  the  innate  quality  of  the  people  of 
those  countries,  they  certainly  have  not  made  a  large  contribu- 
tion to  American  science,  for  in  proportion  to  their  numbers  they 


THE  SELECTION  OF  MODERN  AMERICANS  SIS 


rank  only  one-fourth  as  high  as  Group  I.  Group  III,  on  the  other 
hand,  contributes  only  one  scientist  where  Group  I  contributes 
thirty-five.  The  showing  of  Poland,  Ireland,  and  Italy  with  their 
large  immigration  to  America  in  recent  decades  is  truly  pitiful," 
as  Visher  well  says. 


Country  of  Birth 


Number  of 
Starred 
Scientists 


Number  of  Men 
Over  21  Years 
of  Age  in  U.  S. 
in  1900 


Number  of  Such 
Men  per  Starred 
Scientist 


Japan  

Belgium  

HoUand  

Scotland  

Canada  

Switzerland  

England  and  Wales .  . 
Russia  (mostly  Jews) 

Total.    Group  I . . 

Denmark  

Bohemia  

Austria  

Hungary  

Sweden  

France  

Germany  

Norway  

Total.    Group  II. 

Poland  

Ireland  

China  

Mexico  

Italy  

Total.    Group  III 


3 
I 

4 
II 
47 

5 
33 
II 

IIS 


28,000'* 
10,000'* 
46,000 
116,000 
505,000 
63,000 
463,000 
173,000 

1,404,000 


9,300 
10,000 
10,500 
10,550 
10,700 
12,600 
13,000 
15,600 

12,200 


3 
2 

4 
2 
6 
I 

23 
2 

43 


82,000 

70,000 
143,000 

73,000 
294,000 

55,000 
1,327,000 
173,000 

2,217,000 


27,300 
35,000 
35,600 
36,500 
49,000 
5  5, 000 
57,600 
86,500 

51,500 


183,000 
722,000 
78,000 
45,000 
253,000 

1,281,000 


183,000 
361,000 


427,000 


•  Estimate:  One-third  of  all  persons  bom  in  these  countries.  Data  for  men  over's i  years  of  age  not  given 
separately. 

Facts  like  these  might  be  multiplied  indefinitely.  They  sug- 
gest that  unselected  immigration  has  already  brought  the  United 
States  to  the  point  where  over-population  and  the  radical  lower- 
ing of  the  standard  of  living  seem  to  be  imminent ;  it  has  presuma- 
bly accelerated  the  tendency  toward  small  families  among  the 
most  competent;  and  it  has  apparently  increased  the  tendency 
for  young  people  who  have  a  fine  inheritance  to  marry  those 
whose  inheritance  is  not  so  good.  Of  course  this  danger  has  al- 


314 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


ways  existed,  but  it  has  been  intensified  by  the  widespread  min- 
gling of  the  older  and  newer  types.  I  recognize  that  some  of  the 
recent  immigrants  are  of  as  high  a  type  as  the  early  colonials, 
but  I  am  talking  about  the  average,  and  that  is  what  determines 
the  general  quahty  of  a  people.  Education  may  raise  the  indi- 
vidual enormously,  but  no  amount  of  education  will  give  the  high 
inheritance  which  existed  abundantly  in  the  Puritans,  the  Quak- 
ers, the  Huguenots,  and  the  aristocratic  colonial  planters  of  the 
South,  and  which  is  relatively  scarce  in  the  later  immigrants. 
What  America  and  every  other  country  needs  is  an  abundance 
of  fine  minds  in  sturdy  bodies  and  a  diminution  of  the  incompe- 
tents. 

Many  studies  of  eminent  Americans  leave  little  room  for 
doubt  that  in  spite  of  their  relative  dechne  in  numbers  the  old 
American  stocks  whose  ancestors  were  in  the  country  before  the 
Revolution  still  inherit  a  degree  of  ability  which  makes  them 
dominant.  The  preponderance  of  these  early  stocks  among  men 
of  eminence  is  evident  from  Figure  17,  which  is  based  on  the 
21,579  persons  who  are  included  in  Who^s  Who  in  America  for 
1922-1923,  and  who  were  born  in  the  United  States.  The  map 
shows  the  number  of  eminent  persons  who  were  born  in  each 
State  per  million  of  the  average  white  population  at  the  time  of 
their  birth.  Among  310  consecutive  names  selected  by  chance 
where  the  book  happened  to  open,  the  numbers  born  in  succes- 
sive decades  were  as  follows: 


1826-1835   I  1866-1875   no 

I836-I845   15  I876-I885   51 

1846-1855   43  1886-1895   7 

1856-1865   83  1896-1905   o 


Inasmuch  as  very  few  persons  in  this  edition  of  Who^s  WJw  were 
born  before  1845  ^^ter  1885,  only  the  censuses  of  1850,  i860, 
1870,  and  1880  have  been  employed  in  calculating  the  average 
population.  Since  about  twice  as  many  eminent  people  were 
born  in  the  decades  from  1856  to  1865  and  1866  to  1875 
in  the  decades  before  and  after,  the  census  figures  for  i860  and 


FIG.  17.    PERSONS  IN    WHO'S  WHO  (1922-1923)   BORN  IN  EACH  STATE  PER 
1,000,000  OF  MEAN  WHITE  POPULATION  18.-50-1880,  GIVING 
DOUBLE  WEIGHT  TO  18G0  AND  1870. 


r 


THE  SELECTION  OF  MODERN  AMERICANS  315 

1870  have  received  double  weight.  In  order  not  to  put  the  South 
at  a  disadvantage  the  colored  people  have  been  omitted.  It  would 
have  been  equally  fair  to  omit  the  foreign-born,  which  would 
have  caused  the  figures  for  the  Northeastern  States  to  be  appre- 
ciably higher  than  is  now  the  case.  Thus  the  map  errs  on  the 
side  of  giving  the  Southeastern  States  an  advantage  and  the 
Northeastern  States  a  disadvantage. 

In  spite  of  this  disadvantage  the  extraordinary  way  in  which 
the  New  England  States,  especially  Massachusetts,  with  1,456 
eminent  persons  per  million  population,  and  Connecticut  with 
1,245,  surpass  all  other  sections  of  the  country  is  brought  out 
most  clearly  by  the  dark  shading.  The  other  dark  areas  in 
Figure  17  likewise  seem  to  point  to  the  value  of  inheritance  in 
producing  leaders.  The  District  of  Columbia  with  a  ratio  of 
about  2,600  eminent  sons  per  million  of  the  population  surpasses 
even  Massachusetts.  The  reason  is  obviously  that  the  population 
of  Washington  contains  an  extraordinarily  large  number  of  per- 
sons chosen  for  their  ability,  and  naturally  a  considerable  number 
of  the  children  follow  in  their  fathers'  footsteps.  In  Virginia  and 
again  in  South  CaroHna  many  more  eminent  men  have  been  born 
than  would  be  expected  from  the  conditions  in  the  surrounding 
States,  and  this  again  seems  to  find  no  satisfactory  explanation 
except  in  inheritance.  Moreover,  in  the  Western  States  of  Utah 
(1,036),  Montana  (1,000),  the  two  Dakotas  (938),  and  Wyoming 
(923),  we  seem  to  have  an  area  where  an  unusually  large  propor- 
tion of  able  men  were  born  between  1840  and  1885.  At  that  time 
the  population  of  those  States  was  very  small  and  consisted 
largely  of  pioneers.  If  the  general  hypothesis  of  this  book  is 
right,  those  pioneers  produced  an  unusually  large  number  of  emi- 
nent sons  because  the  difficulties  of  early  settlement  kept  away 
the  less  efficient  type  of  settler. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  extremely  low  position  of  New  Mexico 
seems  to  be  due  largely  to  the  fact  that  in  the  period  under  dis- 
cussion the  greater  part  of  the  people  whom  the  census  reckons 
as  white  in  that  State  were  actually  Mexicans,  often  with  a  large 
Indian  admixture. 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


It  must  be  clearly  understood  that  Figure  17  does  not  show 
where  the  eminent  people  of  the  United  States  now  live.  It 
does  not  even  show  where  they  were  born,  but  merely  how 
many  were  born  in  each  part  of  the  country  in  proportion  to  the 
total  population.  The  actual  proportion  of  eminent  residents 
who  were  included  in  Who^s  Who  in  1922  appears  in  Figure  18, 
which  shows  the  number  of  eminent  persons  in  Who^s  Who  per 
million  of  the  white  population  in  1920.  The  contrast  between 
this  map  and  Figure  17  indicates  that  many  men  and  women  of 
ability  are  moving  away  from  their  old  homes  and  settling  else- 
where. If  these  more  prominent  people  are  moving  in  this  way, 
other  people  of  more  than  average  ability  are  presumably  mov- 
ing in  the  same  way.  Note  that  the  District  of  Columbia,  as 
might  be  expected,  has  a  far  greater  proportion  of  eminent  peo- 
ple than  any  other  region,  its  ratio  being  about  4,450  per  miUion 
inhabitants.  Nevada  appears  to  come  next,  but  this  is  probably 
because  that  State  has  so  small  a  population  that  the  mere  inclu- 
sion of  certain  officials  and  others  who  fall  in  fixed  categories  in 
Who^s  Who  gives  it  an  undue  representation.  Next  to  Washing- 
ton as  a  place  of  real  concentration  of  persons  of  abihty  comes 
New  York  City  and  its  vicinity,  thus  giving  a  figure  of  521  for 
New  York  State  while  Connecticut  follows  closely  with  510.  The 
rest  of  New  England  still  holds  its  own  fairly  well,  although 
Massachusetts,  largely  because  of  its  great  foreign  population,  is 
faUing  behind. 

In  the  West,  although  eminent  people  were  born  in  large  pro- 
portions in  the  States  from  Utah  to  North  Dakota,  as  showTi  in 
Figure  17,  they  were  too  few  in  number  to  give  those  States  any 
specially  large  proportion  of  eminent  people  to-day,  or  else  most 
of  them  have  moved  away.  Colorado  and  CaHfornia,  on  the 
other  hand,  perhaps  by  reason  of  their  climate,  appear  to  exert  a 
strong  attraction  upon  persons  of  abihty,  as  do  the  other  South- 
western States  and  Illinois  to  a  less  degree.  Texas,  Oklahoma, 
Arkansas,  and  Florida,  on  the  contrary,  seem  to  be  places  wliich 
people  of  unusual  abihty  avoid  as  permanent  homes,  even  though 
they  may  go  there  for  business  or  pleasure. 


127   117  107  97  87  77  07 


117  107  97   87 


FIG.  18.    RESIDENTS  INCLUDED  IN   WHO'S  WHO  (1922-1923)  PER  1,000,000 

POPULATION  IN  1923. 


127  117  lv7  97  ST  77  07 


li7  107  87 


FIG.  19.    INCREASE    (OR   DECREASE)    (1912  TO   1922)   IN  PROPORTION  OF 
EMINENT  PERSONS  BORN  PER  100,000  OF  POPULATION. 

The  figures  in  the  map  show  the  differences  between  the  percentage  of  each  State  in  1912 
and  1922,  the  percentage  being  reckoned  on  the  basis  of 
Massachusetts  as  100  in  both  cases. 


THE  SELECTION  OF  MODERN  AMERICANS  817 


What  we  are  mainly  interested  in,  however,  are  the  people  who 
pass  on  to  their  children  the  kind  of  inheritance  that  leads  to 
eminence.  In  order  to  determine  not  only  where  these  people 
resided  in  the  past  but  where  they  are  moving  to,  I  have  pre- 
pared Figure  19.  This  represents  a  comparison  between  two 
maps  of  the  same  kind  but  different  in  date.  One  of  these  is 
Figure  17,  showing  the  proportion  of  persons  born  in  the  various 
States  according  to  Who^s  Who  for  1922;  the  other  is  a  similar 
map  pubHshed  in  Civilization  and  Climate  and  showing  the  cor- 
responding proportions  in  191 2.  Since  the  two  maps  cannot  be 
j  directly  compared,  the  number  of  eminent  persons  born  per  mil- 
I  lion  persons  in  Massachusetts  has  been  reckoned  as  100  in  each 
!  case  and  corresponding  values  have  been  given  to  the  other 
States.  On  this  basis  New  York  had  a  rank  of  51  in  19 12  and  56 
in  1922;  that  is,  as  the  birthplace  of  eminent  persons  New  York 
is  gaining  on  Massachusetts,  although  still  far  behind.  The  dif- 
ference between  the  New  York  percentages  in  191 2  and  1922 
amounts  to  5,  which  is  the  figure  given  for  that  State  in  Figure 
19.  On  the  other  hand,  the  percentage  for  Rhode  Island  has 
changed  from  79  to  73,  so  that  it  appears  on  the  map  as  —  6. 
Figure  19  indicates  that  during  the  course  of  ten  years,  that  is, 
when  the  period  from  1830  to  1875  is  compared  with  the  period 
from  1840  to  1885,  the  migration  of  strong  stock  out  of  Massa- 
chusetts and  the  immigration  of  weaker  stocks  from  Europe 
caused  that  State  to  decline  in  its  relative  production  of  men  of 
unusual  ability  when  compared  with  all  other  States  except 
Rhode  Island,  Vermont,  and  Oregon.  The  large  area  which  is 
lightly  shaded  in  Figure  19  gained  only  slightly  if  at  all  over 
Massachusetts,  but  in  the  heavily  shaded  areas  of  the  Northwest 
and  West  aside  from  Oregon  the  gain  was  great.  That  was  the 
part  of  the  country  into  which  settlers  were  then  bringing  their 
famiHes.  The  Rocky  Mountain  section  from  Arizona  to  Mon- 
tana, and  also  the  Dakotas,  were  in  the  stages  of  development 
where  the  successful  pioneers  first  begin  to  bring  their  wives  and 
build  up  famiHes.  That  apparently  is  one  reason  why  the  pro- 
portion of  eminent  sons  increased  so  rapidly. 


318 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


Opportunity,  as  well  as  birth,  doubtless  enters  into  this  mat- 
ter. The  relative  increase  in  the  birth  of  children  who  attained 
to  eminence  in  Virginia,  the  Carolinas,  Florida,  and  Mississippi 
may  be  largely  the  result  of  the  new  opportunities  which  came 
after  the  Civil  War.  Likewise  in  the  Rocky  Mountain  States  the 
growth  of  opportunities  for  education,  travel,  and  the  like  doubt- 
less played  a  part.  Other  factors  also  need  to  be  considered  to 
explain  such  anomalies  as  the  very  low  position  of  Oregon  and 
the  surprisingly  high  position  of  Virginia,  but  we  cannot  enter 
into  their  discussion  in  detail. 

Let  us  turn  back  once  more  to  the  question  of  the  Puritans 
and  their  descendants.  On  the  basis  of  replies  from  18,400  per- 
sons whose  names  appear  in  the  1922-1923  edition  of  Who^s  Who 
in  America  J  Visher  has  made  a  study  of  the  occupations  of  the 
fathers  of  the  eminent  people  of  America.  The  first  column  in 
the  following  table  shows  the  total  number  of  fathers  reported 
as  belonging  to  each  main  group  of  occupations.  From  this  it  is 
easy  to  calculate  that  on  the  basis  of  the  census  of  1870  only  one 
unskilled  laborer  in  approximately  48,000  was  a  father  of  an 
eminent  son  included  in  the  persons  for  whom  data  are  available 
in  Who^s  Who,  Among  other  professions,  the  number  of  sons 
for  each  48,000  was  approximately  as  appears  in  the  second  col- 
umn of  the  table. 


Number  of 
Fathers  of 
Persons  Reporting 
in  Who's  Who, 
1922-1923 

Number  of 
Eminent  Sons  per 
Approximately 
48,000  Men 

49 

? 

94 

I 

1,165 

30 

4,310 

70 

6,473 

600 

4,265 

1,035 

Clergymen  

2,036 

2.400 

These  figures  are  very  significant.  It  needs  no  demonstration 
to  show  that  clergymen,  as  a  body,  especially  those  of  fifty  }'ears 
ago,  possess  the  Puritan  spirit  to  a  greater  degree  than  almost 
any  other  part  of  the  community.  They  are  the  spiritual,  if  not 


THE  SELECTION  OF  MODERN  AMERICANS  319 


the  physical  descendants  of  the  Puritans.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
however,  the  clergymen  whose  sons  are  most  likely  to  attain 
eminence  are  the  physical  descendants  of  the  Puritans,  as  we 
infer  from  the  next  table,  where  Visher  gives  details  as  to  the 
various  professions. 


Total  Number 

Reporting  Their 

Fathers  as 

Eminent  Sons  per 

Belonging  to 

48,000  Men 

Specified 

Professions 

24 

298 

480 

460 

150 

495 

625 

923 

210 

1,105 

76 

1,140 

Presbyterian  clergymen  

570 

4,325 

Episcopal  clergymen  

270 

5,56s 

Congregational  clergymen  

360 

6,000 

Notice  how  completely  and  decisively  the  Presbyterian,  Epis- 
copal, and  Congregational  clergymen  excel  all  others.  Among 
these  three  the  Congregationalists  stand  decidedly  in  the  lead. 
B,ut  Visher's  data,  so  he  informs  me,  suggest  that  the  Unitarians 
rank  even  higher  than  the  Congregationalists.  They  are  not  in- 
cluded in  the  table  merely  because  their  numbers  are  small.  An 
almost  identical  result  was  reached  by  Clarke  in  his  study  of  an 
earlier  generation.  Among  a  thousand  leading  American  men  of 
letters  born  before  185 1  he  finds  that 

in  respect  to  absolute  numbers  the  Congregational  body  stood  far  above 
its  nearest  competitor,  the  closely  related  Presbyterian  Church.  If  relative 
numbers  are  considered,  however,  the  Unitarian  body  apparently  had  the 
greatest  proportion  of  literary  persons  born  within  its  ranks,  and  the  Con- 
gregationalists, Friends,  and  Universalists  followed  in  order.  All  four  had 
a  relatively  large  number  of  men  of  letters  born  to  their  members.  On  the 
other  hand,  Methodist  Episcopal,  Baptist,  and  Roman  Catholic  families 
possessed  relatively  very  few  hterati. 

Clarke's  explanation  of  these  conditions  is  interesting  as  in- 
dicating the  variety  of  factors  which  must  be  considered  in  any 
fair  discussion  of  our  problem. 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


The  fact  that  there  were  born  within  the  ranks  of  some  denominations 
relatively  more  men  of  letters  than  in  others  is  of  interest,  but  standing  by 
itself  it  cannot  be  considered  particularly  significant.  Odin  found  that,  in 
proportion  to  the  numbers  in  each  rehgious  division,  many  more  French 
men  of  letters  had  been  brought  up  as  Protestants  than  as  CathoHcs.  He 
thought  that  there  had  been  a  number  of  reasons  for  this  superiority,  but 
beheved  the  most  important  to  be  that,  on  the  whole,  Protestant  children 
received  superior  educational  opportunities  because  of  the  superior  wealth 
of  their  parents.  Possibly  both  economic  and  educational  factors  may 
serve  to  explain  the  differences  discovered  in  America.  It  is  a  well-known 
fact  that,  during  the  period  studied,  the  Unitarians  and  Friends,  for  in- 
stance, were  on  the  whole  in  comfortable  circumstances,  while  the  Roman 
CathoHcs  were  relatively  poor.  The  resulting  differences  afford  at  least 
partial  explanation  of  their  differences  in  literary  productivity.  On  the 
other  hand,  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  Protestants  enjoyed  greater  free- 
dom of  thought  than  Roman  CathoHcs.  This  factor  may  be  only  less  im- 
portant than  poverty  and  lack  of  education.  Data  are  not  now  available, 
however,  on  which  to  base  studies  which  would  indicate  the  relative  im- 
portance of  these  various  factors.  At  present  one  can  simply  conclude 
that  without  question  religious  training  has  played  some  part  in  the  pro- 
duction of  American  men  of  letters. 

It  seems  to  me  that  while  Clarke  is  right  in  assigning  great 
weight  to  environment  and  training,  he  attaches  too  little  im- 
portance to  inheritance.  It  must  not  be  overlooked  that  environ- 
ment and  training  depend  largely  upon  inherited  ability.  Every 
one  knows  that  people  of  unusual  strength  of  character  generally 
create  for  themselves  and  their  children  a  relatively  good  en- 
vironment, both  social  and  economic,  no  matter  what  their 
origin  may  be.  They  are  also  more  likely  than  others  to  give 
their  children  proper  training,  even  though  the  so-called  '^ad- 
vantages" may  be  lacking.  Again,  it  seems  to  me  that  environ- 
ment and  training  are  not  sufficient  to  explain  the  extraordinary 
differences  disclosed  by  Visher's  data.  Consider  once  more  the 
remarkable  fact  that  among  the  famiHes  of  the  Congregational 
ministers  who  were  in  active  life  from  1850  to  1880  one  out  of 
every  eight,  on  an  average,  produced  a  son  or  daughter  of  suffi- 
cient distinction  to  be  included  in  Who's  Who.  At  that  period 
the  son  of  a  Congregational  minister  was  6,000  times  as  likely 
to  attain  eminence  as  was  the  son  of  an  unskilled  laborer,  and 


THE  SELECTION  OF  MODERN  AMERICANS  821 


approximately  86  times  as  likely  as  the  son  of  a  farmer.  In  a 
country  like  the  United  States  it  seems  impossible  that  such 
great  differences  can  arise  unless  inheritance  as  well  as  environ- 
ment plays  an  important  part. 

The  effect  of  inheritance  seems  to  become  still  more  clear 
when  persons  of  a  single  profession  are  taken.  Selecting  the 
clergymen  from  the  preceding  table  and  adding  an  estimated 
number  on  the  basis  of  the  partial  returns  for  sons  of  Univer- 
salist  and  Unitarian  clergymen,  we  find  the  following  number  of 
eminent  sons  per  loo  fathers: 


Methodists   i.o 

Baptists   2.3 

Universalists   7.0 

Presbyterians   9.0 


Episcopalians   11. 7 

Congregationalists   12.5 

Unitarians   15.0 


Here  we  have  a  group  of  people  among  whom  the  ideals  are  very 
similar.  Aside  from  the  Methodists  and  Baptists,  whose  eco- 
nomic condition  and  degree  of  education  are  somewhat  lower 
than  those  of  the  others,  the  mode  of  life,  methods  of  training, 
and  general  environment  of  all  the  rest  are  extremely  similar. 
Yet  we  find  highly  significant  differences  in  the  production  of 
men  of  notable  abihty. 

Taken  as  a  whole  the  extent  to  which  the  clergymen  of  the 
various  denominations  have  been  the  fathers  of  eminent  sons  is 
almost  directly  in  proportion  to  the  degree  to  which  the  denomi- 
nations have  suffered  persecution  and  selection.  The  Methodists 
are  the  latest  of  the  sects  here  considered.  Not  until  about  1 740 
did  John  Wesley  establish  what  may  be  called  a  genuine  Metho- 
dist church.  While  the  church  represented  some  new  ideas,  it 
suffered  no  special  persecution  and  only  a  little  ridicule  and  op- 
position. Therefore  there  was  no  great  selection,  such  as  took 
place  among  the  Puritans.  In  the  United  States  the  growth  of 
the  Methodist  church  was  even  more  gradual  than  in  England, 
and  never  involved  any  appreciable  opposition  or  contempt  on 
the  part  of  other  sects  like  that  which  the  Universalists  and 


322 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


Unitarians  had  to  face.  The  Baptists,  as  we  know  them  to-day, 
originated  in  England  soon  after  1600,  when  they  separated  from 
the  Brownists,  who  ultimately  became  the  Congregationalists. 
In  America  the  Baptists  were  relatively  few  in  number  up  to  the 
Revolutionary  War.  Under  the  leadership  of  Roger  WiUiams 
and  Mrs.  Anne  Hutchinson  they  were  bitterly  persecuted  by  the 
Congregationalists.  The  main  growth  of  the  Baptists,  however, 
did  not  come  until  after  the  Revolutionary  War.  Hence  it  in- 
volved no  persecution,  while  such  selection  as  took  place  both 
among  the  Baptists  and  Methodists  was  on  the  whole  emotional 
rather  than  intellectual.  This  seems  to  be  one  of  the  important 
reasons  why  these  two  sects  have  produced  a  smaller  proportion 
of  eminent  leaders  than  have  some  of  the  others.  Both  of  these 
churches,  by  reason  largely  of  that  same  emotional  appeal,  have 
grown  far  more  rapidly  than  the  denominations  whose  appeal  is 
more  intellectual.  The  degree  of  selection  among  their  members 
has  been  correspondingly  less  rigid. 

The  Universalis ts  are  a  sect  of  relatively  recent  origin  derived 
in  considerable  measure  from  the  Congregationalists.  They  have 
been  conspicuous  for  their  emphasis  upon  the  guidance  of  each 
man's  own  inner  light  somewhat  like  the  Quakers.  When  they 
severed  their  connection  with  their  former  churches  a  considera- 
ble degree  of  courage  and  perseverance  was  required,  for  they 
were  frowned  upon  and  ostracized  as  practically  never  happens 
in  these  later  generations.  The  selection  due  to  this  cause,  how- 
ever, was  probably  less  important  than  the  selection  due  to  the 
insistence  of  the  Universahst  church  upon  individual  thought 
rather  than  upon  emotion  as  among  the  Baptists  and  Methodists, 
or  upon  external  authority  as  among  the  Roman  Cathohcs. 

Turning  now  to  the  Presbyterians,  we  find  that  in  the  early 
days  in  Great  Britain  they  suffered  some  persecution.  This  did 
not  result  in  a  violent  severing  of  old  ties  like  that  which  marked 
the  birth  of  the  Congregationahsts.  On  the  Continent,  however, 
the  Presbyterians  suffered  such  great  hardships  that  man}^  of 
the  most  determined  among  them  fled  to  England.  Thus  the 
early  Presbyterian  churches  contained  not  only  a  large  Scotch 


THE  SELECTION  OF  MODERN  AMERICANS  823 


element,  which  imparts  strength  ahnost  everywhere,  but  also  a 
considerable  element  of  chosen  people  who  had  fled  from  other 
lands.  From  the  very  beginning  the  Presbyterian  church  ap- 
pealed to  the  intellectual  rather  than  the  emotional  side  of  man's 
nature,  and  therefore  attracted  a  type  of  people  different  from 
the  Methodists  and  Baptists. 

Coming  to  the  Episcopalians  we  find  a  communion  which  as 
a  whole  has  not  suffered  any  very  strenuous  persecution  since 
the  early  period  of  conflict  with  Roman  CathoHcism  which  re- 
sulted in  its  establishment  as  the  State  church  of  England.  Be- 
cause of  its  official  character  both  in  England  and  in  many  of  the 
early  American  colonies,  the  Episcopal  church  has  always  been 
aristocratic.  Its  clergymen,  more  than  those  of  almost  any  other 
sect  both  in  England  and  America,  have  been  selected  from 
among  the  upper  classes.  Among  them,  and  presumably  among 
their  sons,  the  capacity  to  maintain  a  dignified  place  in  society, 
using  the  word  in  its  broader  sense,  has  been  quite  as  important 
as  intellectual  keenness  and  has  presumably  had  an  appreciable 
effect  upon  the  type  of  leaders  which  the  church  has  produced. 

The  Congregational  church  furnishes  an  example  of  a  selec- 
tion more  rigid  than  that  of  the  preceding  churches.  We  have 
already  seen  that  practically  the  whole  of  the  early  members  of 
that  church  were  people  whose  moral  convictions  lead  them  to 
separate  themselves  from  the  dominant  Episcopahans  and  make 
the  hard  migration  to  the  new  world. 

The  original  Unitarians  were  almost  wholly  Congregational- 
ists.  Their  leaders  were  an  unusually  intellectual  and  thought- 
ful group  who  separated  from  the  Congregational  church  because 
a  century  ago  they  had  arrived  at  certain  convictions  which  now 
have  become  the  common  property  of  most  scientific  men  and 
of  a  large  number  of  the  more  thoughtful  people  in  all  the  more 
intellectual  denominations.  The  emphasis  of  the  Unitarians 
upon  pure  intellect  and  the  repression  of  appeals  to  the  emotions 
or  to  external  authority  have  caused  them  to  remain  a  relatively 
small  body,  but  have  at  the  same  time  acted  as  selective  factors 
to  keep  within  the  denomination  a  high  proportion  of  unusually 


THE  CHARACTER  OP  RACES 


intellectual  people.  Therefore  it  is  not  surprising  that  in  pro- 
portion to  their  numbers  the  Unitarians  and  especially  their  cler- 
gymen have  contributed  a  greater  number  of  eminent  leaders 
than  has  any  other  group  of  Americans  for  whom  we  have  sta- 
tistics. Here  is  a  list  of  a  few  of  the  many  Unitarian  leaders. 
Those  whose  fathers  were  clergymen  are  indicated  by  asterisks : 
Charles  Francis  Adams,  father  and  son,  diplomatists  and 
historians. 

Henry  Adams,  and  his  brother,  Brooks  Adams,  historians. 
The  fact  that  the^six  members  of  the  Adams  family  men- 
tioned in  this  list  and  in  that  which  follows  represent 
four  generations  of  the  same  family  is  typical  of  many 
cases  where  inherited  talent  appears  for  generation  after 
generation. 
Louisa  M.  Alcott,  author. 
James  Freeman  Clarke,  historian. 
Richard  H.  Dana,  author  of  Two  Years  Before  the  Mast, 
Dorothy  Dix,  philanthropist  and  author. 
Charles  W.  Eliot,  president  of  Harvard  College. 
*H.  H.  Furness,  Shakespearean  scholar. 
*Edward  Everett  Hale,  author  and  clergyman. 
Thomas  W.  Higginson,  author,  philanthropist,  merchant. 
Helen  Hunt  Jackson,  author. 
Sarah  Orne  Jewett,  author. 
David  Starr  Jordan,  college  president. 
Henry  C.  Lodge,  senator  and  author. 
Theodore  Parker,  theologian. 
John  Randolph,  statesman. 
Laura  E.  Richards,  author. 
William  H.  Taft,  President  of  the  United  States. 
Impressive  as  this  list  may  be,  it  by  no  means  shows  the  full 
quality  of  the  contribution  of  Unitarians  to  the  Hfe  and  thought 
of  America.  The  University  of  New  York  contains  what  is  known 
as  the  Hall  of  Fame.  The  sixty-three  names  thus  far  recorded 
there  have  been  selected  with  great  care  by  a  jury  of  one  hundred 
eminent  people  after  prolonged  and  thoughtful  study.  They 


THE  SELECTION  OF  MODERN  AMERICANS  S25 


represent  the  matured  judgment  of  a  group  of  people  from  whose 
deliberations  the  question  of  rehgious  affiliation  was  rigidly  ex- 
cluded. Yet  here  is  the  reply  that  I  received  when  I  asked  a 
prominent  Unitarian  for  a  list  of  the  persons  of  his  denomination 
included  in  the  Hall  of  Fame: 

It  is  always  somewhat  difficult  to  define  a  Unitarian.  Ours  is  a  Church 
of  the  Spirit  rather  than  of  the  Letter.  Our  church  membership  is  less  dis- 
tinctively marked  than  in  better  disciplined  organizations.  A  man  is  some- 
times justly  claimed  as  a  Unitarian  whose  habits  of  mind  and  principles  of 
conduct  obviously  ally  him  with  that  fellowship,  but  who  has  no  definite 
membership  in  any  Unitarian  church  or  congregation. 

In  reviewing  the  list  of  names  in  the  Hall  of  Fame  it  may  safely  be  said 
that  twenty  are  the  names  of  men  and  women  who  had  a  fairly  definite 
allegiance  to  the  Unitarian  fellowship,  and  there  are  in  addition  the  names 
of  several  persons  whose  sympathies  were  evidently  with  that  fellowship 
though  they  were  probably  never  actually  or  actively  connected  with  a 
Unitarian  church.  The  names  of  the  Unitarians  are: 

*01iver  Wendell  Holmes. 
Henry  Wadsworth  Longfellow. 
*James  Russell  Lowell. 
Horace  Mann. 
John  Lothrop  Motley. 
*Francis  Parkman. 
Joseph  Storey. 
Daniel  Webster. 
Charlotte  Cushman. 
Maria  Mitchell. 

In  addition  the  Unitarians  may  not  unreasonably  claim  Thomas  Jeffer- 
son (who  lived  where  there  was  no  Unitarian  Church  in  which  to  worship 
but  who  wrote:  "I  trust  there  is  not  a  young  man  now  in  the  United  States 
who  will  not  die  a  Unitarian"),  John  Greenleaf  Whittier  and  Lucretia  Mott, 
who  were  born  Quakers  but  who  recognized  their  connection  with  the  Uni- 
tarian habit  of  mind  and  often  attended  Unitarian  churches. 

There  is  one  name  in  the  list  whose  denominational  connections  I  cannot 
identify.  It  is  that  of  George  Peabody.  His  family  connections  in  Salem 
were  all  in  Unitarian  churches  but  whether  he  maintained  that  connection 
or  not  I  do  not  know. 

This  discussion  of  the  Hall  of  Fame  brings  out  two  remarkable 
facts.  First,  out  of  the  sixty-three  people  thus  far  adjudged  worthy 
of  a  place  among  America's  most  useful  leaders  at  least  one-third 
are  Unitarians.    Second,  among  the  twenty  whose  Unitarian 


John  Adams. 

John  Quincy  Adams. 

Louis  Agassiz. 
*George  Bancroft. 

WiUiam  Cullen  Bryant. 

William  EUery  Channing. 

Peter  Cooper. 
*Ralph  Waldo  Emerson. 

Benjamin  Franklin. 

Nathaniel  Hawthorne. 


326 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


connections  are  positive  no  less  than  five  were  the  sons  of  minis- 
ters. Among  the  entire  forty-three  names  mentioned  in  connec- 
tion with  our  two  Hsts  of  Unitarians  seven  were  the  sons  of  min- 
isters. The  remarkable  quality  of  these  facts  can  best  be  appre- 
ciated by  realizing  that  there  were  no  Unitarians  as  a  distinct 
denomination  until  the  early  part  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
The  denomination  has  never  been  large,  and  to-day  numbers  only 
about  100,000  adherents,  or  one  in  1,000  of  our  population.  At 
present  the  Unitarians  have  less  than  600  ministers,  or  perhaps 
one  for  every  forty  adult  men  among  their  nominal  parishioners. 
At  the  time  when  the  people  who  are  enrolled  in  the  Hall  of  Fame 
were  born,  the  relative  nimaber  of  Unitarians  was  probably  larger 
than  now,  perhaps  one  in  300  of  the  total  population,  but  the 
proportion  of  ministers  was  presumably  not  greatly  different. 
In  that  case  the  productivity  of  the  Unitarians  in  supplying  lead- 
ers of  the  first  rank  has  been  about  150  times  as  great  as  that  of 
the  remainder  of  the  population,  while  that  of  Unitarian  min- 
isters has  been  nearly  1,500  times  as  great. 

The  eminent  sons  of  Unitarian  ministers  seem  to  represent  the 
final  result  of  a  long  process  of  natural  selection.  Many  centuries 
ago  there  came  to  East  Anglia  some  migrant  Saxons,  Danes,  and 
Normans,  selected  groups  of  people,  uncommonly  intelligent  and 
competent.  At  a  later  date  many  of  their  most  thoughtful  descen- 
dants became  Puritans,  a  second  selection.  Then  from  among  the 
Puritans  a  third  selection  separated  those  with  special  earnest- 
ness, determination,  and  adaptability,  and  led  them  to  migrate 
to  America.  In  the  fourth  place,  among  their  descendants  an- 
other group  characterized  by  unilsual  intellectual  activity  and 
high  moral  purposes  became  Unitarians.  Finally,  among  these 
intellectual  people  a  fifth  selection  during  the  first  half  of  the 
present  century  picked  out  many  of  the  most  earnest  and  thought- 
ful as  clergymen.  These  Unitarian  clergymen,  more  than  any 
other  group  in  proportion  to  their  numbers,  have  been  the  fathers 
of  the  recent  leaders  of  America.  Their  case  resembles  that  of 
the  Khmers  of  Cambodia,  the  Hakkas  of  Cliina,  the  ancient 
Athenians,  the  Normans  in  Sicily,  and  the  Vikings  in  Iceland. 


THE  SELECTION  OF  MODERN  AMERICANS  327 


If  such  a  stock  as  this,  or  any  other  similar  stock,  should  be 
isolated  in  a  good  environment  and  should  become  the  sole 
ancestors  of  the  inhabitants  of  some  great  state,  what  heights 
of  attainment  might  be  achieved. 

I  have  devoted  much  space  to  the  Puritans  because  they  ap- 
pear to  be  the  most  notable  instance  of  natural  selection  in 
America.  But  there  are  many  other  cases  which  will  well  repay 
study.  Let  us  select  one  as  far  removed  from  New  England  as 
possible.  Up  to  1849  California  was  a  distant  Mexican  province. 
Then  it  suddenly  began  to  grow  into  one  of  the  greatest  States 
in  the  Union.  I  have  studied  all  sorts  of  statistics  again  and 
again  in  order  to  discover  how  the  various  States  compare  with 
one  another  in  real  progress.  Time  after  time  I  have  been  struck 
by  the  fact  that  in  a  great  variety  of  activities  California  ranks 
higher  than  the  States  immediately  east  of  it  and  finds  no  rivals 
until  the  Northern  States  to  the  east  of  the  Mississippi  are 
reached.  This  is  true  in  education,  in  literary  achievement,  in 
commerce,  in  manufacturing,  in  religious  activity,  and  in  other 
ways.  Take  the  universities  and  scientific  institutions  of  the 
country,  for  example.  Among  the  universities  California  has  two 
that  are  famous  all  over  the  country.  The  University  of  Cahfor- 
nia  is  probably  better  known  than  any  other  west  of  the  Missis- 
sippi, and  there  is  perhaps  none  south  of  Baltimore  to  compare 
with  it.  Leland  Stanford  also  is  one  of  the  most  famous  univer- 
sities in  America,  while  the  new  California  Institute  of  Technol- 
ogy at  Los  Angeles  seems  to  be  achieving  remarkable  things  in 
proportion  to  its  age.  Among  scientific  institutions  Cahfornia 
has  several  which  are  becoming  famous  all  over  the  world,  for 
example,  the  Lick  Observatory,  the  Mount  Wilson  Observatory, 
and  the  Scripps  Institute,  and  others  are  beginning  to  arise.  No- 
where else  to  the  west  of  the  Mississippi  River  does  one  find  any- 
thing equally  well  known  of  similar  kind.  Again  in  politics  Cali- 
fornia has  become  one  of  the  pivotal  States  not  so  much  because 
of  its  size,  but  because  its  people  vote  independently,  and  send  to 
Washington  men  who  command  attention.  In  many  other  ways 
the  whole  country  is  conscious  that  Cahfornia  is  a  State  to  be 


328 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


reckoned  with.  Neither  its  area  nor  the  size  of  its  population 
cause  this,  for  few  people  have  the  same  feeling  about  Montana, 
or  New  Mexico,  which  almost  rival  it  in  area,  or  about  Georgia, 
which  is  almost  as  populous,  or  about  Texas,  which  far  exceeds 
California  in  both  respects.  Mere  size  counts  for  almost  noth- 
ing, for  Massachusetts,  although  only  one-nineteenth  as  large  as 
California,  is  one  of  the  States  that  has  to  be  reckoned  with  most 
fully.  San  Francisco,  like  Boston,  is  known  all  over  the  country 
as  a  place  where  things  are  done,  a  city  of  achievement.  The 
way  in  which  the  city  rebuilt  itself  after  the  earthquake  and  fire 
of  1906  is  admired  all  over  the  world.  And  Los  Angeles  likewise 
has  an  extraordinarily  wide  reputation  for  wealth,  culture,  and 
progress,  as  well  as  for  esoteric  sects  and  moving  pictures. 

One  reason  why  California  stands  out  so  pre-eminently  is 
doubtless  its  good  climate,  but  on  the  basis  of  climate  alone  it  is 
probable  that  Oregon  and  Washington  should  stand  equally  high 
or  higher.  California,  however,  seems  to  have  another  reason 
for  its  eminence.  Like  New  England  it  had  a  good  start  because 
of  natural  selection.  The  first  important  group  of  Enghsh- 
speaking  people  in  California  was  the  Forty-niners.  They  came 
rushing  to  the  State  when  gold  was  discovered.  In  one  sense 
they  were  a  wild  lot,  for  they  were  adventurers,  but  in  another 
sense  they  were  highly  selected.  It  was  a  long,  difficult  journey 
to  California  in  1849.  Overland  it  took  three  months  or  more  of 
hard  and  dangerous  travelling.  By  sea  it  took  about  as  long,  for 
even  if  one  went  by  Panama  instead  of  Cape  Horn  it  was  often 
necessary  to  wait  for  a  ship  on  the  Pacific  side.  And  the  ships 
in  those  days  were  sailing  vessels.  The  trip  to  the  gold  mines 
took  money  as  well  as  time.  Only  rarely  did  a  genuinely  poor 
man  get  there.  Courage  and  the  spirit  of  adventure  were  also 
highly  necessary.  Hence  the  Forty-niners  were  on  the  whole  a 
group  of  young  and  vigorous  men,  well-born,  fond  of  adventure, 
fairly  well-to-do,  and  animated  by  the  desire  to  see  the  world  as 
weU  as  make  a  fortune.  An  uncommonly  large  number  were 
college  graduates.  In  other  words,  the  early  Californians  were 
selected  for  qualities  somewhat  like  those  of  the  Puritans,  except 


THE  SELECTION  OF  MODERN  AMERICANS  329 


that  the  religious  and  moral  element  was  lacking,  but  there  was 
no  lack  of  ability. 

Many  of  the  Forty-niners  went  back  to  their  old  homes,  but 
a  fair  percentage  stayed  in  California.  Some  sent  for  their  wives 
or  sweethearts;  many  went  home,  found  wives,  and  returned  to 
raise  wheat,  which  in  the  long  run  was  more  profitable  than  min- 
ing gold.  In  this  case,  as  among  the  Puritans,  the  women  exer- 
cised the  strongest  selective  influence.  Only  when  a  man  with 
the  spirit  of  daring,  adventure,  and  initiative  was  mated  to  a 
woman  of  good  physique  and  of  the  same  spirit  was  a  family 
likely  to  estabHsh  itself  in  California  in  those  early  days.  For  two 
decades  the  journey  to  California  continued  to  be  especially  diffi- 
cult and  dangerous — more  so  than  to  almost  any  other  part  of  the 
United  States  where  settlement  was  then  taking  place  at  all 
rapidly.  Until  the  railroad  was  completed  in  1869  the  majority 
of  the  settlers  in  CaHfornia,  especially  those  who  brought  up 
families  and  were  not  mere  floaters,  were  rigidly  selected.  Even 
after  that  time  the  distance  to  California  and  the  expense  of 
settling  there  exerted  a  distinct  selective  effect.  Thus  San 
Francisco  and  the  neighboring  cities  were  first  peopled  by  an 
unusual  proportion  of  families  who  were  selected  because  of  the 
spirit  of  adventure  coupled  with  comparative  prosperity.  Of 
course  many  people  of  other  kinds  came  even  in  the  earlier  years, 
and  still  more  have  come  later.  But  that  does  not  alter  the  fact 
that  because  of  its  early  inaccessibility  coupled  with  the  attrac- 
tiveness of  its  gold,  its  climate,  and  its  crops,  the  part  of  Cali- 
fornia around  San  Francisco  attracted  more  than  the  normal 
proportion  of  able  people. 

In  southern  CaHfornia  the  course  of  events  was  much  the 
same  except  that  the  attraction  of  gold  was  replaced  by  that  of 
climate.  The  early  settlers  were  families  who  had  the  courage, 
the  resources,  and  the  adventurous  spirit  to  make  the  long,  hard 
journey  across  the  deserts  and  mountains  or  to  sail  the  difficult 
route  by  Cape  Horn,  with  its  storms,  or  by  Panama  with  its 
malarial  fevers.  In  later  days  the  pleasant,  equable  climate  has 
attracted  a  great  number  of  people  of  the  more  prosperous  classes. 


330 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


Los  Angeles  has  not  been  a  poor  man's  retreat.  It  has  been  a 
place  to  which  have  gone  many  prosperous  people  in  search  of 
health,  and  many  other  prosperous  people  in  search  of  pleasant 
homes.  Those  people  carried  an  inheritance  of  abihty— a  physi- 
cal inheritance— and  they  have  passed  it  on  to  their  children. 
Just  as  San  Francisco  is  notable  for  its  great  activity,  so  Los 
Angeles  is  notable  for  its  general  air  of  high  culture,  its  large 
number  of  scientific  people,  its  artists  and  religious  colonies,  its 
love  of  pleasure,  and  its  moving-picture  colony.  All  these  selected 
types  have  come  largely  because  of  certain  quahties  of  climate. 
They  have  brought  with  them  certain  ideals  and  customs,  cer- 
tain mores,  and  they  have  modified  these  somewhat  to  fit  their 
new  environment  and  their  new  neighbors.  But  for  our  present 
purpose  the  outstanding  fact  is  that  a  vast  number  of  the  settlers 
in  California  came  because  they  inherited  special  aptitudes  or 
mental  tendencies  differing  somewhat  from  those  of  the  average 
of  their  race.  For  that  reason  a  detailed  study  of  the  type  of 
migration  and  natural  selection  may  be  expected  to  throw  a 
flood  of  light  on  the  present  and  future  state  of  society  in  Cali- 
fornia. The  people  of  California,  as  well  as  the  early  New  Eng- 
landers,  have  been  unconscious  agents  in  causing  certain  distinct 
types  of  racial  character  to  be  accentuated  in  definite  geographi- 
cal regions. 

It  seems  to  me  that  this  chapter  may  well  be  concluded  with 
a  quotation  from  Adventures  in  Journalism  by  Sir  Philip  Gibbs. 
His  summing  up  of  American  character  brings  out  the  kind  of 
quahties  which  have  apparently  resulted  from  the  various  t}pes 
of  selection  that  have  operated  in  giving  the  United  States  its 
present  population.  He  does  not,  to  be  sure,  dwell  on  the  less 
commendable  quahties  which  are  now  growing  strong  among  us, 
but  one  can  see  that  he  has  them  in  mind. 

I  was  and  still  remain  convinced  that  the  United  States  will  shape,  for 
good  or  ill — and  I  believe  for  good — the  future  destiny  of  the  world,  for 
these  people,  in  the  mass,  have  a  dynamic  energ}^,  a  clear-cut  quality  of 
character,  and  a  power  not  only  of  material  wealth,  but  of  practical  ideal- 
ism, from  which  an  enormous  impetus  may  be  given  to  human  progress, 


THE  SELECTION  OF  MODERN  AMERICANS  331 


in  the  direction  of  the  common  well-being,  international  peace,  liberty, 
decency,  and  average  prosperity  of  individual  life.  I  was  not  unconscious 
of  a  strong  strain  of  intolerance;  a  dangerous  gulf  between  the  very  rich 
and — not  the  very  poor,  there  are  few  of  those — but  well-paid,  speeded-up, 
ugly-Hving,  dissatisfied  labor;  something  rather  hysterical  in  mass  emotion 
when  worked  up  by  the  wire-pullers  and  the  spell-binders;  and  the  noisy, 
blatant,  loud-mouthed  boasting  vulgarity  of  the  mob.  I  saw  the  unloveli- 
ness  of  "Main  Street,"  I  met  ''Babbitt"  in  his  club,  parlor  car,  and  private 
house.  But  though  I  did  not  shut  my  eyes  to  all  that,  and  much  more 
than  that — a  good  deal  of  it  belongs  to  civiHzation  as  well  as  to  the  United 
States — I  saw  also  the  qualities  that  outweigh  these  defects,  and,  in  my 
judgment,  contain  a  great  hope  for  the  world.  I  met,  everywhere,  numbers 
of  men  and  women  who  have  what  seems  to  me  a  clean,  sane,  level-headed 
outlook  on  life  and  its  problems.  They  beheve  in  peace,  in  a  good  chance 
for  the  individual,  in  a  decent  standard  of  hfe  for  all  people,  in  honesty  and 
truth.  They  are  impatient  of  dirt,  however  picturesque,  of  ruin,  however 
romantic,  of  hampering  tradition,  however  ancient.  They  are,  in  the  mass, 
common-sense,  practical,  and  good-natured  folk,  who,  in  the  business  of 
life,  cut  formaHties  and  get  down  to  the  job. 

But  behind  all  their  common  sense  and  their  practicality  they  are 
deeply  sentimental,  simply  and  sincerely  emotional,  quick  to  respond  to 
any  call  upon  their  pity  or  their  charity,  and  when  stirred  that  way  enor- 
mously generous.  I  agree  with  General  Swinton,  the  inventor  of  the 
"Tanks,"  who,  after  a  tour  in  the  United  States,  told  me  with  a  touch  of 
exaggeration  that  he  thought  the  Americans,  as  a  nation,  were  the  only 
idealists  left  in  the  world.  Europe  is  cynical,  remembering  too  much  his- 
tory and  suffering  too  much  disillusionment.  The  United  States,  looking 
always  to  the  future,  and  not  much  backward  to  the  past,  is  hopeful,  con- 
fident of  human  progress,  and  strangely  and  wonderfully  eager  to  find  a 
philosopher's  stone  of  human  happiness,  for  which  we,  in  Europe,  have 
almost  abandoned  search. 

I  think  that,  as  a  people,  they  are  more  ready  than  any  other  to  do 
some  great  work  of  rescue  for  humanity  (I  have  told  how  they  fed  ten 
milUon  people  a  day  in  Russia),  and  to  adopt  and  carry  out  an  ideal  on 
behalf  of  humanity  in  the  way  of  peace  and  reconstruction,  at  some  per- 
sonal sacrifice  to  themselves.  That  is  possible  at  least  in  the  United  States, 
and  it  may  almost  be  said  that  it  is  impossible  in  any  other  nation. 


CHAPTER  XXII 


THE  RACIAL  TENDENCIES  OF  CIVILIZATION 

We  have  now  examined  many  of  the  main  factors  through 
which  in  past  times  man's  physical  and  social  environments  have 
selected  certain  types  of  human  character  for  preservation  or 
destruction.  We  have  seen  in  detail  how  these  factors  cause  the 
people  of  some  regions  to  differ  markedly  from  others.  We  have 
likewise  concluded  that  in  spite  of  the  extreme  persistence  of 
heredity,  certain  races  have  acquired  new  characteristics  almost 
in  our  own  day.  Is  there  any  reason  to  think  that  the  mutations 
and  selective  processes  through  which  racial  character  has  been 
evolved  are  acting  more  slowly  than  formerly?  We  are  some- 
times told  that  although  society  may  evolve  indefinitely,  man  as 
an  animal  has  become  so  highly  speciaHzed  that  the  next  step 
must  be  degeneration.  The  only  hope  of  mankind,  it  is  said,  Hes 
in  creating  a  social  system  far  more  complex  and  perfect  than 
that  of  to-day,  a  system  in  which  each  individual  is  fully  utiHzed 
for  the  general  good,  and  all  are  as  dependent  upon  one  another 
as  are  the  ants  and  bees. 

That  man's  future  will  depend  largely  upon  his  capacity  for 
social  organization  and  his  ability  to  work  for  the  common  good 
regardless  of  himself  seems  certain.  But  this  does  not  necessarily 
mean  that  either  physical  or  especially  mental  evolution  has 
come  to  an  end,  or  that  the  next  step  will  be  degeneration.  Ac- 
cording to  the  general  opinion  of  geologists  a  few  thousand  years 
of  a  severe  climate,  such  as  a  glacial  epoch,  have  more  effect  than 
millions  of  years  of  monotony  in  destroying  some  forms  of  hfe 
and  bringing  others  to  the  front.  The  last  glacial  epoch  appears 
to  have  been  an  essential  factor  in  man's  latest  great  stride  in 
mental  evolution  whereby  he  reached  the  plane  where  civihza- 
tion  became  possible.  That  such  evolution  would  have  taken 


THE  RACIAL  TENDENCIES  OF  CIVILIZATION  333 


place  at  a  slow  rate  even  without  the  glacial  period  is  highly 
probable,  but  the  stress  of  climate  seems  greatly  to  have  has- 
tened it. 

Suppose  another  glacial  epoch  were  to  overwhelm  the  earth. 
Unless  man  is  wholly  different  from  the  other  animals,  racial 
evolution  would  be  decidedly  accelerated.  We  have,  to  be  sure, 
no  reason  for  predicting  another  glacial  epoch,  but  we  are  equally 
without  reason  for  predicting  the  contrary.  If  it  occurred,  man- 
kind would  be  subjected  to  tremendous  stress.  Most  of  the  re- 
gions now  in  the  forefront  of  progress  would  become  uninhabita- 
ble. In  North  America  agriculture  would  probably  be  out  of  the 
question  except  from  the  southern  and  southwestern  United 
States  equatorward.  Parts  of  the  United  States  and  Canada 
where  perhaps  seventy  million  people  now  live  would  actually  be 
covered  with  ice.  In  Europe  a  similar  fate  would  overtake  the 
homes  of  two  or  three  times  as  many;  only  the  Mediterranean 
and  Caspian  regions  would  be  good  for  farming.  In  China  the 
dry  winter  might  be  so  long  and  cold  and  the  summer  rains  so 
irregular  and  torrential  that  half  the  country  would  be  untillable 
and  much  of  the  rest  by  no  means  favorable. 

If  all  this  happened,  as  well  it  may,  half  the  world's  popula- 
tion might  be  forced  out  of  its  present  homes.  Millions  upon 
millions  would  either  perish  by  slow  degrees,  or  be  forced  to 
migrate  into  regions  that  now  are  deserts  or  tropical  forests. 
Such  a  change  in  the  location  of  population  would  almost  in- 
evitably cause  tremendous  stress  and  strife.  Nation  might  be 
pitted  against  nation,  race  against  race  in  a  terrific  combat  in 
which  victory  would  depend  on  many  complex  conditions.  One 
race  would  have  an  advantage  through  the  individuality  and  in- 
itiative of  its  common  people,  as  in  the  United  States;  another 
through  the  submissiveness  of  a  competent  people  to  their  lead- 
ers, as  in  Germany;  a  third  through  its  ability  and  willingness  not 
only  to  cajole  its  stronger  rivals  but  ruthlessly  to  exterminate 
those  that  are  weaker,  as  in  Turkey.  Other  races,  such  as  the 
English  and  Dutch,  would  have  a  great  advantage  through  their 
commercial  prowess.  The  tough  fiber  of  the  Chinese  and  their 


334 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


ability  to  live  economically  and  with  any  kind  of  food  would 
be  a  tremendous  asset.  In  such  a  strife  of  races  the  victory  might 
go  to  the  race  which  had  best  learned  to  combat  disease.  But 
would  such  a  race  be  able  permanently  to  compete  with  a  race 
which  had  acquired  an  inherent  resistance  to  disease  through  a 
long  process  of  selection?  Which  would  be  a  greater  asset,  the 
abihty  of  the  common  people  to  submit  their  wills  to  the  pubHc 
good,  or  the  capacity  to  produce  great  leaders?  It  would  be 
interesting,  but  futile,  to  speculate  further  as  to  what  might 
happen  if  another  glacial  period  should  occur.  The  point  is  that 
there  are  endless  possibilities  for  the  development  of  races  with 
powers  far  superior  to  any  that  the  world  has  yet  seen.  It  seems 
to  me  that  we  are  nowhere  near  the  limits  of  profitable  spe- 
cialization. 

We  have  used  a  possible  glacial  epoch  as  an  example  of  the 
kind  of  crisis  which  may  overwhelm  the  world,  but  other  im- 
portant crises  are  much  more  imminent.  The  growing  density 
of  population  bids  fair  within  a  generation  or  two  to  bring  a  state 
of  stress  almost  as  great  as  would  glaciation,  as  East  well  shows 
in  Mankind  at  the  Crossroads,  The  exhaustion  of  metals  and 
mineral  fuels  may  have  a  similar  effect.  Unless  radical  measures 
are  soon  taken  the  exhaustion  of  the  soil  and  of  our  stock  of 
mineral  fertilizers  may  produce  distress  and  hence  natural  selec- 
tion far  beyond  anything  that  now  is  dreamed.  So,  too,  may  the 
spread  of  new  forms  of  disease,  not  only  among  men  but  among 
plants  and  animals.  Civilization  is  still  so  young  that  these  pos- 
sibihties  have  not  yet  had  time  to  manifest  their  importance. 
We  do  not  appreciate  what  they  may  lead  to  because  we  think 
in  terms  of  days,  months,  years,  and  decades.  But  races  must 
think  in  generations,  centuries,  millenniums.  Perhaps  the  ability 
to  think  in  these  large  units,  and  act  accordingly,  may  be  a  pri- 
mary factor  in  enabling  one  race  or  another  to  survive  and 
flourish. 

It  may  still  seem  that  we  are  dealing  merely  with  remote  pos- 
sibiHties,  and  not  with  any  real  problems  of  the  immediate  future. 
But  there  is  another  change  to  be  considered.  During  the  last 


THE  RACIAL  TENDENCIES  OF  CIVILIZATION  335 


few  centuries  the  great  racial  evolution  of  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  years  has  suddenly  borne  strange  fruit.  Throughout  the  suc- 
cessive glacial  and  interglacial  epochs  the  winnowing  of  the 
future  races  of  Europe  by  alternate  pressure  from*  expanding 
deserts  in  Asia  and  expanding  ice  in  Europe  was  presumably 
producing  a  group  of  races  with  unusually  keen  active  minds. 
Five  to  ten  thousand  years  ago,  in  western  Asia  and  north  Africa, 
those  races  began  to  build  up  civilization.  Babylonia,  Egypt, 
Syria,  and  Palestine  made  their  contributions;  they  were  fol- 
lowed by  Greece  and  Rome,  and  then  by  the  countries  of  west- 
ern Europe.  In  India  and  China  a  similar  evolution  of  civiliza- 
tion went  on,  although  not  quite  so  rapidly.  But  suddenly, 
under  the  stimulus  of  a  marvelously  favorable  combination  of 
racial  mixture,  physical  environment,  new  ideas,  and  mechanical 
inventions  the  European  type  of  civilization  has  flared  up  almost 
incredibly.  Modern  transportation,  manufacturing,  and  the 
growth  of  cities  have  altered  man's  environment  and  transformed 
life  in  a  single  century  more  than  it  was  previously  altered  by 
ten  thousand  years  of  civilization  and  barbarism  or  half  a  mil- 
lion years  of  savagery. 

LTniversal  education,  modern  medicine,  the  democratic  or- 
ganization of  society  and  of  government,  the  adoption  of  new 
moral  and  religious  standards,  the  emancipation  of  women,  and 
the  partial  substitution  of  altruism  for  egoism  are  producing 
equally  revolutionary  results.  These  changes  are  substituting  an 
indoor  for  an  outdoor  life;  they  are  putting  desks,  pens,  push- 
buttons, and  levers  in  place  of  the  plow,  hoe,  axe,  and  scythe; 
the  creamery  and  flour-mill  in  place  of  the  churn  and  grinding 
stone  that  once  occupied  so  large  a  share  of  women's  time.  They 
are  preserving  weak  children  as  well  as  strong.  They  are  sifting 
good  minds  from  poor  and  dooming  many  of  the  good  to  die 
childless.  They  are  leading  to  suicidal  movements  like  modern 
war  and  feminism.  The  moral,  social,  poHtical,  and  industrial 
revolution  in  Europe  and  North  America  during  the  last  few  cen- 
turies is  so  great  that  its  effect  on  the  evolution  of  racial  char- 
acter may  well  be  compared  to  that  of  a  glacial  epoch. 


836 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


In  what  direction  is  this  epoch-making  revolution  carrying 
us?  No  one  yet  knows,  but  some  hints  may  be  obtained  from  a 
brief  r6sum6  of  some  of  the  present  evolutionary  tendencies  in 
western  Europe  and  especially  the  United  States.  In  order  to 
appreciate  the  magnitude  of  the  cultural  revolution,  consider 
again  the  great  contrast  between  the  modern  factory  hand  in  the 
United  States  and  of  his  farmer  ancestor  in  Central  Europe.  In 
the  old  home  an  active  outdoor  life,  shared  by  the  women  as  well 
as  the  men;  pure,  fresh  air  for  both  sexes  many  hours  out  of  the 
twenty-four;  frequent  exercise  of  kinds  that  employ  all  the  mus- 
cles and  especially  the  abdominal  muscles  so  important  in  diges- 
tion and  childbearing;  an  occupation  varied  enough  to  demand 
the  exercise  of  at  least  a  moderate  amount  of  judgment  and  initi- 
ative; and  with  all  this  the  ever-present  necessity  of  planning  far 
ahead  for  the  winter^s  supply  of  food,  clothing,  and  fuel.  In  the 
factory  of  America  scarcely  an  hour  of  outdoor  air  each  day  for 
months  at  a  time;  unduly  warm,  dry,  stagnant  indoor  air  day 
and  night  for  half  the  year,  and  dusty  germ-laden  city  air  the 
rest  of  the  time;  a  cramped  position  involving  the  maximum 
harm  to  the  vital  abdominal  muscles  and  the  internal  organs; 
an  occupation  which  develops  one  limited  set  of  muscles  and  of 
mental  responses  at  the  expense  of  all  others,  and  which  demands 
little  exercise  of  the  high  faculties  of  judgment  and  initiative; 
and  with  all  this  an  almost  complete  release  from  the  necessity 
of  forethought,  for  the  grocery  store  is  around  the  corner,  the 
Union  or  the  Associated  Charities  will  feed  the  himgry  and 
clothe  the  naked,  and  the  Lord  will  provide  a  job. 

In  addition  to  all  this,  racial  mixture  is  now  proceeding  in 
the  United  States  at  a  probably  unprecedented  rate.  In  one 
place  the  white  and  the  black  are  crossing  on  a  large  scale;  in 
another  the  English  and  Italian;  elsewhere  the  Jew  and  Gentile, 
for  recent  statistics  show  that  Jews  are  marrying  outside  their 
own  race  and  faith  to  an  astonishing  degree.  The  more  diverse 
the  mingling  of  races,  the  greater  the  number  of  extreme  t}ipes 
of  people,  and  the  greater  the  opportunity  for  the  selection  of 
new  quaHties  for  preservation  and  the  formation  of  new  racial 


THE  EACIAL  TENDENCIES  OF  CIVILIZATION  337 


characteristics.  If  the  presence  of  these  new  types  and  the  stress 
of  a  new  environment  and  of  new  occupations  do  not  cause  some 
change  in  racial  character,  the  people  of  America  would  seem  to 
be  breaking  an  immutable  law  of  nature.  But  they  are  not 
breaking  this  law,  for  it  is  a  matter  of  common  observation  that 
new  types  of  character— several  of  them— are  actually  develop- 
ing in  the  United  States. 

Is  this  a  good  thing?  In  the  course  of  centuries  will  this 
country  and  the  world  be  stronger  because  of  these  new  types? 
A  conclusive  answer  is  impossible.  The  whole  matter  is  too  com- 
plex, and  there  are  no  reHable  statistics.  The  only  thing  we  can 
do  is  to  suggest  certain  probable  tendencies.  Take  factory  work 
in  America.  What  kind  of  people  can  best  stand  it  ?  Here  are 
two  men  of  equal  abihty  otherwise,  but  one  is  phlegmatic  and 
the  other  nervous.  Neither  has  brains  enough  to  be  more  than 
an  unskilled  worker.  The  phlegmatic  man  would  seem  to  have 
an  advantage,  for  he  can  endure  the  endlessly  monotonous  task 
of  sticking  a  million  bits  of  metal  into  the  same  machine,  day 
after  day  for  years.  The  other  cannot  stand  it  more  than  so 
long.  Then  he  throws  up  his  job,  loafs  a  while,  looks  for  work, 
lets  his  family  be  cared  for  by  charity,  finds  a  new  job,  moves 
on  again,  and  finally  drifts  away  and  leaves  his  family.  Such  a 
man,  it  would  seem,  is  likely  to  have  fewer  children  than  the 
other,  and  in  spite  of  philanthropic  assistance  his  children  are 
more  likely  to  die  than  are  those  of  the  steadier,  more  phlegmatic 
man.  Thus  one  tendency  of  modern  manufacturing  may  be  to 
increase  the  proportion  of  dull,  phlegmatic,  unenterprising  peo- 
ple at  the  bottom  of  the  social  ladder.  Perhaps  our  mechanical 
inventions  are  helping  to  give  part  of  our  people  a  certain  Chinese 
quality.  But  factory  work  does  not  put  any  such  premium  on 
industry,  economy,  and  endurance  as  does  the  life  of  the  Chinese 
farmer.  In  fact,  the  methods  of  many  modern  unions  and  the 
invention  of  automatic  machinery  go  far  toward  removing  all 
advantages  from  the  laborer  who  is  industrious,  thrifty,  and  per- 
sistent. The  union  likewise  joins  with  public  and  private  charity 
in  diminishing  the  selective  value  of  economy.  So  it  may  be  that 


338 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


our  occidental  factory  system  favors  the  preservation  of  a  type 
of  people  less  valuable  than  the  common  Chinese  farmer. 

Let  us  carry  our  investigation  into  other  fields.  From  the 
standpoint  of  racial  evolution  which  is  better  off,  war-ridden 
Europe  or  peaceful  America?  The  biological  effect  of  war  has 
been  much  discussed.  The  question  is  not  so  much  the  number 
as  the  kind  of  people  who  are  killed,  and  not  so  much  the  kind 
who  are  killed  as  the  kind  of  children  who  are  born  compared 
with  those  who  might  have  been  born  had  there  been  no  war. 
The  direst  indictment  of  war  has  always  been  its  effect  on  the 
babies.  The  great  mistake  of  miHtarists  is  their  failure  to  recog- 
nize this.  All  wars  tend  to  take  from  home  a  large  percentage 
of  the  strong,  the  brave,  the  adventurous;  they  leave  at  home  a 
corresponding  percentage  of  the  weak,  the  cowardly,  and  those 
who  lack  that  fine  spirit  of  adventure  which  is  one  of  the  great 
roots  of  human  progress.  Of  those  who  are  taken  away  a  con- 
siderable number  die  and  leave  no  children,  while  among  those 
who  come  back  some  are  wounded  and  crippled,  while  many 
must  wait  before  estabhshing  new  homes  and  having  children. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  undesired  remnant  who  stay  at  home 
often  enjoy  unusual  prosperity  because  of  the  scarcity  of  labor, 
and  succeed  in  marrying  sooner  or  in  marrying  better  women 
than  would  normally  be  the  case.  Hence  they  bring  to  maturity 
more  children  than  would  otherwise  be  their  share,  while  the 
number  of  high-grade  children  is  lessened. 

In  war  the  mental  selection  is  probably  greater  than  the 
physical.  In  ancient  days  the  man  with  brain  as  well  as  brawn 
wore  armor  and  rode  a  horse.  He  doubtless  fought  more  than 
the  common  soldier,  but  he  was  less  likely  to  be  killed.  In  battle 
he  might  hew  down  scores  of  unprotected  peasants,  and  himself 
come  through  unscathed.  Even  when  attacked  by  his  fellow 
knights,  his  armor  often  saved  him  from  death  when  wounded. 
On  the  other  hand,  he  was  far  more  likely  to  be  killed  than  was 
the  stupid  yokel  who  was  left  at  home  on  the  farm  because  he 
was  too  dull  and  cowardly  to  make  a  good  soldier.  With  the  in- 
troduction of  gunpowder  the  partial  immunity  of  the  upper 


THE  RACIAL  TENDENCIES  OF  CIVILIZATION  839 


classes  largely  disappeared,  for  armor  was  no  longer  a  real  pro- 
tection. Then  the  bravest  and  most  competent  were  in  more 
danger  of  death  than  the  more  cowardly  and  the  incompetent. 
The  born  leader,  the  young  officer  who  led  the  charge  was  the 
one  most  likely  to  be  shot.  Thus  war  lost  whatever  beneficial 
selective  action  it  may  have  had  in  more  primitive  ages. 

Modern  war  has  not  changed  all  this.  The  officers,  to  be 
sure,  are  now  protected  as  far  as  possible,  but  it  is  the  higher  and 
older  officers  who  profit  by  this,  the  ones  whose  families  in  many 
cases  are  already  complete.  The  younger  ones,  the  lieutenants 
and  the  non-commissioned  officers  who  are  in  line  for  commis- 
sions, are  more  likely  than  ever  to  be  killed.  They  lead  the 
charge;  they  go  out  between  the  firing  lines  to  obtain  informa- 
tion ;  from  their  ranks  are  recruited  the  men  who  take  their  lives 
in  their  hands  for  special  missions.  Moreover,  we  have  lately 
seen  the  development  of  a  new  type  of  warfare  more  deadly  than 
any  that  ever  preceded  it  and  at  the  same  time  demanding  higher 
qualities.  In  the  whole  realm  of  human  ingenuity  aerial  warfare 
is  one  of  the  most  effective  methods  ever  devised  for  killing  the 
unusually  able  young  men.  In  the  Air  Service  the  common  sol- 
dier stays  safely  on  the  ground  far  behind  the  lines;  the  highly 
selected,  highly  trained,  and  exceptionally  skilled  aviator  flies 
high  in  the  air,  assails  the  enemy,  and  dies. 

Of  a  piece  with  this  biological  iniquity  is  the  modern  labor 
battalion.  What  is  the  biological  meaning  of  such  a  battalion? 
Among  a  hundred  recruits  perhaps  twenty  are  of  unusually  poor 
mental  caliber.  Let  us  pick  these  out  for  the  labor  battalion; 
that  will  permit  them  to  stay  behind  the  lines;  it  will  prevent 
most  of  them  from  being  killed;  and  it  will  let  them  go  home  to 
become  the  fathers  of  the  next  generation.  But  here  are  five 
youths  of  exceptional  ability.  Let  us  make  aviators  of  them  and 
kill  them. 

In  addition  to  all  this,  modern  war  calls  from  home  a  large 
share  of  the  most  able  of  the  men  above  thirty  years  of  age,  the 
ones  who  are  most  likely  to  be  the  fathers  of  valuable  children. 
These  men  take  up  the  burden  of  supplying  arms  and  munitions, 


340 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


of  running  the  transportation  system,  of  gathering  information, 
dealing  with  other  countries,  controlling  the  supphes  of  food  and 
clothing,  and  a  hundred  other  occupations  which  formerly  were 
allowed  to  take  care  of  themselves.  The  more  able  a  man  is,  the 
more  likely  he  is  to  be  taken  away  from  home.  He  may  not  be 
killed,  but  he  is  not  likely  to  have  children  while  the  war  lasts. 
On  the  other  hand,  his  less  competent  neighbor  stays  at  home 
and  brings  up  a  family.  Whatever  may  have  been  the  case  in 
the  past,  it  is  hard  to  see  any  important  way  in  which  modern 
war  tends  to  improve  the  inheritance  of  the  succeeding  genera- 
tions. It  is  easy  to  see  scores  of  ways  in  which  it  lowers  that 
quality.  A  few  decades  of  war  like  the  World  War  might  injure 
the  inheritance  of  the  western  world  almost  irretrievably.  If 
war  is  followed  by  wholesale  execution  and  expulsion  of  the  most 
competent  parts  of  the  population,  as  in  Russia,  it  is  almost  im- 
possible to  estimate  the  degree  to  v/hich  the  general  caliber  of 
the  people  may  be  lowered. 

Sad  as  are  the  effects  of  war  on  the  racial  inheritance  of  the 
western  world,  the  effect  of  peace  seems  to  be  almost  worse. 
Religion  and  its  modern  sister  philanthropy  have  perhaps  rivaled 
war  in  lowering  the  biological  caliber  of  the  human  race.  We 
have  here  one  of  the  strange  contradictions  which  are  so  com- 
mon in  this  whole  subject.  An  agency  which  works  almost  incal- 
culable good  to  the  individual  and  to  the  social  organism  appears 
to  work  equally  great  harm  to  the  race.  In  this  I  do  not  refer 
mainly  to  the  fact  that  religion  and  philanthropy  with  the  aid  of 
modern  medicine  are  preserving  a  larger  and  larger  share  of  the 
weak  and  incompetent.  This  is  probably  a  minor  matter  com- 
pared with  the  diminution  of  the  competent.  What  have  rehgion 
and  philanthropy  to  answer  for  in  this  respect  ?  As  far  back  as 
the  days  of  the  early  Christians,  and  indeed  in  still  earlier  times 
groups  of  unusually  religious  men  separated  themselves  from  the 
world.  They  assumed  vows  of  celibacy;  they  planned  to  honor 
God  by  breaking  away  from  what  they  called  the  world,  the 
flesh,  and  the  devil.  Even  so  wise  a  man  as  Saint  Paul  was  him- 
self unmarried  and  urged  the  Christian  priest  and  minister  to 


THE  RACIAL  TENDENCIES  OF  CIVILIZATION  341 


follow  his  example:  "I  would  that  ye  also  were  as  I  am."  And 
hundreds,  thousands,  millions,  have  followed  that  example, 
women  as  well  as  men.  How  many  monks,  nuns,  and  celibate 
priests  there  have  been  since  the  beginning  of  the  Christian  era 
cannot  be  estimated  even  approximately,  but  there  have  almost 
certainly  been  millions.  To-day  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  is 
estimated  to  have  somewhere  in  the  neighborhood  of  1,500,000 
persons  vowed  to  celibacy.  Galton  expresses  himself  so  force- 
fully on  this  subject  that  I  am  impelled  to  quote  him  at  consider- 
able length. 

.  .  .  The  long  period  of  the  dark  ages  under  which  Europe  has  lain  is 
due,  I  believe,  in  a  very  considerable  degree  to  the  celibacy  enjoined  by 
religious  orders  on  their  votaries.  Whenever  a  man  or  woman  was  possessed 
of  a  gentle  nature  that  fitted  him  or  her  to  deeds  of  charity,  to  meditation, 
to  literature,  or  to  art,  the  social  condition  of  the  time  was  such  that  they 
had  no  refuge  elsewhere  than  in  the  bosom  of  the  Church.  But  the  Church 
chose  to  preach^and  exact  celibacy.  The  consequence  was  that  these  gentle 
natures  had  no  continuance,  and  thus,  by  a  poHcy  so  singularly  unwise 
and  suicidal  that  I  am  hardly  able  to  speak  of  it  without  impatience,  the 
Church  brutaHzed  the  breed  of  our  forefathers.  She  acted  precisely  as 
if  she  had  aimed  at  selecting  the  rudest  portion  of  the  community  to  be 
alone  the  parents  of  future  generations.  She  practised  the  arts  which 
breeders  would  use,  who  aimed  at  creating  ferocious,  churlish,  and  stupid 
natures.  No  wonder  that  club-law  prevailed  for  centuries  over  Europe; 
the  wonder  rather  is  that  enough  good  remained  in  the  veins  of  Europeans 
to  enable  their  race  to  rise  to  its  present,  very  moderate  level  of  natural 
moraUty.  .  .  . 

The  policy  of  the  religious  world  in  Europe  was  exerted  in  another  direc- 
tion, with  hardly  less  cruel  effect  on  the  nature  of  future  generations,  by 
means  of  persecutions  which  brought  thousands  of  the  foremost  thinkers 
and  men  of  pohtical  aptitudes  to  the  scaffold,  or  imprisoned  them  during  a 
large  part  of  their  manhood  or  drove  them  as  emigrants  into  other  lands. 
In  every  one  of  these  cases,  the  check  upon  their  leaving  issue  was  very 
considerable.  Hence  the  Church,  having  first  captured  all  the  gentle  na- 
tures and  condemned  them  to  celibacy,  made  another  sweep  of  her  huge 
nets,  this  time  fishing  in  stirring  waters,  to  catch  those  who  were  the  most 
fearless,  truth-seeking,  and  intelHgent  in  their  modes  of  thought,  and  there- 
fore the  most  suitable  parents  of  a  high  civilization,  and  put  a  strong  check, 
if  not  a  direct  stop,  to  their  progeny. 

.  .  .  The  extent  to  which  persecution  must  have  affected  European 
races  is  easily  measured  by  a  few  well-known  statistical  facts.  Thus,  as 
regards  martyrdom  and  imprisonment,  the  Spanish  nation  was  drained  of 


342 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


free-thinkers  at  the  rate  of  i,ooo  persons  annually,  for  the  three  centuries 
between  1471  and  1781;  an  average  of  icq  persons  having  been  executed 
and  900  imprisoned  every  year  during  that  period.  The  actual  data  during 
those  three  hundred  years  are  32,000  burnt,  17,000  persons  burnt  in  effigy 
(I  presume  they  mostly  died  in  prison  or  escaped  from  Spain),  and  291,000 
condemned  to  various  terms  of  imprisonment  and  other  penalties.  It  is 
impossible  that  any  nation  could  stand  a  poUcy  like  this  without  paying  a 
heavy  penalty  in  the  deterioration  of  its  breed,  as  has  notably  been  the 
result  in  the  formation  of  the  superstitious,  unintelligent  Spanish  race  of 
the  present  day. 

Italy  was  also  frightfully  persecuted  at  an  earlier  date.  In  the  diocese 
of  Como,  alone,  more  than  1,000  were  tried  annually  by  the  inquisitors  for 
many  years,  and  300  were  burnt  in  the  single  year  141 6. 

The  French  persecutions,  by  which  the  Enghsh  have  been  large  gainers, 
through  receiving  their  industrial  refugees,  were  on  a  nearly  similar  scale. 
Three  or  four  hundred  thousand  Protestants  perished  in  prison,  at  the 
galleys,  in  their  attempts  to  escape,  or  on  the  scaffold,  and  an  equal  number 
emigrated.  Mr.  Smiles  in  his  admirable  book  on  the  Huguenots,  has  traced 
the  influence  of  these  and  of  the  Flemish  emigrants  on  England,  and  shows 
clearly  that  she  owes  to  them  almost  all  her  industrial  arts  and  very  much 
of  the  most  valuable  life-blood  of  her  modern  race.  .  .  .  (Galton.) 

The  Protestant  church  is  better  off  than  the  Roman  Catho- 
lic because  it  permits  its  ministers  to  marry.  How  important 
this  is  we  have  already  seen  in  our  study  of  the  eminent  sons  of 
clergymen.  We  are  led  to  a  similar  conclusion  by  the  fact  that 
according  to  Cattell's  data  in  American  Men  of  Science,  1921, 
each  thousand  of  the  members  of  the  various  professions  in  1850 
produced  the  following  numbers  of  sons  who  rank  among  the 
885  leading  American  men  of  science  for  whom  the  facts  are 
available : 


Clergymen   3.3 

Lawyers   2.5 


Teachers   2.4 

Physicians   16 


The  relative  preponderance  of  clergymen's  sons  among  scien- 
tific men  is  the  more  remarkable  when  it  is  remembered  that 
when  these  scientists  were  born  there  was  supposed  to  be  a  bitter 
conflict  between  science  and  religion.  In  other  lines  of  eminence 
the  sons  of  ministers  seem  to  stand  equally  high,  as  we  have 


THE  RACIAL  TENDENCIES  OF  CIVILIZATION  343 


already  seen,  and  this  is  especially  true  of  the  ministers  of  early 
New  England  stock  who  preserve  the  biological  as  well  as  the 
social  and  religious  heritage  of  the  Puritans  more  fully  than 
almost  any  other  group  in  America. 

Of  late,  however,  the  Protestant  church  has  fallen  into  bad 
ways  so  far  as  heredity  is  concerned.  Religious  orders  with  vows 
of  celibacy  are  indeed  rare  among  Protestants,  but  there  has 
grown  up  in  many  quarters  the  idea  that  both  men  and  women 
can  do  better  service  to  God  and  their  fellows  by  remaining  un- 
married than  by  having  homes.  I  listened  to  a  missionary  about 
forty  years  of  age.  She  was  sweet,  strong,  finely  built,  and  most 
attractive;  she  had  the  subtle  quality  of  charm  and  no  small 
share  of  mental  ability.  That  fine  thing  called  character  showed 
itself  in  her  earnestness,  her  clearness,  and  above  all  in  her  de- 
termination. I  know  nothing  of  her  personal  experiences.  Yet  I 
feel  quite  sure  that  if  she  were  asked  why  she  was  not  married, 
she  would  say  that  she  was  serving  God  better  by  engaging  in 
Christian  service  than  she  could  by  bringing  up  four  or  five 
children  of  her  own.  Hundreds  of  our  finest  young  women  say 
that  and  believe  it,  little  recking  that  by  cutting  off  the  supply 
of  strong  personalities  they  may  hurt  future  generations  infi- 
nitely more  than  they  help  the  present  generation. 

Consider  the  meaning  of  the  age-long  procession  of  monks, 
nuns,  celibate  priests,  unmarried  clergy,  and  religious  and  philan- 
thropic workers  who  give  up  marriage  and  children.  It  means 
that  for  hundreds  of  years  there  has  been  a  steady  tendency  to 
eradicate  from  the  human  race  the  qualities  that  make  people 
religious  and  philanthropic.  There  are  some  weaklings  in  every 
group,  but  the  vast  majority  of  this  great  body  of  religious  and 
philanthropic  workers  stand  far  above  the  average  not  only  in 
reverence,  love  of  man,  humility,  and  devotion  to  duty,  but  in 
strength  of  will,  capacity  for  leadership,  and  power  of  initiative. 
Remember  too  that  so  far  as  such  people  marry  they  tend  to 
marry  their  own  kind,  and  to  have  children  who  by  both  hered- 
ity and  training  resemble  themselves.  The  number  of  mission- 
aries' children  who  become  missionaries  is  extraordinary.  It  does 


844 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


not  seem  possible  that  this  great  process  of  exterminating  the 
religious  stock  of  Europe  can  have  persisted  one  or  two  thou- 
sand years  without  lessening  the  innate  religious  tendencies  of 
the  people  as  a  whole.  Perhaps  the  fact  that  this  has  gone  on 
so  much  more  in  countries  like  Italy  and  Spain  than  in  Scotland 
and  Switzerland  has  something  to  do  with  the  fact  that  the  Latin 
countries  where  priests  and  monks  have  been  most  numerous  are 
by  no  means  the  countries  where  the  people  display  the  strong- 
est tendencies  toward  personal  and  effective  religion.  On  the 
contrary,  religion  is  most  vital  and  influential  where  the  min- 
isters have  had  large  families.  That  the  monasteries  kept  alive 
the  spark  of  learning;  that  organized  religion  at  all  times,  and 
organized  philanthropy  in  our  own  day  have  been  among  the 
greatest  benefactors  of  mankind,  I  do  not  question  for  a  mo- 
ment. But  how  about  the  price? 

The  whole  argument  which  applies  to  religion  applies  also  to 
education.  From  time  immemorial  there  has  been  a  tendency 
for  the  scholar  to  abstract  himself  from  the  world,  and  to  rid 
himself  of  the  ties  of  family.  This  has  been  partly  because  of  his 
absorption  in  his  work,  but  quite  as  much  because  the  world  has 
not  recognized  the  value  of  original  thought.  Many  a  thinker, 
many  an  inventor  has  remained  impoverished,  unmarried,  and 
childless  because  the  world  has  not  been  able  to  see  the  value  of 
his  ideas  and  hence  has  not  been  willing  to  pay  even  a  Hving 
wage.  It  has  laughed  at  such  seekers-for-truth,  and  has  per- 
mitted the  source  of  such  personaHties  to  dry  up. 

According  to  the  census  of  1920  some  635,000  women  are 
teaching  school  in  the  United  States.  They  may  not  be  so 
highly  selected  as  they  were  before  other  occupations  were  open 
to  women,  but  nevertheless  they  are  far  above  the  average. 
Otherwise  they  could  not  have  completed  their  education  in 
high  school,  normal  school,  or  college.  The  mere  fact  that  they 
are  teachers  makes  it  certain  that  the  percentage  of  marriages 
among  them  will  be  low  and  that  those  who  marry  will  on  the 
average  marry  late  and  have  few  children.  They  have  chosen 
an  occupation  which  more  or  less  isolates  them  from  men,  and 


THE  RACIAL  TENDENCIES  OF  CIVILIZATION  345 


which  in  other  ways  withdraws  them  from  the  ranks  of  mother- 
hood. Theirs  is  a  noble  and  indispensable  occupation,  but  in  the 
process  of  building  up  the  social  structure  of  education,  they  are 
cutting  ofif  the  supply  of  the  kind  of  children  who  are  best  worth 
educating.  Their  occupation  adds  another  to  the  many  selective 
agencies  which  in  the  last  few  generations  have  begun  rapidly 
to  lower  the  innate  character  of  the  races  that  are  most  advanced. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 


A  RACIAL  TEST  OF  CITIES,  DEMOCRACY,  AND 
FEMINISM 

In  the  last  chapter  we  discussed  some  of  the  evolutionary 
agencies  which  are  especially  active  in  highly  civihzed  modern 
communities.  We  did  not  examine  many  statistics,  however, 
and  hence  our  results  were  merely  suggestive  rather  than  conclu- 
sive. In  the  present  chapter  we  shall  look  at  certain  other  agen- 
cies statistically,  and  shall  see  that  there  is  little  question  as  to 
their  highly  selective  activity. 

One  of  the  greatest  of  these  agencies  is  the  attraction  which 
draws  the  young  people  from  the  country  to  the  city.  On  an 
average  it  is  the  more  enterprising  and  versatile  who  go  to  the 
cities;  whereas  the  less  competent,  generally  although  by  no 
means  always,  stay  in  the  country.  It  is  almost  universally 
agreed  that  among  people  of  the  same  race  and  social  position 
the  birth-rate  is  lower  in  cities  than  in  the  country.  Thus  there 
is  to-day  a  strong  tendency,  first,  to  remove  the  brighter  young 
people  from  the  country  districts,  and  then  to  reduce  the  num- 
ber of  their  descendants  so  drastically  that  they  by  no  means 
maintain  their  due  proportion  among  the  population  as  a  whole. 
This  general  idea  has  become  familiar  through  the  writings  of 
men  like  Stoddard,  Humphreys,  and  others,  but  it  is  by  no 
means  universally  accepted.  For  example.  President  EHot  voices 
the  contrary  view:  "The  country  breeding  gives  a  vigor  and  an 
endurance  which  in  the  long  run  outweigh  aU  city  advantages, 
and  enable  the  well-endowed  country  boys  to  outstrip  their  city- 
bred  competitors." 

Let  us  examine  the  actual  facts  and  draw  our  own  conclu- 
sions. From  a  study  of  885  scientists  whom  the  votes  of  their 
fellows  had  picked  out  as  leaders,  Cattell  puts  the  cities  far 

346 


A  RACIAL  TEST 


847 


ahead  of  the  country  districts.  His  method  was  to  ascertain 
how  many  of  the  scientists  were  born  among  famihes  where  the 
fathers  pursued  various  occupations,  and  then  to  compare  these 
numbers  with  the  number  of  men  in  each  occupation.  He  makes 
his  comparisons  on  the  basis  of  the  census  of  1850,  since  the 
best-known  leaders  in  science,  as  in  most  professions,  are  fairly 
advanced  in  years.  His  results  show  that  if  the  number  of  fami- 
lies were  the  same  in  all  occupations,  the  relative  numbers  of 
eminent  scientists  in  each  of  three  great  groups  would  have  been 
as  follows: 

Farmers   i .  o 

Manufacturers  and  merchants   2.2 

Professional  men   29.0 

These  figures  mean  that  where  a  given  number  of  American 
farmers'  famihes  in  the  middle  of  the  last  century  produced  only 
a  single  scientific  leader,  the  same  number  of  famihes  of  persons 
engaged  in  manufacturing  and  trade  produced  2.2,  while  an  equal 
number  of  professional  families  gave  rise  to  29.0.  This  seems  to 
be  due  partly  to  greater  opportunities  and  better  training  in  the 
professional  families  than  in  the  others,  and  partly  to  greater 
inherent  capacity.  Whatever  may  be  its  cause,  it  seems  to  indi- 
cate a  great  difference  between  rural  and  urban  communities, 
for  the  farmers  are  mainly  rural,  while  the  manufacturers,  mer- 
chants, and  professional  men  live  largely  in  towns  and  cities. 
Moreover,  Cattell  states  specifically  that  in  proportion  to  their 
population,  regardless  of  occupation,  the  cities  have  produced 
twice  as  many  scientific  men  as  the  rural  districts,  and  the  ten- 
dency in  this  direction  is  growing. 

The  recent  investigation  by  Visher,  already  referred  to,  sup- 
pHes  even  more  conclusive  evidence  to  this  same  effect.  By  com- 
paring 18,400  persons  in  Who's  Who  for  1922-1923  with  the 
census  for  1870  he  finds  that  among  the  Americans  born  in  dif- 
ferent types  of  communities  the  relative  numbers  who  were  suffi- 
ciently notable  to  be  included  in  Who^s  Who  vary  approximately 
as  shown  in  the  last  column  of  the  following  table. 


848 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


Type  of  Birthplace 

Total  Nvimber 
Reporting 

Percentage  of 
Population  in 
1870 

Relative 
Value 

Rural  districts  

Large  cities  of  over  50,000  inhabitants — 
Small  cities  of  8,000  to  50,000  inhabitants 
Villages  and  small  towns  up  to  8,000  in- 

4,750 
3,789 
4,571 

4,488 
758 

69.9 
10. 0 
10.9 

8.2 

I.O* 

1 .0 
5.6 
6.1 

8.9^ 
10.9* 

Suburbs  of  large  cities  

•Approximate. 


The  rural  parts  of  America,  in  proportion  to  their  population, 
have  supplied  only  about  one-sixth  or  even  one-tenth  as  many  a 
of  the  present  leaders  as  have  the  portions  where  people  congre- 
gate more  closely.  Part  of  this  deficiency  is  undoubtedly  due  to 
lack  of  opportunity  and  training,  and  part  to  the  fact  that  most 
of  the  negro  population  is  rural,  but  the  depletion  of  the  rural 
stock  by  migration  to  the  villages  and  cities  is  almost  certain!}' 
another  cause  of  the  rural  deficiency  in  the  production  of  lead- 
ers. A  second  significant  fact  in  Visher's  table  is  that  although 
the  cities,  both  large  and  small,  stand  far  ahead  of  the  rural  dis- 
tricts in  the  production  of  leaders,  their  relative  values  (5.6  and 
6.1)  are  decidedly  below  those  of  the  villages  and  small  towns 
(8.9),  and  likewise  of  the  suburbs  of  the  large  cities  (10.9).  The 
cities  are  generally  considered  to  be  the  places  of  greatest  oppor- 
tunity; but  they  present  unusual  opportunities  for  evil  as  well 
as  good;  the  suburbs  and  small  towns  are  better  in  this  respect. 
Those  are  the  places  whence  come  the  leaders  in  greatest  num- 
bers, and  they  are  also  the  places  where  able,  home-loving,  sober- 
minded  people  tend  most  to  congregate,  and  to  be  least  inter- 
mixed with  the  duller  rural  types,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  plea- 
sure-loving as  well  as  the  degraded  city  types,  on  the  other 
hand. 

The  effect  of  cities  upon  the  distribution  of  persons  of  emi- 
nence has  been  much  discussed.  Ward,  in  his  Applied  Sociology  ' 
and  Cattell  in  his  work  on  American  Men  of  Science  have  em- 
phasized the  importance  of  the  urban  environment  in  pro\dding 
opportunities  and  incentives  and  thus  in  bringing  out  latent 
genius.  Davies,  in  A  Statistical  Study  of  the  Influence  of  Ewoiron- 


A  RACIAL  TEST 


349 


ment,  has  presented  a  large  number  of  correlation  coefficients 
which  seem  at  first  sight  to  show  convincingly  that  density  of 
population  is  the  main  factor  in  bringing  men  into  prominence. 
That  there  is  much  truth  in  the  position  of  these  authorities  I 
do  not  question  for  a  moment.  But  Ward  takes  no  account  of 
natural  selection,  Cattell  is  so  engrossed  in  the  admirable  task 
of  improving  the  educational  system  that  he  sees  almost  every- 
thing in  terms  of  education,  while  Davies  overlooks  the  im- 
portant fact  that  great  cities  as  a  rule  are  numerous  in  stimulat- 
ing climates.  Such  climates,  as  we  saw  in  the  case  of  Europe 
and  as  I  have  shown  for  the  United  States  in  Civilization  and 
Climate,  have  the  same  general  effect  as  education;  they  tend  to 
bring  out  whatever  abihty  a  man  may  have.  The  activity  which 
they  stimulate  also  tends  to  cause  people  to  engage  in  manufac- 
turing and  commerce  to  a  high  degree.  Hence  great  cities  and 
an  abundance  of  eminent  men  would  often  occur  in  the  same 
States  even  if  climate  were  the  only  factor  to  be  considered.  In 
the  same  way  education  alone  would  cause  the  number  of  emi- 
nent people  in  some  places  to  be  large  and  in  others  small,  pro- 
vided all  other  factors  remained  constant.  And  the  same  is  true 
of  natural  selection.  In  other  words,  the  proportion  of  eminent 
people  produced  in  a  given  community  depends  first  upon  the 
presence  of  good  material,  which  means  inheritance;  then  upon 
the  presence  of  a  stimulating  physical  environment  with  good 
conditions  of  climate,  food,  and  health;  and  third  upon  the  pres- 
ence of  a  good  social  environment  which  includes  the  right  con- 
ditions of  education,  religion,  and  social  habits. 

The  interplay  of  these  three  main  factors  in  causing  people 
to  achieve  something  unusual  is  well  illustrated  by  Clarke  in  his 
study  of  the  thousand  most  eminent  Hterary  men  born  in  Amer- 
ica prior  to  185 1.  Here  is  one  of  his  tables  which  I  have  recalcu- 
lated in  such  a  way  that  it  shows  the  number  of  eminent  literary 
persons  per  10,000  of  the  average  white  population  from  1781  to 
1850.  I  have  included  all  places  whose  average  population  was 
over  5,000. 


350 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


Average 
Popvilation 
1781-1850 

Eminent 
Literary 
Persons  Bom 
1781-1850 

Eminent 

Persons  per 

10,000 
Inhabitants 

S,ooo 

9 

18.0 

Portland  

7,500 

13 

17-3 

*Newburyport  

6,000 

9 

I5-0 

New  Haven  ,  

7,900 

9 

II. 4 

6,250 

7 

II. 2 

11,200 

12 

10.7 

Hartford  

6,600 

7 

10.6 

51,500 

53 

10.3 

10,000 

.  7 

7.0 

6,750 

4 

S-9 

9,000 

5 

5.6 

14,600 

8 

5-5 

9,250 

5 

5-4 

17,400 

9 

5-2 

New  York  

168,000 

80 

4.8 

Utica  

5,250 

2 

3-8 

130,000 

49 

3.8 

Buffalo  

8,900 

3 

3-4 

52,500 

16 

3-4 

13,900 

4 

2.9 

7,500 

2 

2.7 

Rochester  

8,400 

2 

2.4 

Troy  

*New  Bedford  

9,250 

2 

2.2 

6,600 

I 

1-5 

Brooklyn  

34,250 

S 

1-5 

7,500 

I 

1-3 

10,000 

I 

1 .0 

11,900 

I 

0.8 

26,800 

2 

0.8 

24,900 

0 

0.0 

Newark  

9,100 

0 

0.0 

*Lynn  

5,400 

0 

0.0 

Look  first  at  the  nine  cities  that  are  starred.  All  of  them  he 
m  eastern  Massachusetts,  and  most  are  suburbs  of  Boston.  Cam- 
bridge (18.0),  Boston  proper  (10.3),  Charlestown  (5.9),  and  Rox- 
bury  and  Dorchester  (5.4)  are  now  parts  of  one  continuous  city, 
and  Lynn  (0.0)  lies  only  fifteen  miles  away.  It  is  clear  that  ch- 
mate  can  have  nothing  to  do  with  these  differences.  It  is  equally 
clear  that  food  and  mode  of  life  can  account  for  only  a  small 
percentage  of  them.  Opportunities  for  pubhc  education  and 
other  benefits  which  come  from  life  in  a  city  can  scarcely  play 
more  than  a  minor  role.  The  only  things  that  can  account  for 
the  differences  seem  to  be  inheritance  and  the  immediate  en- 
vironment of  the  home.  But  the  home  environment  depends  so 
intimately  upon  the  innate  temperament  and  mentaUty  of  the 


A  RACIAL  TEST 


S51 


parents  that  the  two  can  scarcely  be  separated.  The  importance 
of  inheritance  becomes  still  more  clear  when  we  go  a  Httle  farther 
afield.  Newburyport,  with  15.0  eminent  literary  persons  per 
10,000  inhabitants,  and  Lynn  with  none  are  near  neighbors  north 
of  Boston;  but  Lynn  has  an  advantage  over  Newburyport  in 
nearness  to  Boston,  Harvard,  and  all  the  influences  that  radiate 
from  a  great  city.  Nevertheless,  up  to  1850  Lynn  had  not  given 
birth  to  a  single  person  among  the  one  thousand  most  eminent 
literary  people  of  America,  whereas  Newburyport,  with  an  average 
population  only  about  12  per  cent  greater  than  that  of  Lynn,  pro- 
duced nine.  This  seems  to  be  expHcable  only  on  the  supposition 
that  during  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  there  was 
greater  inherent  ability  in  Newburyport  than  in  Lynn.  New- 
buryport at  that  time  was  an  especially  pleasant  place  of  resi- 
dence and  attracted  many  fine  famiHes.  Lynn  has  long  been  a 
relatively  unattractive  manufacturing  town  from  which  the  most 
successful  people  are  likely  to  move  to  Salem,  Boston,  Cam- 
bridge, Newburyport,  and  similar  places. 

Turning  again  to  our  table,  it  may  be  that  New  Orleans  (0.8) 
stands  almost  at  the  bottom,  because  its  climate  is  relatively 
debilitating.  I  feel  quite  certain  that  one  of  the  important  factors 
in  causing  the  South  in  general  to  be  backward  in  producing  per- 
sons of  eminence  is  the  climate  and  the  diseases  which  it  fosters. 
Nevertheless  Charleston,  South  Carolina  (7.0),  stands  well  toward 
the  top  of  our  list,  coming  next  to  Boston,  in  spite  of  having  a 
climate  which  is  by  no  means  so  stimulating  as  that  of  Brooklyn 
(1.5),  Pittsburgh  (0.8),  and  Cincinnati  (0.0).  The  low  position  of 
Pittsburgh  and  Cincinnati  may  have  been  due  to  their  newness 
and  to  the  fact  that  their  able  men  were  engrossed  in  building 
up  a  new  country.  But  this  explanation  can  apply  only  in  small 
measure  to  Brooklyn,  Lowell,  New  Orleans,  and  Newark.  The 
type  of  inherent  ability  that  expresses  itself  in  Hterature  seems 
simply  to  have  been  deficient  in  those  cities;  for  one  reason  or 
another  they  have  not  attracted  and  have  not  retained  people  of 
that  particular  type.  They  may  have  produced  other  types  of 
ability;  Cincinnati,  for  example,  has  produced  an  unusual 


352 


THE  CHAEACTER  OF  RACES 


number  of  eminent  scientists,  according  to  Visher.  In  the  cities 
at  the  head  of  our  Kst  (Cambridge,  Portland,  Newburyport, 
New  Haven,  Portsmouth,  Salem,  Hartford,  and  Boston),  and 
likewise  at  Charleston,  which  probably  would  stand  well  above 
Boston  if  allowance  were  made  for  the  adverse  effect  of  climate, 
we  seem  to  have  instances  of  what  Thompson,  the  author  of 
Outline  of  Science,  has  called  "the  virtuous  circle."  The  migra- 
tion of  able  people  to  attractive  centers  creates  a  good  environ- 
ment; unusually  able  children  are  born  there,  and  the  good  en- 
vironment stimulates  them  to  achievement;  such  achievement 
attracts  other  able  people,  and  thus  still  further  improves  both 
the  inheritance  and  the  environment. 

The  sum  and  substance  of  the  whole  matter  seems  to  be  that 
in  the  long  run  a  good  inheritance,  on  the  one  hand,  and  a  good 
social  environment  and  good  training,  on  the  other  hand,  are 
inseparable.  Which  is  more  important  in  causing  a  community 
to  send  out  able  men  no  one  can  say,  for  both  are  essential.  Be- 
cause the  able  young  people  press  into  the  centers  of  population, 
and  especially  because  now  even  more  than  in  1870  those  of 
them  who  have  families  tend  to  take  up  their  residence  in  the 
suburban  parts  of  metropoHtan  areas,  those  are  the  places  where 
the  proportion  of  children  with  a  high  inheritance  is  largest,  and 
where  the  social  environment  and  the  training  are  best.  Hence 
they  give  rise  to  the  largest  proportion  of  eminent  people. 

The  depletion  of  the  innate  capacity  of  the  rural  population 
by  migration  to  the  cities  may  help  to  explain  one  of  the  most 
serious  economic  problems  which  now  confronts  the  United 
States.  That  condition  is  the  chronic  depression  and  dissatis- 
faction among  the  farmers.  The  early  farmers  of  the  United 
States,  quite  unlike  the  peasants  of  Europe,  were  the  backbone 
of  the  country  and  produced  a  large  share  of  leaders.  This  con- 
dition continued  more  or  less  vigorously  so  long  as  there  was 
new  land  to  be  taken  up  in  the  West,  so  that  there  was  an  in- 
centive to  men  of  ability  and  initiative  to  remain  on  the  farms. 
But  now,  even  in  our  Western  States,  the  more  able  sons  of  the 
farmers  tend  to  flock  to  the  cities.   They  are  full  of  ambition  to 


A  RACIAL  TEST 


353 


go  to  college  or  to  work  their  way  up  in  business.  And  thou- 
sands of  them  succeed.  If  boys  of  that  kind  stayed  on  the  farms, 
while  those  with  less  ability  and  initiative  went  to  the  cities, 
would  the  farmers  now  be  at  the  mercy  of  the  city  people  ?  May 
it  not  be  that  what  the  farmers  need  is  constructive  leaders  and 
organizers  rather  than  laws,  loans,  and  tariffs  ? 

Having  satisfied  ourselves  that  the  more  able  people  drift 
from  the  farms  to  the  cities,  and  that  they  transmit  at  least  a 
portion  of  their  ability  to  their  children,  let  us  inquire  how 
numerous  are  the  children  in  the  cities  compared  with  the  rural 
districts.  It  might  be  supposed  that  for  such  information  we 
would  turn  directly  to  the  reports  of  the  census  on  birth-rates  in 
our  two  types  of  regions.  That,  however,  would  be  misleading, 
for  the  census  does  not  show  how  many  children  are  born  per 
family  in  the  cities  versus  the  country.  It  does,  however,  give 
exact  data  as  to  the  size  of  famihes  among  persons  of  various 
occupations.  Farming,  fishing,  lumbering,  and  mining  are  good 
representatives  of  rural  occupations,  while  manufacturing  and 
trade  are  largely  urban.  Among  the  families  in  the  United 
States  where  children  were  born  in  1920  the  followmg  conditions 
prevailed  in  these  great  groups  of  occupations: 


Total  Number 
of  Children 
Born  in  1920 

Average 
Number  of 

Children, 
Both  Living 
and  Dead, 
per  Family 

Average 
Number  of 
Living 
Children 

Farming,  fishing,  and  lumbering  

365,27s 

3-7 

3-3 

51,693 

4.1 

3-5 

Manufacturing  and  industry  

686,062 

2.9 

2.4 

Trade  

117,922 

2.5 

2.2 

In  large  groups  like  these  there  is  no  reason  to  think  that 
the  average  age  of  one  set  of  parents  differs  materially  from  that 
of  the  others.  It  is  well  known  that  the  proportion  of  foreign- 
born  immigrants  engaged  in  manufacturing  is  very  large.  For 
example,  in  1920  about  49  per  cent  of  all  the  foreign-born  men 
engaged  in  gainful  occupations  were  employed  in  manufacturing 


854 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


and  mechanical  industries,  whereas  only  36  per  cent  of  those  of 
mixed  native  and  foreign  parentage  and  28  per  cent  of  those  of 
native  white  parentage  were  so  engaged.  On  the  farms,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  corresponding  percentages  were:  foreign-born  14, 
mixed  21,  native  white  36.  Among  the  foreign-born  population 
of  America  it  is  well  known  that  the  birth-rate  is  high.  For  ex- 
ample, among  the  mothers  to  whom  children  were  born  in  1920, 
the  Poles  and  Italians  had  had  an  average  of  4.5  children,  the 
Germans  4.4,  Austrians  4.3,  and  Hungarians  4.2,  compared  \\ith 
^  only  3.0  for  the  white  women  born  in  the  United  States.  More- 
over, if  we  take  account  only  of  surviving  children,  no  large 
foreign-born  group  of  women  had  so  few  children  as  the  Ameri- 
can-born women,  2.7,  while  the  German-born  women  had  3.9 
and  the  Italians  3.8.  Such  conditions  are  normal. 

On  this  basis  we  should  expect  that  the  famihes  in  the  manu- 
facturing industry  where  the  foreign-born  are  numerous  would 
be  larger  than  among  farmers  where  native  whites  predominate. 
Quite  the  contrary  is  actually  the  case.  The  average  farmer's 
family  into  which  a  child  was  born  in  1920  had  up  to  that  time 
produced  3.7  children,  including  the  newcomer,  while  3.3  of  the 
children  were  still  alive.  But  among  the  people  engaged  in  man- 
ufacturing and  industry,  the  average  family  into  which  a  child 
was  born  had  produced  only  2.9  children,  of  whom  2.4  survived. 
In  the  same  way  the  mining  population  had  an  average  of  4.1 
children  per  family,  with  3.5  survivors,  while  the  average  family 
engaged  in  trade  had  given  burth  to  only  2.5  children,  of  whom 
only  2.2  still  lived  in  1920.  Race  and  social  position,  as  well  as 
the  contrast  between  rural  and  city  Hfe,  probably  have  some- 
thing to  do  with  causing  the  miners'  famihes  to  be  sixty  per  cent 
larger  than  those  of  the  merchants  and  clerks.  A  large  percen- 
tage of  the  miners  are  poor  foreigners,  while  the  merchants  com- 
prise a  great  many  middle-class  native  Americans.  Neverthe- 
less, the  great  contrast  between  the  two  groups  is  presumably  in 
part  due  to  the  difference  between  city  and  country.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  contrast  between  the  rural  farmer  and  the  urban 
manufacturing  population  would  presumably  be  still  greater  if 


A  RACIAL  TEST 


355 


the  racial  and  social  composition  of  the  two  groups  were  similar 
and  if  both  contained  the  same  proportion  of  recent  immigrants. 
In  other  words,  the  mere  fact  of  city  life,  with  its  mercantile  and 
industrial  conditions,  seems  to  reduce  the  size  of  famiHes.  Those 
who  stay  in  the  country,  although  they  are  less  competent  than 
those  who  migrate  to  the  cities,  are  selected  by  nature  to  be  the 
parents  of  many  children,  while  those  who  go  to  the  city  are 
selected  to  be  the  parents  of  few.  If  this  process  continues  for 
several  generations,  our  farmers  may  deteriorate  into  dull  peas- 
ants, while  our  cities  become  largely  the  home  of  the  descendants 
of  people  from  southern  and  eastern  Europe. 

It  seems  almost  ridiculous  to  say  that  modern  democracy  as 
well  as  migration  to  the  city  may  be  exerting  a  harmful  biologi- 
cal effect  upon  the  human  race,  but  that  seems  to  be  the  truth. 
By  democracy  I  mean  not  merely  a  political  system,  but  a  social 
system  which  allows  the  utmost  freedom  of  movement  from  one 
social  class  to  another.  We  pride  ourselves  on  the  facihty  with 
which  an  enterprising  boy  or  girl  can  break  away  from  old  sur- 
roundings and  make  good  anywhere  and  in  any  station,  no  mat- 
ter how  high.  Is  this  an  advantage  biologically?  The  common 
answer  is  that  it  is  the  best  possible  thing,  because  it  utilizes 
human  ability  to  the  fullest  extent  and  also  brings  new  blood  into 
the  effete  upper  classes.  The  first  part  of  this  answer  is  probably 
true,  but  what  is  the  biological  effect  of  our  modern  democratic 
form  of  society?  When  a  bright  boy  is  born  among  the  lower 
classes,  he  is  helped  to  go  to  college,  separated  from  his  early 
environment,  and  probably  marries  some  one  from  a  social  group 
above  that  of  his  origin.  Almost  inevitably  he  passes  on  to  his 
children  a  mixed  inheritance.  He  bequeaths  to  them  something 
of  his  own  ability,  but  likewise  something  of  the  low  degree  of 
abihty  which  belongs  to  the  general  class  from  which  he 
sprung. 

If  an  unusually  able  man  of  the  lower  classes  is  held  in  his 
own  social  group  by  a  rigid  social  system  he  fails  to  achieve  the 
self-development  and  usefulness  which  are  within  his  capacity, 
but  his  children  raise  the  general  biological  level  of  his  group. 


S56 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


If  he  is  raised  to  a  higher  social  plane  his  children  lower  the 
biological  level  of  the  new  group,  unless  by  some  happy  chance 
he  and  his  children  marry  persons  whose  inheritance  happens  to 
overcome  their  weaknesses.  That,  alas,  is  rare.  But  being  raised 
to  a  higher  group,  the  man  from  the  lower  classes  tends  to  have 
fewer  children  than  would  have  been  the  case  had  he  remained 
in  his  own  class.  Thus,  as  a  rule,  although  by  no  means  always, 
the  man^s  inheritance  is  applied  in  such  a  way  that  it  takes  away 
relatively  strong  elements  from  the  lower  class  and  tends  to  in- 
crease the  numbers  of  that  part  of  the  middle  class  which  though 
temporarily  efficient  may  at  any  time  revert  to  the  "shirt-sleeve" 
stage.  Moreover,  because  of  the  lack  of  scientific  control  of  mar- 
riage, the  building  up  of  a  numerous  group  of  pure-bred  and 
highly  competent  leaders  is  checked. 

What  the  final  effect  of  thus  depletmg  the  ability  of  the  lower 
classes  and  at  the  same  time  diluting  the  more  capable  classes 
will  be,  no  one  can  yet  tell.  This  much  is  certain,  the  animal 
breeder  is  very  slow  to  permit  his  blooded  stock  to  become  mixed 
with  mongrel  stock,  no  matter  how  good  a  few  individual  animals 
from  the  mongrel  herd  may  be.  Yet  on  the  other  hand,  the 
blooded  stock  originally  was  produced  by  selecting  just  such 
animals  from  the  mongrel  herd.  Hence  we  are  left  in  doubt 
except  as  to  one  thing:  by  raising  the  promising  young  man  and 
young  woman  from  the  lower  ranks  of  society  we  almost  incAdta- 
bly  reduce  the  number  of  their  children,  and  their  children  are 
likely  to  be  above  the  average  of  the  group  from  which  the 
parents  were  derived. 

Putting  aside  these  somewhat  speculative  considerations,  let 
us  look  at  certain  evidence  which  shows  how  rapidly  the  lower 
classes  of  society  are  increasing  compared  with  the  upper  classes. 
Here  are  some  figures  from  Birth  Statistics  for  the  Birth  Registra- 
tion Area  of  the  United  States  for  1920.  They  show  the  number 
of  children  in  the  famihes  of  men  in  various  pursuits  to  whom 
children  were  born  in  1920.  The  figures  take  no  account  of  dif- 
ferences between  the  professions  as  to  the  age  of  the  fathers,  the 
number  of  men  who  are  not  married,  and  the  number  who,  al- 


A  RACIAL  TEST 


357 


though  married,  had  no  children.  They  simply  show  the  actual 
size  of  the  families  in  which  children  were  born  in  1920. 


OCCUPATIONS  OF  FATHERS  AND  SIZE  OF  FAMILIES  IN  WHICH 
CHILDREN  WERE  BORN  IN  1920  IN  THE  REGISTRATION 
AREA  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES 


Average 

Number  of 

Average 

Cmlaren  to 

Number  of 

vi  uixiucr  yjL 

Occupa.tioiis 

Children 

per  Pair  of 

Children  per 

Bom  in  1920 

Parents, 

Pair  of 

Including 

Parents  in 

Children  Who 

1920 

Have  Died 

Mining 

Mine  operatives  (young)  

45,544 

4-3 

3-6 

Mine  foremen,  overseers,  and  inspectors . . . 

1,022 

4.6 

3-9 

Mine  operators,  officials,  and  managers  

584 

3.2 

2.9 

1,692 

1.9 

1.8 

Manufacturing 

Factory  laborers  (young)  

244,365 

3.7 

3.1 

Factory  foremen  and  overseers  

9,534 

3-3 

2.9 

Factory  managers,  superintendents,  owners, 

14,142 

2-5 

2.3 

Technical  engineers  (civil,  electrical,  me- 

5,971 

2.1 

1.9 

Trade  and  Inventions 

Laborers  in  coal  and  lumber  yards,  and 

1,165 

3-4 

2.9 

Retail  dealers  

63,840 

3-1 

2.8 

5,045 

2.3 

2.1 

2,886 

2.0 

1.8 

Personal  Service 

454 

3-9 

3.3 

2,228 

4.1 

3.4 

Barbers  

9,000 

3.2 

2.8 

Lawyers,  judges,  and  justices  

4,338 

2.4 

2.2 

Public  Service 

Garbage  men,  scavengers,  and  other  labor- 
ers (young)  . . .  

1,744 

3.4 

2.9 

Guards,  watchmen,  doorkeepers  

1,502 

4.1 

35 

3,752 

3-2 

2.8 

Officials  and  inspectors  (city  and  county) .  . 

3,752 

3-2 

2.8 

Officials  and  inspectors  (State  and  U.  S.)  •  •  • 

2,690 

2-3 

2.1 

In  each  section  of  the  table  the  occupations  which  require 
least  skill  are  placed  at  the  top  and  those  requiring  most  skill 
at  the  bottom.  In  most  cases  there  is  a  regular  gradation  from 
families  averaging  three  or  four  among  the  unskilled  to  families 


358 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


averaging  not  far  from  two  among  the  highly  skilled.  In  each 
group  of  occupations  I  have  added  the  word  "young''  to  the 
upper  line  because  the  men  in  that  particular  occupation  average 
younger  than  the  others,  and  therefore  their  families  are  not  so 
near  completion  as  are  those  of  older  men,  such  as  foremen, 
bankers,  officials,  and  the  other  higher  categories.  It  seems  safe 
to  say  that  at  least  six  children,  and  perhaps  more,  are  born  to 
the  average  mine  operative,  and  that  not  less  than  five  of  these 
live  well  beyond  infancy.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  very  doubtful 
whether  the  chemists,  assayers,  and  metallurgists  in  our  table 
will  have  an  average  of  as  many  as  three  children,  so  that  not 
much  over  two  and  a  half  will  survive  far  into  childhood.  After 
infancy  is  past  the  chemists'  children  may  have  nearly  as  high 
a  death-rate  as  the  children  of  the  miners.  Snow,  in  a  paper  on 
The  Intensity  of  Natural  Selection  in  Man,  has  confirmed  Pear- 
son's conclusion  that  if  the  death-rate  is  high  in  the  first  year  of 
life,  as  it  is  among  the  children  of  mine  operatives,  it  is  relatively 
low  in  succeeding  years.  On  the  contrary,  a  low  death-rate  in 
infancy  means  that  the  later  death-rate  is  higher  than  it  would 
have  been  under  the  same  conditions  of  environment  if  the  weaker 
infants  had  perished. 

The  case  of  the  chemists  appears  still  worse  when  we  remem- 
ber that  even  though  the  proportion  of  married  men  (91  per 
cent)  among  a  picked  body  of  leading  scientists  has  been  found 
by  Cattell  to  be  as  large  as  in  the  population  as  a  whole,  the 
proportion  among  Harvard  graduates  over  fifty  years  of  age  is 
only  72  per  cent.  Moreover,  in  both  groups  the  number  of  child- 
less marriages  is  large  because  of  the  relatively  advanced  age  of 
the  wives.  For  example,  among  leading  men  of  science  whose 
famihes  were  presumably  complete,  22  per  cent  of  those  who 
were  married  were  childless.  Again  among  these  scientific  men 
the  average  completed  family  amounts  to  only  2.23  children. 
As  the  death-rate  among  the  children  up  to  the  usual  age  of 
marriage  is  about  120  per  thousand,  the  average  number  of 
children  reaching  that  age  is  1.96.  This,  however,  takes  no  ac- 
count of  the  scientists  who  are  not  married.  If  they  are  included, 


A  RACIAL  TEST 


359 


the  average  number  of  children  who  live  to  maturity  is  approxi- 
mately 1.75  per  scientist  among  people  who  have  passed  the  age 
when  they  are  likely  to  have  more  children. 

Among  graduates  of  Harvard  the  case  is  even  worse.  In  1902 
the  average  Harvard  graduate,  both  married  and  unmarried, 
who  had  been  out  of  college  twenty-five  to  thirty  years  had  only 
1.43  children,  as  reported  by  President  Eliot.  The  figures  for 
other  men's  colleges  are  similar,  while  for  women's  colleges  they 
drop  as  low  as  an  average  of  only  about  one  child  per  graduate. 
In  the  same  way  Kuczynski  is  reported  by  Cattell  to  have  found 
that  among  the  native  white  population  of  Massachusetts  the 
nimiber  of  children  who  survive  to  maturity  was  only  1.92  per 
family  as  long  ago  as  1900.  The  conditions  among  all  these 
groups  are  probably  still  worse  to-day.  In  other  words,  these 
competent  portions  of  the  community  are  simply  dying  out. 

The  net  result  of  all  this  is  that  when  allowance  is  made  for 
people  who  are  not  married,  for  childless  marriages,  and  for 
deaths  before  maturity,  the  mine  operatives  appear  to  be  at  least 
doubling  their  number  in  each  generation.  On  the  other  hand, 
it  is  extremely  doubtful  whether  the  chemists  and  the  kind  of 
people  whom  they  represent  are  reproducing  themselves,  for  they 
appear  to  bring  to  maturity  less  than  one  child  for  each  potential 
parent.  Among  persons  engaged  in  manufacturing,  trade,  per- 
sonal service,  and  pubHc  service  the  general  conditions  are  the 
same  as  in  the  mining  group,  as  is  obvious  from  the  preceding 
table.  The  inefficient  people  are  reproducing  themselves  very 
rapidly,  while  the  more  efficient  groups  are  certainly  not  increas- 
ing in  proportion  to  the  population  and  are  probably  dying  out. 
Bootblacks,  janitors,  garbage  men,  and  watchmen  are  not  in  the 
least  danger  of  becoming  scarce,  but  scientific  men,  lawyers,  and 
high  officials  are  producing  so  few  children  that  their  descendants 
will  probably  be  less  numerous  than  the  present  generation.  If 
our  conclusions  as  to  natural  selection  and  the  evolution  of  racial 
character  are  anywhere  near  correct,  it  would  appear  that  Amer- 
ica is  suffering  a  very  rapid  and  harmful  type  of  selection.  It  is 
a  selection  similar  to  that  which  appears  to  have  made  northern 


360 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


China  so  inert,  so  lacking  in  public  spirit,  and  so  averse  to 
progress. 

The  position  of  women  and  the  status  of  the  family  appear 
to  represent  another  important  selective  factor.  Here,  as  in  most 
cases,  sociological  advantages  must  be  set  over  against  biological 
disadvantages.  In  fact,  throughout  our  comparisons  we  find  the 
same  contrast  almost  everywhere.  Even  in  war  there  are  some 
social  advantages  through  the  stimulus  to  patriotism  and  to  the 
spirit  of  bravery  and  devotion.  In  religion,  education,  and  in- 
dustrial life;  in  our  modern  democratic  organization  of  society; 
and  in  the  cultural  progress  represented  by  cities  the  world  reaps 
great  advantages  through  the  development  of  the  individual  and 
the  building  up  of  a  splendid  body  of  social,  poHtical,  religious, 
scientific,  industrial,  and  other  usages  for  the  benefit  of  future 
generations.  But  at  the  same  time  there  seems  to  be  a  terrible 
biological  disadvantage  through  the  withdrawal  of  many  of  the 
finest  people  from  parenthood.  Feminism  of  the  right  sort,  like 
religion,  education,  and  democracy,  is  an  admirable  thing  in 
itself,  but  to  an  almost  greater  extent  than  the  others  it  harms 
our  racial  inheritance  and  thereby  defeats  its  own  end.  It  is 
truly  pathetic  to  see  how  rapidly  the  feminists  are  killing  their 
own  movement.  Of  course,  there  are  all  kinds  of  feminists,  rang- 
ing from  the  confirmed  man-hater  to  the  mother  of  six  children. 
But  the  mothers  are  rarely  strong  in  the  faith.  They  are  will- 
ing to  help  their  sisters  to  gain  a  freedom  of  which  they  them- 
selves feel  little  need,  but  very  few  would  sacrifice  a  single  year 
of  their  children's  love  for  all  the  women's  rights  m  the  world. 

I  sympathize  with  the  desire  of  women  for  full  freedom  to 
have  their  own  careers.  Until  I  realized  the  biological  signifi- 
cance of  the  movement,  I  was  willing  to  aid  it.  Now  I  am  still 
willing  to  do  so,  for  true  feminism,  like  religion,  philanthropy, 
education,  and  democracy  is  of  fundamental  value.  But  it  needs 
modification  to  eliminate  its  harmful  biological  aspects.  The 
truer  and  nobler  feminists  believe  strongly  in  marriage,  mother- 
hood, and  home.  They  merely  contend  that  a  woman  as  well 
as  a  man  should  have  her  own  career,  and  should  not  be  bound 


A  RACIAL  TEST 


361 


to  give  it  up  because  of  children.  That  sounds  reasonable,  and 
perhaps  it  is.  In  actual  practice,  however,  the  woman  who  has 
a  career  rarely  has  more  than  one  child  even  if  she  is  married, 
and  generally  she  is  not  married.  She  puts  her  career  first,  and 
it  usually  becomes  both  the  first  thing  and  the  last  in  her  life. 
The  practical  result  is  that  whether  they  wish  it  or  not,  the 
women  who  stand  strongly  for  women's  rights  are  rarely  the 
mothers  of  the  next  generation.  The  mothers  are  women  of  a 
less  independent  spirit,  those  whose  love  of  home,  husband,  chil- 
dren is  their  strongest  motive.  They  are  the  ones  who  are  pass- 
ing on  their  qualities  to  the  next  generation,  and  who  have  in 
their  hands  the  early  training  of  that  generation.  Let  the  pres- 
ent rapid  process  of  selecting  the  strong-minded  women  for  de- 
struction and  the  gentler,  less  aggressive  ones  for  motherhood 
continue  a  few  generations,  and  the  banner  of  feminism  will  have 
to  be  hung  on  the  wall— an  interesting  trophy.  No  type  can 
persist  long  if  it  is  rigorously  picked  out  for  destruction  when- 
ever it  appears. 

In  this  connection  divorce  has  an  interesting  bearing  on  the 
evolution  of  racial  character.  For  a  long  time  I  viewed  with  deep 
alarm  the  rapid  increase  of  divorce.  One  divorce  for  every  14.3 
marriages  in  the  United  States  in  1896,  i  for  every  11.8  in  1906, 
and  I  for  9.3  in  191 6.  This  is  a  terrible  record  of  incompatibility 
and  unhappiness.  But  look  deeper  and  see  what  it  means.  In 
former  days  when  divorce  was  not  so  easy,  married  couples  in- 
evitably made  more  effort  than  now  to  adjust  their  differences. 
The  presence  of  children  helped  greatly  in  this.  So  too  did  the 
disfavor  in  which  divorce  was  then  held.  Now  all  this  is  changed; 
divorce  is  common  in  many  circles,  although  fortunately  not  in 
all.  What  is  the  result?  Unhappiness?  Yes.  The  breaking 
down  of  the  home?  Not  at  all.  The  contrary  will  probably  be 
the  result  in  the  long  run.  Among  people  who  are  divorced,  the 
number  of  children  is  inevitably  smaller  than  among  those  who 
are  happily  married.  Even  when  divorce  was  rare,  the  number 
of  children  per  family  among  happily  married  couples  averaged 
larger  than  among  the  unhappily  married.  The  present  freedom 


362 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


of  divorce  greatly  increases  this  disproportion.  In  other  words 
it  tends  to  reduce  the  proportion  of  children  born  of  the  type  of 
parents  who  through  jealousy,  bad  disposition,  hasty  marriage, 
infidelity,  incompetence,  or  other  causes  of  discord  are  not  able 
to  maintain  happy  homes.  Thus  here,  as  in  the  case  of  feminism, 
we  probably  have  a  rapid  process  of  selection  whereby  the  home- 
loving,  faithful,  self-sacrificing  type  of  people  are  more  and  more 
allowed  to  be  the  parents  of  most  of  the  children.  Thus  in  each 
new  generation  these  qualities  presumably  tend  to  become  more 
wide-spread. 

Look  now  at  the  future  of  the  countries  which  to-day  are 
leaders  of  civiHzation.  The  great  outstanding  fact  is  that  the 
industrial  revolution,  the  growth  of  facilities  for  transportation, 
the  development  of  science,  the  spread  of  good  government,  and 
many  other  new  conditions  have  permitted  an  enormous  increase 
in  population.  So  long  as  that  increase  does  not  exceed  the  in- 
crease in  man's  capacity  for  making  a  living  it  is  not  dangerous. 
Already,  however,  we  have  practically  exhausted  the  easily  avail- 
able new  land  which  was  one  of  the  chief  reasons  why  such  rapid 
growth  of  population  was  possible.  We  have  also  quite  surely 
passed  the  stage  of  most  rapid  increase  in  our  capacity  for  trans- 
portation, for  the  development  of  new  and  more  productive  t>pes 
of  plants  and  animals,  for  improvements  in  other  agricultural 
methods,  and  for  the  exploitation  of  undeveloped  resources. 
Hence,  as  is  well  shown  by  East  in  Mankind  at  the  Crossroads 
and  by  Carr-Saunders  in  The  Population  Problem,  the  present 
rate  of  increase  in  population  must  speedily  be  checked. 

Nature's  blind  way  of  checking  increase  at  the  present  stage 
of  human  progress  happens  to  be  through  a  natural  selection 
which  begins  at  the  top,  where  it  works  painlessly  through  vol- 
untary restriction  of  families,  late  marriages,  celibacy,  and  the 
Hke.  Then  it  works  down  into  the  less  competent  classes  through 
increasing  poverty,  agricultural  distress,  industrial  stagnation, 
famine,  war,  pestilence,  and  other  disasters.  The  particular  phase 
of  nature's  method  which  is  operating  among  us  resembles  in 
many  ways  the  selection  which  has  produced  such  disastrous 


A  RACIAL  TEST 


363 


effects  in  the  famine-stricken  portions  of  China.  In  China  the 
best  stock  has  largely  been  lost  through  migration,  while  the 
poorer  stock  has  remained  and  multiplied  until  dire  famines 
were  almost  the  only  means  of  getting  rid  of  the  surplus  popu- 
lation. With  us  the  best  material  is  being  selected  for  destruc- 
tion by  war,  by  religious  zeal,  by  education,  by  a  democratic 
social  system  with  free  opportunities  for  all,  by  industrial  devel- 
opment, by  feminism,  by  celibacy,  by  late  marriages,  by  birth- 
control,  by  imhealthful  occupations,  and  in  numerous  other  ways. 
Moreover,  the  upper  classes  are  being  constantly  diluted  by  mix- 
ture with  less  competent  stock  from  every  other  class,  so  that 
there  is  no  chance  to  build  up  anything  at  all  similar  to  the  pure 
strains  which  among  animals  are  always  the  ones  that  can  be 
steadily  relied  on  for  great  achievement.  Thus  our  upper  classes 
decline  both  in  numbers  and  efficiency.  At  the  same  time  we  are 
constantly  culling  out  the  best  material  from  the  lower  classes,  and 
partially  steriHzing  it  by  making  it  part  of  the  upper  classes. 
Hence  the  lower  classes  grow  lower  while  the  upper  receive  Httle 
permanent  benefit.  Joined  with  this  steady  adverse  selection  is 
the  ominous  growth  in  the  numbers  of  the  lower  classes.  Unless 
a  change  occurs  promptly  there  is  genuine  danger  that  within 
the  lifetime  of  our  children  this  country  may  be  so  densely  popu- 
lated that  it  will  be  face  to  face  with  problems  as  serious  as  those 
of  Europe,  while  Europe  may  be  confronted  by  problems  almost 
like  those  of  China. 

If  this  book  carries  any  lesson  to  the  people  of  to-day  it  is 
this:  A  race  or  a  nation  can  apparently  be  made  or  marred  by 
natural  selection.  Mere  numbers  count  for  nothing:  in  many 
cases  a  dense  population  is  the  greatest  of  curses,  as  it  has  been 
in  Ireland,  China,  Japan,  and  Germany.  QuaHty  is  what  counts, 
and  quahty  can  be  obtained  only  by  diminishing  the  number  of 
people  who  inherit  low  moral  and  mental  capacities  and  in- 
creasing the  proportion  who  inherit  the  high  qualities  which  lead 
to  racial  dominance.  In  the  past,  without  man^s  conscious  in- 
tervention, natural  selection  has  been  actively  at  work,  some- 
times for  good  and  sometimes  for  ill.    The  only  question  is 


364 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


whether  a  race  or  nation  will  control  such  selection  so  that  it 
will  always  act  beneficially  as  in  the  first  and  greatest  days  of 
ancient  Greece  and  Iceland,  or  will  permit  it  to  continue  to  work 
haphazard  and  perhaps  toward  great  unhappiness,  as  in  China 
or  in  the  Greece  of  later  days. 

America  has  gone  far  on  the  way  toward  racial  impoverish- 
ment, so  far  that  the  country  already  feels  that  it  is  slipping. 
Historical  examples  show  that  the  danger  is  real  and  great. 
Many  thoughtful  people  are  already  considering  how  we  may 
get  back  to  safety;  history  points  out  the  road.  We  must  set 
ourselves  diligently  to  limit  and  control  the  future  growth  of 
population.  Such  conscious  control  of  natural  selection  may 
perhaps  be  nature's  own  next  method.  One  aim  must  be  to  insure 
that  all  newcomers  to  our  land  are  of  a  quaUty  above  the  average 
of  our  own  people;  then  they  will  do  us  good,  not  harm.  Another 
aim  must  be  a  low  birth-rate  and  a  low  death-rate,  so  that  our 
population  may  increase  less  rapidly  than  does  our  command 
over  natural  resources.  Thus  we  shall  be  able  not  only  to  main- 
tain, but  raise  our  standard  of  living.  But  a  low  birth-rate  is 
of  little  advantage  unless  it  is  differential;  and  the  differences  must 
be  of  the  right  sort.  To-day,  as  we  have  seen,  the  people  of  highest 
ability  largely  fail  to  reproduce  themselves;  the  garbage  men 
double  themselves  in  every  generation.  Unless  such  differences 
are  reversed,  the  future  is  dark.  The  ideal  condition  would  be 
large  families  among  the  tenth  of  the  population  having  the 
soundest  combination  of  physical  health,  good  intellect,  strong 
wills,  and  fine  temperaments.  Among  persons  standing  lower  in 
the  scale  there  should  be  progressively  fewer  children  until  the 
lower  tenth  has  none  at  all.  In  the  Middle  Ages,  according  to 
Carr-Saunders,  an  imperfect  approximation  to  such  a  system 
actually  prevailed  in  western  Europe.  In  the  future  a  better 
approximation  is  entirely  possible.  We  may  reasonably  hope 
that  some  day  the  average  family  among  the  most  competent 
people  will  consist  of  perhaps  four  to  six  children,  while  the 
numbers  among  those  of  less  ability  will  diminish  to  such  a 
point  that  the  population  as  a  whole  will  increase  only  at  the 


A  RACIAL  TEST  365 

slow  rate  which  accords  with  the  growth  of  man's  control  over 
nature. 

Of  course  there  are  innumerable  objections  to  any  such  sys- 
tem. What  incentive  will  ever  induce  the  lower  classes  to  limit 
their  famiHes?  Is  it  possible  to  check  the  present  feminist  ten- 
dencies so  that  all  of  the  finest  women  will  unhesitatingly  choose 
motherhood  ?  And  how  can  we  make  it  economically  possible  for 
persons  engaged  in  intellectual,  religious,  and  philanthropic  pur- 
suits to  support  and  educate  half  a  dozen  children  ?  These  ques- 
tions must  be  answered  by  future  generations,  but  they  are  no 
more  difficult  than  a  hundred  others  which  mankind  is  success- 
fully answering. 

Meanwhile  we  must  ascertain  with  more  certainty  the  exact 
biological  effect  of  a  differential  birth-rate.  Here  is  a  sample  of 
the  kind  of  problem  that  must  be  faced.  It  is  generally  agreed 
that  the  interval  between  one  child  and  another  ought  to  be  two 
or  three  years.  Hence  if  the  more  competent  people,  as  a  rule, 
are  to  have  families  of  five  or  six  children,  marriage  should  take 
place  while  the  men  are  under  thirty  years  of  age  and  the  women 
in  the  middle  twenties.  But  according  to  Redfield  these  ages  are 
much  too  young;  the  human  race  would  be  greatly  benefited  if 
the  birth  of  children  were  delayed  till  the  parents  are  not  far 
from  forty  years  of  age.  He  bases  this  conclusion  on  many  in- 
teresting facts  as  to  the  relatively  high  competence  of  the  prog- 
eny of  old  parents  among  dogs,  cows,  horses,  and  men.  Here  is 
a  little  table  which  sums  up  his  findings  as  to  the  average  age  of 
fathers  at  the  birth  of  their  sons.  The  degree  of  capacity  increases 
as  one  goes  down  the  table.  According  to  Redfield,  "the  average 
quality  of  the  men  in  the  different  groups  is  well  represented  by 
the  attached  figures. 

AVERAGE  AGE  OF  FATHERS  WHEN  CHH-DREN  WERE  BORN 


Chicago,  all  births  registered  1111913  31.2  years 

Persons  born  in  New  England  in  the  i8th  and  19th  centuries  33.8  years 

865  living  American  men  of  science  35.0  years 

100  eminent  English  men  of  science,  per  Galton  36.0  years 

299  eminent  British  men  of  genius  of  all  sorts,  per  Ellis  37.1  years 


366 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


39  eminent  men  of  the  i8th  and  19th  centuries  in  whole  world, 

Yoder  37.8  years 

1,028  cases  in  pedigrees  of  571  great  men  of  all  times  and  countries, 

Redfield  40.7  years 

The  consistent  increase  in  the  ages  of  the  fathers  as  the  degree 
of  eminence  increases  evidently  means  something.  Redfield 
thinks  that  it  means  that  parents  transmit  to  their  offspring  the 
ability  which  they  acquire  through  their  own  efforts.  Hence  the 
older  the  parents  the  more  they  are  Hkely  to  have  children  of 
unusual  ability. 

But  what  does  the  table  really  mean?  If  Redfield  is  right, 
the  youngest  son  or  daughter  in  any  group  of  brothers  and  sisters 
ought  on  an  average  to  show  more  ability  than  the  eldest.  Ac- 
cordingly I  asked  a  dozen  friends  to  classify  their  acquaintances 
who  belong  to  large  families,  basing  the  classification  on  general 
competence  and  influence.  Brothers  and  sisters  were  classified 
separately  in  groups  of  three;  a  few  cases  were  taken  from  refer- 
ence books.  If  a  person's  achievements  have  no  relation  to  his 
birth-rank,  the  averages  given  below  ought  to  be  exactly  2.00. 
If  the  first-born  is  always  the  most  competent  and  the  youngest 
least  competent  the  averages  should  be  i.oo,  2.00,  3.00.  Here  is 
what  we  actually  find: 


AVERAGE  RANK  IN  GENERAL  COMPETENCE  AND  INFLUENCE 


Oldest 

Second 

Third 

1-93 

2.02 

2.05 

1.94 

2. 10 

1.98 

Average  of  187  cases  

1.93 

2.05 

2.02 

This  suggests  that  the  oldest  son  or  daughter  is  a  trifle  more 
influential  than  those  born  later,  but  the  differences  are  so  slight 
that  they  are  probably  accidental.  The  youngest  person  who  made 
this  classification,  a  man  of  about  twenty-four  years,  placed  the 
oldest  brother  or  sister  relatively  higher  than  did  any  other  of  my 
collaborators.  This  is  natural,  for  among  his  young  acquaintances 
the  oldest  in  any  group  has  had  most  chance  to  show  what  is 
in  him.  On  the  other  hand,  among  twenty  cases  that  I  estimated 


A  RACIAL  TEST 


367 


from  books,  the  rank  of  all  three  sons  was  identical.  The  people 
classified  in  the  preceding  table  belonged  largely  to  professional 
families  or  to  those  of  successful  business  men— just  the  ones 
among  whom  Redfield's  supposed  inheritance  of  acquired  char- 
acteristics ought  to  be  most  prominent.  The  average  difference 
in  age  between  oldest  and  youngest  was  at  least  seven  years  and 
probably  more,  or  approximately  as  much  as  the  difference  be- 
tween the  highest  and  lowest  groups  in  Redfield's  table.  But  the 
results  show  no  hint  of  superiority  in  the  youngest  child,  and  the 
faint  hint  of  superiority  in  the  eldest  is  probably  mere  accident. 

In  order  to  test  the  matter  in  another  way  I  have  selected  from 
the  genealogical  memoirs  of  the  Adams,  Churchill,  Lincoln,  Ly- 
man, and  Huntington  families  a  group  of  persons  whose  bio- 
graphical sketches  show  that  they  were  leaders  and  possessed 
unusually  high  moral  and  intellectual  qualities.  Of  course  it  is 
impossible  to  pick  out  all  such  leaders,  but  the  persons  here 
chosen  certainly  average  far  above  the  general  level  of  those  who 
have  borne  these  five  family  names,  and  likewise  above  their 
brothers  and  sisters.  To  each  person  thus  chosen  two  birth-ranks 
were  assigned,  one  counting  from  the  eldest  child  and  one  from 
the  3/oungest.  If  there  were  five  children  in  a  family,  for  exam- 
ple, the  second  would  have  a  birth-rank  of  two,  counting  from 
the  eldest,  and  of  four  counting  from  the  youngest.  The  average 
of  each  rank  for  all  five  children  would  be  three.  Now  if  the  age 
of  the  parents  has  any  appreciable  effect  upon  the  ability  of  the 
children,  the  three  hundred  unusually  competent  and  valuable 
persons  here  chosen  ought  to  show  at  least  a  slight  tendency  to 
fall  in  the  younger  rather  than  the  elder  halves  of  their  respective 
families.  In  other  words,  the  birth-rank  reckoned  from  the 
oldest  child  ought  to  be  greater  than  from  the  youngest,  but  here 
is  what  we  find: 

BIRTH-RANK  OF  LEADERS 


Reckoned  from 

Oldest  child 

Youngest  child 

88  Churchills  

30 

4-6 

4.2 

4-4 

4.2 

4-4 

368 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


I  do  not  feel  sure  that  there  is  any  biological  significance  in 
the  uniform,  though  slight,  tendency  for  the  leaders  here  and  in 
our  previous  comparison  to  fall  among  the  older  rather  than  the 
younger  members  of  their  families.  The  important  point  is  that 
all  the  evidence  is  adverse  to  the  idea  that  the  age  of  the  parents 
is  in  itself  a  factor  in  determining  the  ability  of  the  children. 

As  a  final  test  we  may  investigate  the  age  of  the  seventy  fathers 
of  the  members  of  the  Adams  family  who  were  used  in  the  pre- 
ceding comparison.  All  these  fathers  were  born  previous  to  1780, 
for  in  this  particular  case  I  wished  to  avoid  comphcations  due  to 
the  decline  in  the  size  of  families  during  the  past  century.  We  wiU 
compare  their  age  when  their  notable  sons  were  born  with  that 
of  the  420  fathers  whose  2,850  children  form  the  group  from 
which  the  70  leaders  were  chosen.  FamiHes  with  one  child,  two 
children,  three  children,  and  so  forth,  were  treated  separately  in 
order  that  there  might  be  no  error  because  large  families  pro- 
duce an  absolutely  greater  mnnber  of  leaders  than  small  famihes. 
The  net  result  is  that  at  the  time  of  the  birth  of  their  first  child 
the  fathers  of  the  leaders  were  0.2  year  yoimger  than  the  average 
father  at  the  birth  of  the  first  child;  at  the  birth  of  the  last  child 
they  were  correspondingly  older  than  other  fathers  of  equally 
large  families  by  0.4  year.  At  the  birth  of  their  notable  children 
these  same  seventy  fathers  averaged  33.7  years,  which  is  o.i 
year  older  than  the  estimated  age  of  the  other  fathers  at  the 
birth  of  corresponding  children.  Here  again  there  is  no  evi- 
dence that  the  age  of  the  parents  makes  any  difference  in  the  abil- 
ity of  the  children.  Eminent  men  undoubtedly  tend  to  be  the 
sons  of  relatively  old  fathers,  but  that  presumably  is  not  be- 
cause of  the  fathers'  age.  The  reason  may  be  that  the  type  of 
parents  who  produce  eminent  children  tend  to  marry  late;  or  per- 
haps unusual  vigor  in  the  parents  causes  them  to  have  children 
late  in  life  and  helps  to  give  the  children  the  physical  vigor  which 
is  one  of  the  greatest  aids  to  eminence. 

Although  this  study  of  the  age  of  parents  lends  no  support  to 
the  hypothesis  of  the  inheritance  of  acquired  abiHty,  it  re-enforces 
a  conclusion  which  Galton  emphasizes,  but  which  is  only  half 


A  RACIAL  TEST 


S69 


appreciated.  The  conclusion  is  that  when  one  member  of  a 
family  displays  unusual  ability  there  is  a  strong  tendency  for 
his  near  relatives,  especially  his  brothers  and  sons,  to  do  likewise. 
Thus  the  important  thing  is  not  to  be  born  of  old  parents  or 
young  parents,  but  to  be  born  in  the  right  family.  The  great 
biological  danger  is  not  from  early  marriages,  but  from  the  fact 
that  in  our  day  families  which  might  produce  eight  or  ten  un- 
usually talented  children  usually  produce  only  one  or  two,  while 
those  which  cannot  produce  a  single  competent  child  produce 
eight  or  ten  incompetents. 

This  brings  us  back  to  our  main  problem  of  selection.  What 
do  the  precedmg  facts  indicate  as  to  how  our  modern  system  of 
late  marriages  and  birth-control  influences  natural  selection? 
The  answer  seems  to  be  implied  in  the  following  fact:  If  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  families  of  the  United  States  up  to  about  1850  had  been 
limited  to  three  children,  about  half  of  the  leaders  in  the  various 
family  groups  discussed  above  would  not  have  been  born.  In 
other  words,  one  of  the  main  things  done  by  the  modern  system 
of  smaU  families  is  to  prevent  the  birth  of  more  than  about 
three  children  to  parents  who  are  strong  physically,  mentally, 
and  morally,  and  who  under  a  wiser  social  system  might  have 
produced  numerous  children  with  more  than  the  usual  capacity 
for  leadership.  Although  we  have  no  statistics,  it  is  highly 
probable  that  among  people  who  would  have  had  only  two  or 
three  children  under  the  old  system  the  number  of  children  has 
not  diminished  in  anything  like  so  large  a  ratio  as  among  the 
people  who  might  have  had  a  dozen.  Among  the  incompetents, 
no  matter  whether  they  are  physically  strong  or  weak,  the  num- 
ber of  children  has  probably  not  yet  declined  much,  if  at  all, 
in  America,  while  the  proportion  of  survivals  has  increased. 

This  whole  line  of  reasoning  adds  another  to  the  many  types 
of  evidence  which  show  that  our  present  system  of  marriage  and 
birth-control  is  acting  as  a  strong  adverse  selective  factor.  There 
seems  to  be  no  remedy  except  a  gradual,  but  deep-seated  social 
revolution  whereby  society  shall  impose  new,  drastic,  and  thor- 
oughly scientific  criteria  as  to  what  kind  of  people  shall  have  many 


S70 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


children  and  what  kind  few.  It  seems  imperative  that  we  devise 
social  rather  than  legal  incentives  to  persuade  one  kind  of  people 
to  refrain  from  having  large  families  and  another  type  to  have 
such  families.  We  must  teach  the  physically  weak  and  the  men- 
tally and  morally  incompetent  to  say:  "Why  should  we  be 
burdened  by  having  many  children?"  But  those  w^ho  have 
an  unusually  good  inheritance  must  be  persuaded  to  say:  "To 
us  has  been  given  strength  of  body  and  mind.  Our  children  are 
almost  sure  to  be  above  the  average.  Society  stands  in  imperative 
need  of  such  children;  they  are  its  salvation.  Therefore  we  must 
have  children,  even  although  it  means  sacrifice." 

Long  before  society  as  a  whole  has  decided  what  kind  of 
people  shall  increase  in  numbers  and  what  kind  shall  diminish, 
there  will  probably  be  significant  progress  in  one  of  those  great 
processes  of  selection  which  have  been  the  theme  of  this  book. 
Already  we  see  not  only  a  beginning  of  the  restriction  of  the 
birth-rate  among  the  lower  as  well  as  the  upper  classes,  especially 
in  France,  but  in  England  and  America  the  tide  of  restriction 
among  the  upper  classes  is  beginning  to  turn.  A  compact  group 
of  thoughtful,  conscientious,  progressive,  and  strong-minded 
people  are  acquiring  a  new  sense  of  the  value  of  the  home  as  the 
center  of  progress  and  a  new  sense  of  responsibility  for  the  produc- 
tion of  leaders  for  the  next  generation.  They  are  the  kind  of 
people  who  leave  the  conveniences  of  city  apartments,  and  move 
to  the  suburbs  for  the  sake  of  the  children.  They  put  up  with  dis- 
comforts and  annoyances  in  order  to  have  homes  where  the  chil- 
dren will  thrive.  They  gladly  curtail  parties,  travel,  the  thea- 
ter, and  the  club  because  they  feel  that  the  home  and  their  chil- 
dren are  of  infinitely  greater  value.  They  hkewise  watch  over 
their  children  as  never  before,  not  only  to  train  them  aright,  but 
to  insure  marriages  free  from  taint  and  full  of  promise  of  children 
who  will  be  bold  and  noble  leaders. 

This  ends  our  interpretation  of  the  parable  of  races.  The  full 
interpretation  is  so  complex  and  vast  that  perhaps  the  greatest 
of  libraries  will  not  suffice  to  contain  all  the  books  that  will  some 


A  RACIAL  TEST 


871 


day  be  written  about  it.  Those  books  will  doubtless  explain  the 
great  mystery  which  now  underlies  all  our  studies,  the  mystery 
of  the  origin  of  new  characteristics  and  of  the  curiously  divergent 
types  which  we  call  mutants  and  variants.  A  knowledge  of  these 
will  vastly  help  in  understanding  the  process  of  natural  selection. 
Yet  even  now,  although  we  are  so  ignorant  as  to  how  new  types 
arise,  we  understand  something  of  the  way  in  which  the  survival 
of  certain  types  is  fostered  by  various  factors  of  physical  environ- 
ment such  as  the  relief  of  the  earth's  surface,  climate,  mineral 
resources,  vegetation,  parasites,  disease,  food,  and  many  other 
conditions.  We  see  that  human  inventions,  social  customs,  re- 
ligious practises,  forms  of  government,  the  progress  of  science, 
modern  industry  and  transportation,  and  a  host  of  other  cultural 
conditions  play  an  enormous  part  in  picking  out  one  type  for 
slow  destruction  and  another  for  preservation.  The  more  we 
study  this  process  of  selection,  the  more  we  realize  why  one  race 
differs  from  another  in  temperament  and  mentality  as  well  as 
in  physique,  and  why  the  spirit  of  one  age  is  diverse  from  that  of 
the  next. 

Throughout  the  course  of  human  history  the  pioneer,  cityman, 
plowman,  and  seeker-for-truth  have  always  been  important  types. 
In  the  earliest  days  the  anthropoid  ape  who  first  essayed  to  walk 
across  a  broad  clearing  was  a  pioneer;  the  one  that  lost  his  life 
because  in  eager  search  for  fruit  he  failed  to  scent  a  tiger  was  a 
primeval  cityman;  the  plowman  breed  of  apes  clung  closely  to  the 
trees;  while  the  seeker-for-truth  picked  up  a  crooked  stick,  han- 
dled it  curiously,  swung  it  aimlessly,  and  discovered  that  with  it 
he  could  strike  a  blow  that  would  hurt  his  enemy.  Thus  it  has 
been  all  through  the  ages.  At  frequent  intervals  some  crisis  has 
sent  out  pioneers  to  found  an  empire  in  India  or  China,  to  mingle 
with  other  pioneers  and  form  new  races  in  the  belt  surrounding 
the  Mediterranean,  or  to  people  new  continents  in  post-glacial 
Europe,  America,  Australia.  With  equal  frequency  men  of  a 
certain  type  have  flocked  to  the  market-places  and  cities  in  hope 
of  gain.  Those  cities  have  been  the  graveyards  of  racial  progress, 
for  luxury,  ease,  excitement,  vice,  and  lack  of  good  air  and  exer- 


372 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  RACES 


cise  have  sapped  the  strength  of  their  inhabitants.  The  plowmen 
who  have  remained  in  the  old  homes  have  not  perished  as  have 
the  city  men,  but  often  they  have  been  scarcely  more  than  the 
dregs  from  which  the  better  portions  have  been  drained,  as  in 
parts  of  north  China.  All  through  the  ages  the  seekers-for-truth 
have  been  ruthlessly  exterminated  because  they  sacrificed  them- 
selves for  the  good  of  others,  because  they  would  not  conform 
to  strict  archaic  laws,  and  because  out  of  sheer  love  of  knowl- 
edge, or  dissatisfaction  with  things  as  they  are,  they  ruined 
their  health  by  overwork,  put  off  marriage  imtil  it  was  too  late, 
or  sought  asylum  in  monasteries. 

From  many  points  of  view  this  eternal  drama  of  nature's 
choice  of  some  types  for  destruction  and  others  for  preservation 
seems  unutterably  sad.  It  has  been  a  powerful  factor  in  the  decay 
of  almost  every  fallen  nation  from  ancient  Eg}^t  to  modem 
Spain.  Yet  the  drama  has  also  its  encouraging  aspects.  The  pro- 
cess which  left  certain  Chinese  villages  almost  subnormal  has 
helped  to  give  the  Chinese  community  of  northern  Manchuria 
an  almost  American  progressiveness.  The  persistence  of  a  chosen 
inheritance  in  Iceland  and  the  high  quality  of  that  inheritance 
after  a  thousand  years  are  veritable  messages  of  glad  tidings.  It 
is  inspiring  to  realize  that  prolonged  selection  could  cull  out 
pioneers  from  the  rough  peoples  that  invaded  England  one  or  two 
thousand  years  ago,  and  later  could  cull  from  the  descendants  of 
those  same  pioneers  a  group  of  seekers-for-truth  such  as  the  fa- 
mous New  Englanders  in  the  Hall  of  Fame.  If  such  things  can 
happen  under  Nature's  seemingly  haphazard  regime,  why  should 
they  not  happen  ten  times  more  often  under  the  sane  direction 
of  the  science  that  is  gradually  evolving? 

Ever  since  the  discovery  of  America  the  world  has  been  in  the 
throes  of  a  colossal  revolution  whereby  man  has  increased  his 
dominion  over  Nature  almost  incredibly.  This  era  of  material 
progress  seems  to  be  nearing  its  cKmax.  What  more  can  we  expect 
now  that  we  can  travel  in  the  air,  the  ocean,  and  the  earth  as 
well  as  on  the  ocean  and  the  earth  ?  Can  we  not  see  and  hear  that 
which  is  happening  thousands  of  miles  away?  Shall  we  not  soon 


A  RACIAL  TEST 


373 


send  power  wheresoever  we  will  without  pipe,  belt,  or  wire  ?  We 
are  learning  to  transmute  metals,  to  contend  on  victorious  terms 
with  minute  parasites,  and  to  break  the  atom  into  its  electrical 
components.  Much  more  that  is  wonderful  is  doubtless  yet  to 
come,  but  we  may  well  question  whether  any  material  invention 
for  many  a  long  century,  not  even  the  harnessing  of  the  power  of 
the  Sim,  will  change  human  life  so  much  as  have  modern  trans- 
portation, communication,  and  manufacturing,  modern  medicine 
and  chemistry,  and  the  discovery  of  vast  continents  untouched 
by  the  main  streams  of  progress.  So  great  has  been  the  change 
that  mankind  is  dazed,  perplexed,  and  seems  to  be  hurrying  to- 
ward self-destruction. 

But  while  the  material  revolution  thus  whirls  madly  to  its 
climax,  we  faintly  see  the  beginnings  of  another  and  greater 
revolution.  It  is  the  biological  revolution.  Thus  far  modern  sci- 
ence has  scarcely  touched  man's  own  self.  It  has,  to  be  sure, 
made  marvelous  strides  in  healing  the  sick  and  preventing  dis- 
ease, and  in  improving  the  breeds  of  domestic  animals  and  plants, 
but  man  as  a  biological  species  is  not  appreciably  different 
from  what  he  was  at  the  beginning  of  civilization.  Our  aim  for 
ten  thousand  years  has  been  the  mastery  of  things  rather  than  the 
mastery  of  ourselves.  Yet  already  the  revolution  is  at  hand. 
Whether  we  will  or  no,  it  seems  probable  that  the  advanced  na- 
tions will  attempt  to  control  their  own  physical  evolution,  and 
that  the  rest  of  the  world  will  follow  suit  or  perish.  This  attempt 
is  sure  to  create  terrific  rivalries,  dissensions,  revolutions,  and 
even  wars;  no  man  can  foresee  all  that  will  happen.  To  timid 
souls  the  prospect  is  appalling.  To  the  true  pioneer  and  still 
more  to  the  seeker-for-truth  it  is  as  the  cry  of  battle  to  the  war- 
rior. Behold  what  natural  selection  seems  to  have  done  in  the 
past,  in  Greece,  in  Iceland,  in  colonial  America  1  Dare  we  at- 
tempt to  do  the  same  once  more  in  a  grander,  better  way  ?  And 
can  we  succeed  ?  These  are  the  questions  which  centuries  of 
struggle  will  answer  during  the  biological  revolution  whose 
dawn  even  now  reddens  the  eastern  sky. 


LIST  OF  REFERENCES 


Abbott,  Evelyn 
Adams,  Brooks 
Andrews,  Charles  M. 

Backhouse,  E.,  and 

Bland,  J.  O.  P. 
Barrell,  Joseph 


Bashford,  J.  W. 
Bates,  H.  W. 
Bishop,  C.  W. 


Bland,  J.  O.  P. 
Boulger,  D.  C. 
Bryce,  James 

(t 
(( 

ft 

Burton,  Richard  R. 

Campbell,  George 
Carr-Saunders,  A.  M. 

CatteU,  J.  McK. 

Clarke,  Edwin  L. 


Clutton-Brock 
(( 

Conybeare,  C.  A.  V. 

Davies,  Geo.  R. 

Dixon,  R.  B. 
Doughty,  C.  M. 


History  of  Greece.    New  York,  1900. 

The  Emancipation  of  Massachusetts.    Boston,  191 9. 

Preface,  The  Colonising  Activities  of  the  English 
Puritans.    By  A.  P.  Newton.    New  Haven,  1914. 

Annals  and  Memoirs  of  the  Court  of  Peking.  Bos- 
ton and  New  York,  1914. 

Probable  Relations  of  Climatic  Changes  to  the 
Origin  of  the  Tertiary  Ape- Man.  Scientific 
Monthly,  January,  191 7. 

China,  an  Interpretation.   New  York,  1919. 

The  Naturalist  on  the  River  Amazon.  London,  1892. 

The  Geographical  Factor  in  the  Development  of 
Chinese  Civilization.  Geographical  Review,  vol.  7, 
1922. 

See  E.  Backhouse. 

A  Short  History  of  China.    New  York,  1891. 
Preface,  Denmark  and  Sweden,  with  Iceland  and 

Finland.  By  Jon  Stefansson.  New  York,  191 7. 
Race  Sentiment  as  a  Factor  in  History.  London, 

1915- 

Letter  quoted  in  Huntington's  Civilization  and  Cli- 
mate, pp.  161  ff.    New  Haven,  191 5. 

Studies  in  History  and  Jurisprudence.  New  York, 
1901. 

Ultima  Thule,  or  a  Summer  in  Iceland.  London, 
1875. 

Origin  and  Migrations  of  the  Hakkas.   Swatow,  191 2. 

The  Population  Problem,  a  study  of  human  evolu- 
tion. Oxford,  1922. 

Families  of  American  Men  of  Science,  in  American 
Men  of  Science,  third  edition,  192 1. 

American  Men  of  Letters:  Their  Nature  and  Nurture. 
Studies  in  History,  Economics,  and  Pubhc  Law, 
Columbia  Univ.,  vol.  72,  19 16. 

Religion  Now.    Atlantic  Monthly,  vol.  124,  iQiQ- 

Problem  of  Martha.  Atlantic  Monthly,  vol,  126, 1920. 

Pursuit  of  Happiness.  Atlantic  Monthly,  vol.  124, 
1919. 

The  Place  of  Iceland  in  the  History  of  European 

Institutions.    London,  1877. 
A  Statistical  Study  of  the  Influence  of  Environment. 

Quart.  Journ.,  Univ.  N.  Dak.,  vol.  4,  1914- 
The  Racial  History  of  Man.   New  York,  1923. 
Travels  in  Arabia  Deserta.  London,  1888  (also  192 1). 
374 


LIST  OF  REFERENCES  875 

East,  Edward  M.  Mankind  at  the  Crossroads.  New  York,  1923. 

Edwards,  H.  J.  Article  on  Colonies,  in  A  Companion  to  Greek  Stud- 

ies.  Cambridge,  1905. 

Eliot,  Charles  W.  Family  Stocks  in  a  Democracy,  in  American  Con- 

tributions to  Civilization.  1898. 

Elliot,  G.  F.  Scott  Prehistoric  Man  and  His  Story.    London,  191 5. 

Elliot  (Odysseus)  Turkey  in  Europe.    London,  1900. 

Ellis,  Havelock  A  Study  of  British  Genius.    London,  1904. 

Forbes,  Charles  S.  Iceland;  Its  Volcanoes,  Geysers,  and  Glaciers.  Lon- 

don, i860. 

Freeman,  Edward  A.        Articles  on  the  Normans  and  Sicily,  in  Encyclopaedia 

Britannica,  tenth  and  eleventh  editions. 
Galton,  Francis  Hereditary  Genius,  an  Inquiry  into  Its  Laws  and 

Consequences.    New  York,  1870. 
Gautier,  E.  F.  Nomad  and  Sedentary  Folk  of  Northern  Africa. 

Geographical  Review,  vol.  6,  January,  1921. 
Gibbs,  Philip  H.  Now  It  Can  Be  Told.  New  York  and  London,  1920. 

"  Adventures  in  Journalism.  London,  1923. 

Gilfillan,  C.  S.  The  Coldward  Course  of  Progress.  PoHtical  Science 

Quarterly,  1920. 

Gobineau,  Arthur  de         The  InequaHty  of  Human  Races.  London,  191 5. 
Goodwin,  John  A.  The  Pilgrim  Republic.    Boston,  1895. 

Grant,  Madison  The  Passing  of  the  Great  Race.    4th  edition.  New 

York,  1923. 

Gray,  Dr.  See  article  by  Lennox  in  China  Medical  Journal, 

July,  1919. 

Grinnell,  Geo.  B.  The  Cheyenne  Indians,  Their  History  and  Ways  of 

Life.   New  Haven,  1923. 
Hodge,  F.  W.  Handbook  of  American  Indians  North  of  Mexico. 

Washington,  191 1. 
Humphrey,  Seth  K.  The  Racial  Prospect.  New  York,  1920. 

Huntington,  Ellsworth      See  list  of  books  opposite  title  page. 
Icelandic  Books  of  the  Ninth  Century.    Islandica,  vol.  14,  1922. 
Keary,  C.  F.  The  Vikings  in  Western  Christendom.  1891. 

"  Article  on  Vikings  in  Encyclopaedia  Britannica. 

Keith,  Arthur  The  Antiquity  of  Man.   London,  191 5. 

Kendrew,  W.  G.  The  Climates  of  the  Continents.   Oxford,  1922. 

Kneeland,  Samuel  An  American  in  Iceland.   Boston,  1876. 

Kroeber,  A.  L.  Articles  on  Indians  of  California  in  F.  W.  Hodge: 

Handbook  of  American  Indians. 
Lambert,  R.  A.  Post-war  Work  Among  the  Armenian  Refugees  by 

the  Red  Cross.   Military  Surgeon,  vol.  49,  pp. 

314-332.   Washington,  1921. 
Latourette,  K.  S.  The  Development  of  China.   Boston,  191 7. 

Laughlin,  H.  L.  Racial  Stocks  in  a  Democracy.    New  York,  1923. 

Leaf,  Walter  Homer  and  History.   London,  191 5. 

Le  Bon,  Gustave  The  Psychology  of  Peoples,  Its  Influence  on  Their 

Evolution.   London,  1899. 
Lee,  Mabel  P.  The  Economic  History  of  China,  with  Special  Refer- 

ence to  Agriculture.    New  York,  192 1. 


376 


LIST  OF  REFERENCES 


Lennox,  Wm.  G.  Chinese  Vital  Statistics.   China  Medical  Journal, 

July,  1919.^ 
Primitive  Society.  New  York,  1920- 
Organic  Evolution.   New  York,  191 7. 
Is  America  Safe  for  Democracy?  New  York,  1921. 
Climate  and  Evolution.  New  York  Academy  of 

Science,  191 5. 
The  Arboreal  Ancestry  of  the  Mammalia,  American 

Nat.,  vol.  38,  1904. 
Article  on  Population  in  A  Companion  to  Greek 

Studies.   Cambridge  University  Press,  1905. 
Human  Origins,  a  Manual  of  Prehistory.  New  York, 
1924. 

Mimir  Icelandic  Institutions,  with  addresses,  1903. 


Lowie,  Robert  H. 
LuU,  R.  S. 
MacDougall,  Wm. 
Matthew,  W.  D. 


Mayor,  R.  J.  G. 
McCurdy,  G.  G. 


Myers,  John  L. 
Newton,  Arthur  P. 

Nicoll,  James 


Novakovsky,  Stanislaus 


Odin,  Alfred 


Osborn,  H.  F. 


Parker,  E.  H. 


Pettersson,  O. 


Pfeififer,  Ida 
Powell,  F.  Y. 
Redfield,  C.  L. 


Ridgeway,  Wm. 


Greek  Lands  and  the  Greek  People. 

The  Colonising  Activities  of  the  EngHsh  Puritans. 

New  Haven,  1914. 
An  Historical  and  Descriptive  Account  of  Iceland, 

Greenland,  and  the  Faroe  Islands.  Edinburgh, 

1841. 

Unpubhshed  manuscript  on  Siberian  Hysteria  as  a 
Reflex  of  the  Geographic  Environment,  pubUshed 
in  part  in  Ecology,  vol.  5,  1924. 

Genese  des  Grands  Hommes.  Gens  de  Lettres  Fran- 
gais  Modernes.   Paris,  1895. 

Men  of  the  Old  Stone  Age.   New  York,  191 8. 

Preface  to  The  Passing  of  the  Great  Race,  by  Madi- 
son Grant.   New  York,  1916. 

The  Pliocene  Man  of  Foxhall  in  East  Anglia.  Natural 
History,  November  and  December,  1921. 

The  Dawn  Man  of  Piltdown,  Sussex. 

Old  and  New  Standards  of  Pleistocene  Division  in 
Relation  to  the  Prehistory  of  Man  in  Europe. 
1922. 

China,  Her  History,  Diplomacy,  and  Commerce, 
from  the  Earliest  Times  to  the  Present  Day.  New 
York,  1917. 

Climatic  Variations  in  Historic  and  Prehistoric 
Times.  Svenska  Hydrogrefisk-Biologiska  Kom- 
missioners  Skrifter,  Heft  V.   Goteborg,  1914. 

A  Journey  to  Iceland  and  Travels  in  Sweden  and 
Norway.  New  York,  1852. 

Article  on  Iceland,  Encyclopaedia  Britannica,  elev- 
enth edition. 

Control  of  Heredity.    Chicago,  1903. 

Dynamic  Evolution.    New  York,  1914. 

Great  Men  and  How  They  Are  Produced.  Chicago, 
1915- 

Human  Heredity.    Chicago,  1921. 

The  Early  Age  of  Greece.    Cambridge  (Eng.),  1901. 


LIST  OF  REFERENCES 


877 


Russell,  Bertrand 
Russell,  W.  S.  C. 
Semple,  Ellen  C. 

Sergei,  G. 

Smith,  A.  H. 

Snow,  E.  C. 

Stefansson,  Jon 

Stefansson,  V. 

Stoddard,  T.  Lothrop 

Taylor,  Griffith 


Thompson,  J.  Arthur 
Tyler,  John  M. 

U.  S.  Census 

Vanden  Bergh,  L.  J. 
Venn,  John 

Visher,  S.  S. 


Waller,  S.  E. 
Ward,  Lester  F. 

Wetzel 

Whitney,  Harry 
WiUiams,  F.  W. 


WiUis,  J.  C. 
Wissler,  Clarke 


The  Problem  of  China.  London,  1923. 
Iceland,  19 14. 

Influence  of  Geographic  Environment.  New  York, 
1911. 

The  Mediterranean  Race.  A  Study  of  the  Origin  of 

European  Peoples.  New  York,  1901. 
Chinese  Characteristics.   New  York,  1894. 
Village  Life  in  China.  New  York,  1899. 
The  Intensity  of  Natural  Selection  in  Man.  Drapers' 

Company  Research  Memoirs.  London,  191 1. 
Denmark  and  Sweden,  with  Iceland  and  Finland. 

Preface  by  James  Bryce.  London,  1916. 
The  Friendly  Arctic.   New  York,  192 1. 
The  Northward  Course  of  Empire.   New  York,  1922. 
The  Revolt  Against  Civilization:  the  Menace  of  the 

Under  Man.  New  York,  1922. 
CHmatic  Cycles  and  Evolution.   The  Geographical 

Review,  December,  191 9. 
The  Evolution  and  Distribution  of  Race,  Culture, 

and  Language.   New  York,  1921. 
Lectures  on  Evolution  at  Yale  University,  1924. 
The  New  Stone  Age  in  Northern  Europe.  New 

York,  192 1. 

A  Century  of  Population  Growth  in  the  United 
States,  1 790-1 900.   Washington,  1909. 

On  the  Trail  of  the  Pigmies.   New  York,  192 1. 

Cambridge  Anthropometry.  Journal  Anthropol.  Inst., 
vol.  18,  1889. 

A  Study  of  the  Type  of  Place  of  Birth  and  Occupa- 
tions of  Fathers  of  Persons  in  Who's  Who  in 
America.  1924-1925. 

Six  Weeks  in  the  Saddle.   London,  1874. 

Applied  Sociology.  A  Treatise  on  the  Conscious 
Improvement  of  Society  by  Society.  Boston,  1906. 

Quoted  by  EUiott,  G.  F. 

Hunting  with  the  Eskimo.   New  York,  19 10. 

A  History  of  China.   New  York,  1901. 

The  Manchu  Conquest  of  China.  The  Journal  of  Race 
Development,  vol.  4,  no.  2,  1913. 

Unpublished  manuscript  on  China. 

Age  and  Area.  A  Study  in  Geographical  Distribu- 
tion and  Origin  of  Species.  Cambridge  (Eng.),  1922 

Man  and  Culture.  New  York,  1923. 


INDEX 


A 

Abbott,  E.,  cited,  245,  374 
Abdul  Hamid,  145 

Aboriginal  America,  anomalies  of,  156  jf. 
Achseans,  236,  244;  migrations  of,  240  ff. 
Acquired  characteristics,  inheritance  of, 
365/. 

Acquisitiveness,  racial  trait,  215 
Adams,  B.,  cited,  324,  374 
Adams  family,  324,  367  ff, 
Adams,  Henry,  324 
Adams,  John,  325 
Adams,  J.  F.,  324 
Adams,  J.  Q.,  325 

Adaptability,  of  Greeks,  240  /. ;  267  /. ;  of 

Norse,  267 
Adaptation  to  environment,  34 
Aegeans,  236,  238 
Aerial  warfare,  339 
Afghans,  raids  among,  120 
Africa,  aborigines,  73;  migrations  in,  21, 

59;  Norse  in,  254;  pastoralism  in,  112; 

Proto-Australoids  in,  89;  Proto-Ne- 

groids  in,  89 
Agassiz,  L.,  325 

Age,  and  area,  80;  of  fathers,  365  ff. 
Agriculture,  in  Arizona,  108;  Icelandic, 

274  /.,  283;  origin  of,  60;  primitive 

American,  92 
Aigun,  200 
Air  Service,  329 

Alaska,  62 ;  climate  of,  63;  Indians  of,  53; 

insanity  in,  67 
Alcseus,  241 
Alcott,  L.  M.,  324 
Aleppo,  140 
Aleutian  Islands,  102 
Algeria,  nomads  of,  123;  pirates  of,  297 
Algonkians,  90,  91  ff. 
Alikaluf,  89  /.,  92 

Alpine  race,  83/.,  207,  210  ff.;  achieve- 
ments of,  231;  in  Crete,  237/.;  defined, 
5;  genius  of,  228;  racial  position  of,  77 

Althing,  291  /. 

Amazon  River,  71 

America,  causes  of  greatness,  308  ff. ;  con- 
trast with  Europe,  161;  early  culture 


of,  61;  early  immigrants,  61;  eminent 
men  in,  349;  migrations  in,  77;  natural 
selection  in,  301  ff. ;  political  leaders  in, 
227;  racial  character  in,  90;  racial  im- 
poverishment in,  364 ;  scientists  in,  342 ; 
suppression  of,  61  ff. 

American  Indians,  origin,  63  ff. 

American  Museum,  33,  35 

American  Revolution,  306 

Americans,  character  of,  330  /. ;  selection 
of  modern,  301  ff. 

Amoy,  vehicles  in,  164 

Anadyr  Peninsula,  glaciation  in,  55 

Andrews,  CM.,  302,  374 

Angkor  Tom,  1 1 

Angkor  Wat,  10/. 

Angles,^  248,  265,  303 

Anhwei,  famines  in,  177,  182 

Animals,  during  famines,  180;  in  glacial 
Europe,  51;  origin  of  domestic,  21 

Anomalies  of  aboriginal  America,  88  ff. 

Antarctica,  winds  of,  48 

Anthropoids,  as  human  ancestors,  27 

Anthropology,  generalizations  of,  74 

Ape-man,  31;  of  Java,  24 

Arabia,  migrations  in,  59;  nomadism  in, 
114  ff.;  deserts  of,  57 

Arabs,  character  of,  115  /.;  leadership 
among,  153;  migrations  of,  208;  in 
Sicily,  266 

Aral,  Sea  of,  57 

Arcadia,  243 

Architecture,  Norman,  265  Jf. ;  relation  to 

selection,  18 
Arctic  hysteria,  68  ff. 
Arctic  problem,  67 
Area,  and  age,  81 

Aridity,  in  Central  Asia,  27;  and  Chinese 
migrations,  149;  and  human  dispersal, 
24;  and  natural  selection,  44 

Aristocracy,  in  England,  250;  in  Greece, 
245 

Aristotle,  246 

Arizona,  92;  agriculture  in,  108 
Arkansas,  eminent  men  in,  317 
Armenians,  character  of,  137  ff.,  146;  de- 
portations of,  139  ff.;  physique  of,  140; 
migrations  of,  208 


380 


INDEX 


Armor,  effect  on  natural  selection,  338 

Art,  in  Belgium,  225/.;  Bohemia,  225/.; 
Cambodia,  11;  Europe,  223;  Holland, 
244/.;  Italy,  226;  among  nomads,  125/. 
of  Normans,  265  /. 

Artists  in  Europe,  map,  223 

Aryans,  5 

Asia,  aridity  in,  42;  centre  of  evolution, 
23/.;  contrast  with  Europe,  53;  deserts 
of»  63;  glacial  period  in,  52  ff.;  migra- 
tions from,  77;  original  human  home, 
20  ff. ;  nomads  in,  112  ff,',  original  home 
of  man,  20  ff.,  81 

Asia  Minor,  54;  Greeks  in,  241  ff.;  migra- 
tions in,  59 

Asiatic  languages,  in  America,  62 

Associated  charities,  and  natural  selec- 
tion, 336 

Athelred  II,  292 

Athens,  natural  selection  in,  244  ff.  See 

Attica 
Atlantic  Drift,  274 
Atlantis,  61 

Attica,  serfs  in,  237;  settlement  of,  242  ff. 
Australia,  aborigines,  73;  early  migrants 

in,  21;  Norse  type  in,  266 
Australoids,  in  South  Africa,  85 
Austria,  achievements  of,  231;  political 

leaders  in,  227;  birth  rate  in,  354 
Aural  index,  77 
Aviators,  329 
Aztecs,  88,  92 
Azubah,  129 

B 

"Babbitt,"  331 

Babylonia,  deportations  to,  134  ff. 
Bacon,  Sir  Francis,  301 
Backhouse,  E.,  156,  374 
Balkans,  227 
Baltic  Sea,  233 

ancroft,  G.,  325 

anditry,  in  China,  175,  193 
Bantus,  85  /. 
Baptism,  in  Iceland,  289 
Baptists,  eminence  among,  319,  321  ff.; 

natural  selection  among,  322 
Barrel!,  J.,  27,  29,  374 
Bashford,  J.  W.,  374 
Bates,  H.  W.,  24,  71,  374 
Bathing,  among  Chinese,  168;  relation  to 

climate,  289 
Beans,  92 
Beduin,  114  ff. 

Beggars,  in  China,  162,  164,  175 


Belgium,  254;  achievements  of,  231;  art 
in,  225;  political  leaders  in,  227;  scien- 
tists from,  312 

Beni  Sakr,  115 

Benjamin,  tribe  of,  131 

Berbers,  123 

Bering  Island,  102 

Bering  Strait,  62  /. ;  glaciation  near,  55 

Bermaz,  137 

Bey  Shehr  Lake,  142  /. 

Bible,  129/. 

Biographies,  235 

Birthplaces  of  eminent  persons  (maps), 

223,  225,  227,  229,  286 
Birthrate,  American,  310  /.,  354,  356; 

urban,  194,  346,  353;  restriction  of, 

365,  370 
Bishop,  C.  W.,  374 
Bland,  J.  O.  P.,  156,  374 
Block,  cited,  281 
Blondness,  in  Greece,  238,  246 
Boas,  F.,  74 
Boeotia,  243 

Bohemia,  achievements  of,  231;  art  in, 

225;  political  leaders  in,  227 
Boomerang  (map),  79 
Boulger,  cited,  196,  374 
Brahmaputra  River,  14,  26 
Brain,  evolution  of,  30,  50;  size  of,  31 
Breidifjord,  291 
Brides,  in  China,  190 
Brigandage,  in  China,  175,  193 
Brinton,  D.  G.,  71 

British,  character  of,  214/.;  contact  with 
China,  200;  as  settlers  in  U.  S.,  65; 
See  also  England  and  English 

British  Charitable  Hospital,  194 

British  Isles,  in  Britannica,  230 

Broad-heads,  location,  77 

Brothers,  relative  ability  of,  365  ff. 

Brownists,  322 

Bryant,  W.  C,  325 

Bryce,  James,  2 269,  278,  291,  374 

Brythons,  303 

Burmah,  15 

Burton,  R.  R.,  292  374 
Bushmen,  85/. 
Byzantine  Emperors,  354 

C 

Caleb,  129 
Calendar,  Maya,  63 

California,  88;  agriculture  in,  107  /.; 
genius  in,  316;  gold  in,  328;  human 
relics  in,  61;  Indians  of,  100,  103  jf.; 


INDEX 


S81 


leadership  in,  327;  natural  selection  in, 
329 

California  Institute  of  Technology,  327 
Cambodia,  ruins  in,  10  ff. 
Cambridge  University,  cephalic  index  at, 
31 

Campbell,  G.,  168,  195/.,  I97/.,  374 
Canada,  ice  in,  63;  scientists  from,  312 
Canals,  in  Shantung,  171 
Cannibalism,  in  China,  177  ff.,  188/. 
Canton,  199,  202;  first  Chinese  in,  149; 

Hakkas  in,  167 
Cantonese,  character  of,  160 
Cape  Horn,  91 

Caravan  roads,  importance  of,  131 
Caribbean  Sea,  colonization  schemes  in, 
302 

Carr-Saunders,  362,  374 
Caspian  race,  Dixon's,  83/.,  89,  207,  209, 
257 

Caspian-Mediterranean  blend,  90,  92 
Cathay,  152 

Catholics,  eminence  among,  320.  See 

Roman  Catholic  Church 
Cattell,  J.  McK.,  342,  346,  358/.,  374 
Caucasus,  migrations  in,  59 
Celibacy,  340  #• 

Central  America,  civilization  in,  61; 
ruins  in,  11 

Central  Asia,  decline  of  glacial  period  in, 
58;  migrations  in,  57;  upheaval  of,  27 

Central  Europe,  migrations  in,  77 

Cephalic  Index,  77  (map);  79  (map). 
See  Head  form.  Broad-heads,  Long- 
heads, and  Round-heads 

Chang  La,  26 

Channing,  W.  E.,  325 

Chaplicka,  quoted,  70 

Character,  of  Americans,  333;  of  Dutch, 
333;  of  English,  333;  and  environ- 
ment, 286  ff.\  geographical  distribu- 
tion of,  215  ff.;  of  Germans,  333;  of 
Indians,  65;  of  Turks,  333 

Charity,  among  Chinese,  192;  and  na- 
tural selection,  336 

Charlemagne,  258  /.,  261 

Chehsi,  182 

Chekiang,  180,  182;  famines  in,  196; 

Hakkas  in,  196;  officials  from,  l6l 
Chemists,  children  of,  358 
Chi,  178 

Chicago,  age  of  fathers  in,  365 

Chihli,  famines  in,  177  /.;  migrations 

from,  200  ff.;  officials  from,  161 
Children,  357;  effect  of  migrations  on,  13, 

304;  per  family,  194,  353 mortality 


of,  in  Crete,  238;  sale  of,  m  China,  177, 
187/. 
Ch'in,  148 

China,  early  migrations  in,  21,  58;  Eu- 
ropean contact  with,  164/.;  famines  ixi, 
170/.;  history  of,  148,  179,  203/.; 
leaders  in,  155,  160/.;  progress  in,  60; 
rainfall  in,  170  ff.;  selection  in,  362; 
social  origins  in,  60 

Chinese,  vs.  Americans,  337;  brains  of, 
78;  head  form  of,  77;  as  invaders,  148; 
in  Manchuria,  200;  natural  selection 
among,  184  ff.;  officials  (map),  161; 
physique  of,  185, 333/.;  warlike  quality 
of,  155 

Chinese  Bannermen,  161 

Chinook  Indians,  103 

Chios,  242 

Chosen,  58 

Christianity,  in  Iceland,  269,  289,  292/.; 
origin  of,  133  /. 

Chronicles,  book  of,  130 

Chukchees,  53;  hysteria  among,  70;  sui- 
cide among,  69 

Churchill  family,  367 

Cities,  birth  rate  in,  346;  effect  on  selec- 
tion, 193/.;  leadership  in,  346/,,  348, 
352;  Mediterranean,  213;  test  of,  346 ff. 

Cityman,  7,  371 

Civilization,  defined,  228;  European,  335; 
and  glaciation,  332  ff. ;  localization  of, 
59;  map,  225;  origin,  60;  racial  ten- 
dencies of,  332  ff. 

Clapham,  78 

Clarke,  E.  L.,  309       349,  374 

Clarke,  J.  P.,  324 

Class  distinctions,  in  America,  307 

Clay,  as  food,  179 

Cleanliness,  relation  to  climate,  289 

Clergymen,  children  of,  318  ff.,  321,  342jf. 

Cleomenes,  246 

Climate,  of  California,  328/.;  China,  164, 
170;  Greece,  247;  Iceland,  273;  Ireland, 
248  ff.;  North  Sea  region,  252/.;  Nor- 
way, 219;  Sicily,  219,  268 

Climate,  effects  of,  on  civilization,  88;  in 
cold  regions,  65;  evolution,  34;  famines. 
183;  health,  289/.;  human  character, 
92,  288^.;  human  origins,  22;  leader- 
ship, 329;  migrations,  349 

Climatic  changes,  55,  206;  in  Iceland, 
293  ff' ;  and  migrations,  205  ff. ;  in  Nor- 
way, 260  ff. 

Climatic  cycles,  47 

Climatic  energy,  88;  map,  232 

Clothing,  21 


382 


INDEX 


CIutton-Brock,  3,  374 
Coffee,  among  Arabs,  116 
Coleman,  R.  V.,  174 
Colonists,  qualities  of,  215,  217 
Colorado,  leaders  in,  316 
Colorado  River,  Indians  on,  107  /. 
Como,  persecutions  at,  342 
Communism,  and  natural  selection,  215 
Complexion,  78 

Coneybeare,  C.  A.  V.,  259,  268,  374 
Confucius,  temple  of,  164 
Congregationalists,    eminence  among, 
319;  natural  selection  among,  321  ff. 
Connecticut,  eminence  in,  315/. 
Conservatism,  in  China,  177 
Constantinople,  254 

Constitution,  of  Iceland,  291;  of  U.  S., 

306  ^  ^ 

Continents,  distribution  of  headform  in, 

75;  evolution  in,  34 
Cooper,  Peter,  325 
Copper  Island,  102 
Coprolite  jaw,  42 
Corn,  92 
Cossacks,  69 
Couvade  (map),  79 
Cranial  capacity,  77 
Cranial  types,  among  women,  84 
Crete,  civilization  of,  239  ff.;  settlers  in, 

237 

Cross,  sign  of,  137/. 
Cultural  conditions,  79  (map) 
Curiosity,  racial  trait,  211  /. 
Cushman,  C,  325 
Customs,  racial,  79  (map) 
Cycles,  in  history,  148,  203 
Cyclonic  storms,  47 
Czechs,  migrations  of,  77 

D 

Dakotas,  eminence  in,  315  ff. 
Dana,  R.  H.,  324 

Danes,  248,  326;  in  England,  255,  265; 

among  Vikings,  303 
Daniel,  Book  of,  134 
Davies,  G.  R.,  348/.,  374 
Dead  Sea,  57 

Death  rate,  in  cities,  194;  in  Europe, 
279  /.;  in  famines,  184;  in  Iceland, 
279/.,  286  (map);  among  infants,  358 

Deformation,  of  heads,  79  (map) 

Delhi,  Prince  of,  12 

Demetrius  Phalerius,  246 

Democracy,  346  ff.;  among  Arabs  125, 
biological  effect  of,  355  ff. 


Demosthenes,  245 

Denmark,  55;  political  leaders  in,  227 
Denominations,  natural  selection  among, 
321  #. 

Deportation,  of  Armenians,  139  jf. 

Deserts,  effect  of,  on  evolution,  58,  73; 
map,  48;  migration,  206;  racial  char- 
acter, 56 

Deterioration,  of  races,  18 

Diagrams.    See  Maps 

Diet,  in  Iceland,  300.    See  Food 

District  of  Columbia,  eminent  persons  in, 

Divorce,  in  Europe,  213;  effect  on  racial 

inheritance,  361 
Dix,  Dorothy,  324 

Dixon,  R.  B.,  75/.,  77/.,  81,  85,  88/., 
102,  166,  209,  212,  234,  256/.,  374 

Dnieper  River,  354 

Docility,  racial  trait,  214 

Domestic  animals,  and  civilization,  112; 
in  Iceland,  275 

Domestic  plants,  origin  of,  21 

Door  court,  292 

Dorians,  240/.,  244 

Doughty,  C.  M.,  121,  374 

Drake,  301 

Drought,  in  Arabia,  121  ff.;  in  China, 
154,  170/.;  as  cause  of  famines,  176  ff.; 
effect  on  raids,  117/.;  in  Sicily,  218 

Dublin,  254 

Duckworth,  78 

Dutch,  character  of,  333 

Dyradomr,  292 

E 

Earthquakes,  in  Iceland,  271,  294,  298 
East,  E.  M.,  334,  362,  375 
East  Anglia,  326;  home  of  Puritans,  302 
Eastern  Tsin,  195 

Economy,  relation  to  famines,  185  ff. 
Eddas,  256  ff. 

Education,  in  America,  306;  in  Europe, 
223;  effect  on  inheritance,  314,  320; 
effect  on  leaders,  349;  effect  on  selec- 
tion, 344;  leaders  in,  223  (map) 

Edwards,  H.  J.,  244,  375 

Egypt,  54;  domestic  animals  in,  113;  re- 
lation to  America,  61 ;  migrations  to,  59 

Eirik  Eymundsson,  259 

Elbe,  Norse  at,  254 

Eliot,  C.  W.,  324,  346,  359,  375 

Elizabeth,  Queen,  301 

Elliot,  G.  F.  L.,  27,  375 

Elliot  (Odysseus),  144,  375 


INDEX 


383 


Ellis,  H.,  302  /.,  365,  375 

Emerson  family,  origin  of,  303 

Emerson,  R.  W.,  325 

Eminence,  distribution  of,  228,  303,  309, 
312,  314,  347/. 

Emotional  selection,  322  /. 

Empress  Dowager,  151 

Encyclopaedia  Britannica,  220  jf.,  230, 
235,  277,  279  ^ 

Energy,  and  genius,  233 

Engineers,  eminent  children  of,  319 

England,  character  of,  222,  333;  genius 
in,  220  ff.,  302/.;  immigration  to,  248, 
342;  versus  Ireland,  248/,;  migrations 
from,  250;  Normans  in,  265/.;  Norse 
in,  261  /.,  264;  persecutions  in,  342; 
scientists  from  in  U.  S.,  312;  in  six- 
teenth century,  301  /.  See  British, 
and  English 

English,  in  Iceland,  295^.;  migrations  of, 
77,    See  British,  and  England. 

Environment,  adaptation  to,  34;  and 
character,  286  ff.;  and  genius,  228;  in 
Iceland,  299;  and  inheritance,  309^., 
320;  and  leadership,  348^. ;  potency  of, 
92;  and  social  position,  78 

Ephesus,  242 

Epidemics,  in  Iceland,  294 
Episcopalians,  321  ff.;  children  of,  319 
Erna,  257 
Esau,  129 

Eskimos,  53,  67,  89  /.,  92;  cleanliness 
among,  289 

Esther,  Book  of,  134 

Ethelbert,  259 

Euphrates  River,  120 

Europe,  celibacy  in,  341 ;  character  of, 
220^. ;  in  China,  165 ;  center  of  civiliza- 
tion, 60;  contrast  with  America,  88; 
contrast  with  Asia,  53 ;  glacial  period  in, 
49,  51  /m  56,  58;  evolution  in,  336/.; 
land  connections  of,  42;  leadership  in, 
234;  migrations  in,  206  ff.;  races  of 
(map),  76,  77;  type  of  civilization,  325 

Europeans,  classification  of,  235;  in 
tropics,  51 

Evangelists  Island,  91 

Evolution,  centers  of,  33;  human,  36  ff.; 
mental,  332  #. 

Examinations,  Chinese,  152,  161 

Extroverts,  213 

F 

Factories,  effect  on  character,  337 
Family,  in  China,  188/.;  rural  vs.  urban, 
355;  size  of,  310,  354,  357,  366/.;  size 


according  to  occupation  of  fathers,  357 ; 
status  of,  360 

Famine,  in  Chekiang,  196;  in  China,  154, 
156,  170  ff.,  176  ff.;  deaths  in,  184;  in 
England,  295,  297;  in  Iceland,  270,  274, 
295,  297;  in  Ireland,  248  /. ;  and  migra- 
tion, 199;  relief  of,  189 

Farmers,  birthrate  among,  353  ff. ;  chronic 
depression  of,  352;  leaders  among,  347, 
352 

Fathers,  of  eminent  men,  357;  age  of, 

365  ff.    See  also  Eminence 
Feet,  of  Chinese  women,  162/.;  of  Hakka 

women,  168 
Feminism,  346^.,  360  ff. 
Fidelity,  among  raiders,  127 
Filial  piety,  197 

Finland,  health  in,  23;  literature  in,  226; 
Norse  in,  255 

Fishermen,  birth  rate  among,  353  ff.; 
death  rate  among,  286  /.;  among 
Haidas,  loi ;  in  Iceland,  298 

Flemings,  as  migrants,  303,  342 

Floods,  in  China,  170  ff.,  176  ff.;  in  Ice- 
land, 271 

Florida,  eminent  persons  in,  316,  318; 

human  relics  in,  61 
Food,  among  Arabs,  116,  120;  in  China, 

179,  184;  in  Iceland,  300;  of  primitive 

man,  28;  of  shepherds,  116 
Forbes,  C.  S.,  375 
Foreign-born,  in  U.  S.,  353 
Forests,  Miocene,  28 
Formosa,  Chinese  in,  150 
Forty-niners,  328  /. 
Foxhall  man,  42 

France,  migrants  in,  77,  303;  Norse  in, 

254,  261,  264;  persecutions  in,  342 
Franklin,  Benjamin,  325 
Freeman,  E.  A.,  265  375 
French,  in  Iceland,  297 
French  Indo-China,  ruins  in,  10^. 
Friends,  eminent  people  among,  319 
Fr6  d,  291  f 

Fuchow,  202;  migrants  from,  196;  ve- 
hicles in,  164 
Fukien,  198;  Hakkas  in,  196 
Furness,  H.  H.,  324 
Furniture,  among  Arabs,  124 

G 

Gaelic  belt,  map,  79 
Galilee,  131  /. 

Galton,  F.,  341  /.,  365,  368,  375 
Ganges  River,  14 


384 


INDEX 


Garonne,  Norse  in,  254 

Gautier,  cited,  123,  375 

Genius,  distribution  in  England,  303;  in 
Europe,  233;  maps  of,  223,  229,  286, 
316.    See  also  Eminence  and  Leaders 

Geographical  distribution,  of  character, 
215/ 

Germans,  birth  rate  of,  354 ;  character  of, 
214,  222,  333;  head  form  of,  77;  migra- 
tions of,  77;  political  leaders  in,  227; 
relation  to  Turkey,  142 

Gibbs,  Philip,  266,  330,  375 

Gilfillan,  S.  C.,  375 

Girls,  in  China,  162  /.,  187  /. 

Glacial  period,  38,  47  ff.,  58,  63;  causes, 
47;  effect  on  evolution,  49,  332  ffr,  in 
Europe,  53,  205/. 

Glaciation,  map  of,  48 

Gobineau,  A.  de,  i,  375 

Goodwin,  J.  A.,  375 

Gorm,  259 

Government,  relation  to  famines,  177/., 

180  ff.;  among  nomads,  115/. 
Grand  Canal,  171 
Grant,  M.,  i,  375 

Grass,  distribution  of,  37;  as  food,  176 

Gray,  Dr.,  cited,  194,  375 

Greece,  achievements  of,  231 ;  advantages 

of,  60;  population  of,  246 
Greeks,  character  of,  236^.;  migrations 

of,  208;  racial  feeling  of,  2;  science 

among,  212;  in  Sicily,  266 
Greenland,  hysteria  Arctica  in,  69;  winds 

of,  48 
Grimsey  Island,  280 
Grinnell,  G.  B.,  375 
Gulf  Stream,  274 
Gunnlaug  Ormstunga,  292 

H 

Haidas,  character  of,  109;  civilization  of, 

99/,;  origin  of,  102 
Hainan,  settlement  in,  150 
Hair,  as  racial  trait,  77/.;  loss  of,  21 
Hakkas,  167,  194  ff. 
Hale,  E.  E.,  324 
Hall  of  Fame,  324  /. 
Han  dynasty,  177 
Hands,  evolution  of,  29  ff. 
Hangchow,  182 
Harbin,  165,  200 
Harems,  140,  145 
Harold  Fairhair,  258  ff.,  262 
Harvard  graduates,  children  of,  358  /. 
Hawes,  cited,  237 


Hawthorne,  N.,  325 

Head,  deformation  of,  79  (map);  evolu- 
tion of,  29/.,  75;  form  of,  62,  74,  ff; 
77  (map),  228 

Head-form,  criterion  of  race,  75;  inheri- 
tance of,  85;  relation  to  genius,  228 

Health,  in  Iceland,  300;  map  of,  225,  231 
ff.;  and  progress,  88 

Heber,  130 

Hebrews.    See  Jews 

Hecate,  loi 

Hecataeus,  237,  244 

Helga,  the  Fair,  292 

Hellas,  settlement  of,  242  ff. 

Herd  instinct,  212,  214 

Herding,  112.    ^ee  Nomads,  Nomadism. 

Herodotus,  246 

Hezron,  129 

Higginson,  T.  W.,  324 

Himalayas,  effect  on  migrations,  59;  in 
Miocene  period,  25 

Hing-Ning,  168 

Historians,  in  Europe,  223  (map) 
Hiung-nu,  148,  202 
Hoang-Ho,  174,  181 
Hodge,  F.  W.,  107,  375 
Hoklos,  196  /.,  203 

Holland,  255 ;  art  in,  225 ;  migrations  into, 
303;  Norse  in,  261 ;  political  leaders  in, 
227;  Puritans  in,  304;  scientists  from, 
312 

Holmes,  O.  W.,  325 

Homer,  237,  239,  241 

Homicide,  in  Europe,  213/. 

Honan,  famines  in,  176  /.;  migration 

from,  196-198 
Hongkong,  200 
Hopeh,  famines  in,  177 
Horses,  among  Arabs,  124;  evolution  of, 

35/. 

Hospitality,  among  nomads,  126 

Hottentots,  85  /. 

Houses,  in  China,  172 

Howeitat  Arabs,  117 

Hrafn,  292 

Hsu,  178 

Hu,  180 

Huguenots,  222,  248,  342;  in  America, 
305 

Human  character,  first  steps  in,  20  ff. 
Human  evolution,   abnormal  environ- 
ment of,  36  jf. 
Human  remains,  39,  61,  64 
Humidity,  23 

Humphreys,  S.  K.,  346,  375 
Hungarians,  birth-rate  of,  354 


INDEX 


S85 


Hungary,  achievements  of,  231 ;  literature 

in,  226 
Huns,  invasions  of,  195 
Huntington  family,  367  Jf. 
Hupa  Indians,  103 
Hupeh,  famines  in,  177 
Hutchinson,  Mrs.  Anne,  322 
Hysteria  Arctica,  68 

I 

Ibn  Khaldun,  123 

Ice  Age,  63.    See  Glacial  Period 

Iceland,  264.  ff. ;  agriculture  in,  274/.,  283, 
294;  architecture  in,  295  /,;  books  in, 
284;  changes  in  character  in,  284; 
Christianity  in,  289 ;  cleanliness  in,  289 ; 
climate  of,  273  28g  ff.,  300;  com- 
pared with  New  Hampshire,  280;  con- 
stitution of,  291;  death  rate  in,  279/., 
286;  diet  in,  300;  domestic  animals  in, 
275;  earthquakes  in,  294,  298;  educa- 
tion in,  280  /. ;  eminent  men  in,  279; 
environment  of,  270^.,  300;  epidemics 
in,  274,  295;  fisheries  in,  275  /.,  284, 
298;  foreigners  in,  272;  health  in,  300; 
illegitimacy  in,  281;  isolation  of,  272; 
library  references  to,  277;  literature  of, 
226,  2'j8ff. ;  migrations  to,  211/.;  mode 
of  life,  282/.;  natural  selection  in,  284, 
299;  Norse  in,  254^.,  262;  Norwegian 
relations,  294^.;  pirates  in,  297;  print- 
ing in,  279;  population  of,  270;  racial 
character  in,  299;  Reformation  in,  296 
/.;  religion  of,  272;  ship-building  in, 
296;  selection  of  settlers,  268;  small- 
pox in,  297;  summary  of  history,  298 
ff.;  syphilis  in,  281  /.;  trade  of,  2gsff.; 
trees  in,  274,  294;  temperature  of,  91; 
volcanic  eruptions  in,  294,  297  /.; 
witches  in,  297 

Iceland  moss,  283 

Iceland  spar,  272 

Illegitimacy,  in  Iceland,  281 

Illinois,  eminent  men  in,  316 

Immigrants  in  U.  S.,  character  of,  sogff. ; 
factory  work  of,  353 ;  head-form  of,  74 

Imperial  clan,  152 

Implements,  racial  relations  of,  79  (map) 
Incas,  88,  92,  273 

India,  205;  migrations  in,  12,  59;  moun- 
tains of,  26;  racial  origins  in,  60 

Indians  (American),  character  of,  66,  71, 
88;  natural  selection  among,  68;  of 
South  America,  24 

Individualism,  racial  trait,  211  ff. 


Indo-China,  Chinese  in,  150;  ruins  in, 
10/. 

Indo-European  race,  5 
Indus  River,  26 

Industry,  and  birth  rate,  353  ff. 

Inheritance,  and  achievement,  352;  of  ac- 
quired characteristics,  365^. ;  Athenian 
laws  of,  245;  vs.  education,  314,  320; 
vs.  environment,  sogff.,  320;  of  head- 
form,  85;  persistence  of,  2'j'j  j. 

Intellectual  awakening,  in  England,  301 
ff- 

Intellectual  selection,  322  /. 

Interest,  rate  of,  in  China,  180 

Introversion,  racial  trait,  213/. 

Invasions,  of  China,  183,  195;  and  migra- 
tion, 199 

Inventions,  and  birth  rate,  357 

Ionian  migrations,  225 

Ireland,  eminent  persons  in,  225;  land 
tenure  in,  181;  library  references  to, 
277;  migrations  from,  77;  Norse  in, 
254  /.,  264,  261 ;  political  leaders  in, 
227 

Irish,  character  of,  215,  236,  247  ff.\  in 

Iceland,  254 
Iroquois,  90  109 
Irrawadi  River,  15 

Irrigation,  primitive,  107/.;  in  Turkey, 
142 

Ishmael,  130 

Isolation,  of  Iceland,  271;  factor  in  re- 
ligion, 133/. 

Israelites.    See  Jews 

Italy,  birth-rate  in,  354;  celibacy  in,  344; 
land  tenure  in,  177,  181;  Normans  in, 
265/.;  Norse  in,  254/.;  persecutions  in, 
342 

J 

Jackson,  H.  H.,  324 
Jacob, 129 
Jael,  130 

Japan,  205;  effect  of  ice  age  in,  58 
Japanese,  adaptability  of,  267;  scientists 

in  U.  S.,  312 
Jarls,  among  Norse,  256  /. 
Java,  apeman  of,  39;  Chinese  in,  150 
Jaw,  evolution  of,  30 
Jcbcl  Druze,  118 
Jcrahmcel,  129 
Jerioth,  129 
Jesus,  132/. 
Jewett,  S.  O,,  324 

Jews,  character  of,  i2gff.;  head-form  of, 
74;  natural  selection  among,  135  ff.; 


386 


INDEX 


racial  feeling  of,  2  /. ;  scientists  among, 

in  U.  S.,  312 
Job,  129 
Jochelson,  69 
Jordan,  D.  S.,  324 
Joseph,  129 
Judah,  Tribe  of,  131 
Judaism,  133/. 
Judea,  isolation  of,  130,  132 
Judges,  Book  of,  130 
Junkers,  214 

K 

Kaffirs,  origin  of,  86 
Kalahari,  87 

Kansas  River,  floods  of,  174 
Kansu,  officials  from,  161 
Karakorum  Pass,  26 
Karls,  among  Norse,  256/. 
Katla,  volcano,  271 
Kautso,  177 
Keary,  C.  F.,  267,  375 
Keith,  A.,  375 
Kelts,  248 

Kendrew,  W.  C,  91,  375 
Kent,  migrants  in,  303 
Khirghiz,  127;  agriculture  of,  109;  clean- 
liness among,  289 
Kiang  Ling,  177 
Kiang  River,  177 

Kiansi,  198;  famines  in,  177;  Hakkas  in, 
196 

Kiangsu,  180;  famines  in,  177 

Kiang  Wei,  177,  180 

Kia-Yian,  168 

Kin  words,  79  (map) 

Kings,  Book  of,  130 

Kingship,  in  Europe,  259 

Kitans,  152 

Kjartan,  291 

Kneeland,  S.,  375 

Konia,  142 

Koryaks,  hysteria  among,  70 
Kroeber,  A.  L.,  103,  375 
Kublai  Khan,  151 
Kuczynski,  359 

Kurds,  Armenian  origin  of,  137  /.,  140; 

raids  among,  120 
Kwan  Chung,  178 
Kwang  Tung,  177 
Kwantung,  198 

L 

Labor  battalion,  329 
Laki,  volcano,  270 
Lambert,  R.  S.,  140,  375 


Lamuts,  hysteria  among,  70 

Land,  Norse  ownership  of,  256,  258  /.; 

tenure  in  China,  177,  181  /.;  value  in 

China,  171 
Landnamabok,  294 
Language,  relation  to  race,  79 
Laos,  196 

Lapps,  53;  cleanliness  among,  289 

Latin  countries,  celibacy  in,  344 

Latitude,  and  progress,  158 

Latourette,  K.  S.,  375 

Law,  enforcement  in  Iceland,  291  /. 

Lawyers,  eminent  children  of,  319,  342 

Laziness,  among  nomads,  128;  among 
Turks,  144 

Leaders,  among  Jews,  135  /.;  among 
nomads,  126  ff.\  among  Turks  vs.  Ar- 
menians, 143,  145 

Leaf,  W.,  236,  239  /.,  375 

Le  Bon,  G.,  3,  375 

Lee,  Miss  M.  P.,  175      i95,  375 

Leland  Stanford  University,  327 

Lennox,  W.  G.,  194,  376 

Levirate,  79  (map) 

Lick  Observatory,  327 

Limbs,  of  Pygmies,  78 

Lincoln  family,  367^. 

Linguistic  stocks,  in  America,  62 

Literacy,  among  Hakkas,  168 

Literary  men,  map,  223 

Literature,  pursuit  of,  in  America,  309/., 
349  Jf.;  in  Europe,  223;  in  Iceland,  226; 
in  Portugal,  225/.;  in  Spain,  226 

Li  Tsuchung,  154 

Lodge,  H.  C,  324 

Loire  River,  Norse  at,  25J. 

Longfellow,  H.  W.,  325 

Long-heads,  location,  76 

Los  Angeles,  328  /.;  skull  at,  61,  64 

Lop  Nor,  57 

Lot,  130 

Low  Countries,  264 

Lowell,  J.  R.,  325 

Lower  California,  Indians  of,  104  /. 

Lowie,  R.  H.,  376 

Lumbermen,  birth-rate  among,  353  Jf. 
Lull,  R.  S.,  376 
Lyman  family,  367 

M 

MacDougall,  W.,  209,  211,  267,  376 
Maichan,  168 
Maidu  Indians,  104 
"Main  St."  331 

Malaria,  219,  246  /.;  in  Crete,  238;  in 
Sicily,  268 


INDEX 


387 


Malay  Peninsula,  Chinese  in,  150 
Malays,  in  China,  166;  cleanliness  of,  289 
Malnutrition,  in  China,  185 
Mamelukes,  and  Mongols,  148 
Mammals,  origin  of,  33 
Man,  origin  in  Asia,  20 
Manchu  Dynasty,  150  ff. 
Manchuria,  Chinese  in,  200;  invasion  of, 

148;  progress  in,  165,  169;  rainfall  of, 

170/. 

Manchus,  183,  203;  in  China,  148,  166; 

leadership  among,  153;  literary  degrees 

of,  161 
Mann,  Horace,  325 

Manufacturing,  and  birth-rate,  353  jf., 
357;  and  character,  272;  and  leader- 
ship, 347 

Maps  and  diagrams:  artists  in  Europe, 
223;  birthplaces,  of  Chinese  officials, 
161;  of  eminent  Americans,  286;  of 
eminent  Europeans,  223,  229;  boom- 
erang, 79;  cephalic  index,  76,  77,  79; 
civilization,  229;  climatic  energy,  229, 
232;  couvade,  79;  cultural  conditions, 
79;  customs,  79;  death-rates  in  Iceland, 
Norway,  and  Switzerland,  286;  deserts, 
48;  educational  leaders,  223;  European 
races,  76,  77;  Gaelic  belt,  79;  genius,  in 
America,  286,  314,  316,  317;  in  Europe, 
223,  229;  glaciation,  48;  head  deforma- 
tion, 79;  health,  231;  historians, 
223;  kin  words,  79;  levirate,  79;  lite- 
rary men,  223;  migrations,  76,  77;  mili- 
tary leaders,  229;  monoliths,  79;  phi- 
losophers, 223;  political  leaders,  229; 
pressure  zone,  48;  rainfall,  231 ;  races  of 
Europe,  76,  77;  religious  leaders,  223; 
residence  of  eminent  Americans,  316; 
scientists,  223;  snake  and  sun  cults,  79; 
swan-maiden  tales,  79;  tattooing,  79; 
tree  growth,  231 

Marco  Polo,  152 

Marriage,  among  leaders,  358;  among 
nomads,  127;  postponement  of,  343, 
365,  368/.;  among  teachers,  344 

Massachusetts,  children  in,  359;  eminent 
persons  in,  515  Jf. 

MasF  xres,  of  Armenians,  137  jf.]  of  Jews, 
13  /. 

Ma'  hew,  W.  D.,  21,  23,  33,  376 

Ml  as,  92;  cleanliness  of,  289;  hiero- 

/phics  of,  63;  ruins  of,  II 
M  yflower,  304 
M  yor,  R.  J.  G.,  286,  376 
M  Curdy,  G.  G.,  376 


Meat,  among  nomads,  121 

Mechanical  inventions,  and  human  char- 
acter, 337 

Mediterranean-Caspian  blend,  234 

Mediterranean  race,  5,  83,  89,  207  /., 
237  /.;  character  of,  209  ff.;  genius 
among,  228;  in  Ireland,  247 

Mediterranean  region,  60,  205 ;  history  of, 
237 

Mei-chau,  198 

Menam  River,  15 

Mental  evolution,  332  ff. 

Mental  selection,  in  war,  338 

Mentality,  of  apeman,  31 

Merchants,  birth-rate  among,  354;  lead- 
ers among,  347 

Mesopotamia,  54;  civilization  in,  59; 
Jews  in,  134;  migrations  in,  59 

Methodists,  eminent  children  among, 
319;  natural  selection  among,  321  ff. 

Mexico,  civilization  in,  61;  land  tenure 
in,  182;  library  references  to,  277 

Middle  Kingdom,  153 

Middle  States,  birth-rate  in,  310 

Migrations,  to  America,  62  ff.;  in  China, 
148  ff.;  concentration  in  West  Asia,  60; 
in  Europe,  206  ff.;  and  glaciation,  58; 
hardships  of,  54;  maps  of,  76  ff.;  and 
natural  selection,  12,  18,  151,  203, 
303/. ;  nature  of,  65,  241 ;  primitive,  20, 
33;  tropical,  58 

Miletos,  242 

Military  leaders,  223  (map),  227 
Milk,  among  Arabs,  121 
Mimir,  376 

Miners,  birth-rate  among,  353  ff.,  357 
Ming  dynasty,  150 

Ministers,  eminent  sons  of,  326,  342  ff. 
Minoans,  in  Greece,  239  ff.,  244 
Minotaur,  239 
Miocene  period,  25,  37 
Misgovernment,  causes  of,  154 
Missionaries,  192,  199;  children  of,  343; 

in  China,  1S7  ff.,  189;  wide  knowledge 

of,  168,  175 
Mississippi,  eminent  persons  in,  318 
Mitchell,  Maria,  325 
Mixture  of  races,  19 
Moab,  114;  raids  in,  131 
Mohammedanism,  converts  to,  137/. 
Mohave  Indians,  107  /. 
Mongol  dynasty,  150/. 
Mongolia,  after  glacial  epoch,  58 
Mongoloid  race,  83  /,,  209;  in  South 

Africa,  85 


388 


INDEX 


Mongols,  in  China,  148,  166,  197;  leader- 
ship among,  153;  literary  degrees 
among,  161;  social  position  of,  77 

Monoliths,  79  (map) 

Montana,  eminent  persons  in,  317 

Moquelumne  Indians,  104 

Moral  code,  among  Arabs,  122;  in  Ice- 
land, 211  /. 

Morocco,  54 

Mortality,  among  children  of  Crete,  238; 

in  Europe,  232 
Motley,  J.  L.,  325 
Mount  Wilson  Observatory,  327 
Mousterian  people,  53 
Mukden,  165,  200 
Mutations,  6,  78 
Mycenae,  236;  art  of,  240 
Myers,  J.  L.,  237  /.,  246,  376 

N 

Nanking,  182,  195 
Napoleon,  214 

Natural  selection,  i  jf.;  in  America,  301 
ff.;  and  acquisitiveness,  215;  in  Cali- 
fornia, 328;  among  Chinese,  184^.;  in 
Europe,  253;  in  Greece,  246/.;  in  Ice- 
land, 299;  among  Indians,  68;  in  Ire- 
land, 249/.;  among  Jews,  133/.;  among 
Manchus,  152;  among  nomads,  123; 
among  Pilgrims,  303;  and  racial  posi- 
tion, 78;  among  religious  bodies  321 
ff. ;  in  tropics,  50.    See  Selection 

Nature  vs.  nurture,  309  ff. 

Negrito,  racial  position  of,  77 

Negro,  24,  218;  optimum  temperature 
for,  23;  racial  position  of,  77 

Negroids,  in  South  Africa,  85 

Nehemiah,  Book  of,  130 

Nervous  diseases,  in  Europe,  213 

Nevada,  eminent  persons  in,  316 

New  England,  age  of  fathers  in,  365; 
birth-rate  in,  310;  colonization  of,  302 
ff.;  eminent  persons  in,  315  racial 
stock  of,  343 

New  Hampshire,  compared  with  Iceland, 
276 

New  Mexico,  agriculture  in,  92,  108;  emi- 
nent persons  in,  315;  people  of,  92 

Newton,  A.  P.,  302,  376 

New  York  City,  eminent  persons  in, 
316/.;  head-form  of  immigrants,  74 

New  Zealand,  distribution  of  plants  in,  81 

Nicoll,  J.,  298,  376 

Ning-hua,  198 

Nomads,  and  agriculture,  109;  Asiatic, 
112  ff.    See  also  Arabs,  Khirghiz. 


Nomadism,  eflfect  on  character,  144 
Nordics,  5,  77,  90,  92;  brains  of,  78;  char- 
acter of,  207,  210  ff.;  genius  among, 
228 ;  hair  of,  78 ;  leadership  among,  1 53 ; 
racial  composition  of,  83 
Norman  Conquest,  255,  264  /. 
Normandy,  Norse  in,  254,  264 
Normans,  248,  264  ff.,  326;  character  of, 
265/.;  in  England,  265;  as  migrants, 
303 

Norse,  253^.;  character  of,  216,  260,  267 
/.;  in  England,  265;  migrations  of, 
258  J. 

North  Africa,  early  civilization  in,  59; 
glacial  period  in,  58;  racial  origins  in, 
60 

North  America,  early  migrations  to,  21; 
ice  in,  63 

Northmen.    See  Norse  and  Vikings 

North  Sea,  advantages  of,  60;  cultural 
center,  233,  252  ff. 

North     South,  in  China,  158,  185/,,  203 

Norway,  death-rates  in,  287;  environ- 
ment of,  216;  and  Iceland,  294  ff.;  po- 
litical leaders  in,  227 

Norwegians,  in  England,  255 

Nose,  measurement  of,  82 

Novakovsky,  S.,  66,  68,  70,  376 

Novgorod,  254 

Nuchins,  152 

Nurhatchu,  153,  155 

Nurture  vs.  nature,  309  ff. 

O 

Occupations,  of  fathers  of  notables,  318, 
357 

Odin,  A.,  320,  376 

Odinism,  in  Iceland,  293 

Oersefa  Jakul,  volcano,  270 

Officials  in  China,  186;  birth-places  of, 

161 ;  degrees  of,  152 
Officers,  protection  of,  339 
Oklahoma,  eminent  persons  in,  316 
Olafr  Tryggvason,  292 
Optimum  climate,  22 
Orbital  indices,  77 

Oregon,  328;  eminent  persons  in,  317; 
Indians,  103 

Osborn,  H.  F.,  i,  33,  376 

Ottoman  Turks,  153 

Over-population,  181  /.,  203,  219;  in 
China,  156,  171,  174  ff.;  in  Scandi- 
navia, 260 


INDEX 


389 


P 

Pah  Sauh,  177 
Pale-Alpine  race,  83  /.,  209 
Palestine,  129  ff. 
Palmyra,  119 

Parable,  of  races,  7,  370  f. 
Parker,  E.  H.,  148  376 
Parker,  T.,  324 
Parkman,  F.,  325 
Parsis,  245 

Parthians,  relation  to  Mongols,  148 
Pastoral  migrations,  of  Nordics,  217 
Pastoralism.    See  Nomads,  Nomadism, 

Arabs,  etc. 
Peace,  effect  on  racial  inheritance,  340 
Pearson,  cited,  358 

Pekin,  birth-place  of  officials,  161;  mod- 
ernness  of,  164;  vital  statistics  of,  194 

Pekin  Union  Medical  College,  194 

Pelasgians,  243 

Periodicity,  of  famines,  183 

Persecution,  of  Armenians,  137  ff.;  effect 
on  character,  341 ;  among  religious  de- 
nominations, 321;  effect  on  selection, 
135 

Persia,  54,  59 

Persians,  racial  feeling  of,  2  /. 
Personal  service,  and  birth-rate,  357 
Pertag,  120 
Peruvians,  92 
Petersson,  O.,  294,  376 
Pfeiffer,  Ida,  376 

Philanthropy,  and  racial  inheritance,  340 

Philistines,  133 

Philosophers,  223  (map) 

Philosophy,  and  curiosity,  212;  distribu- 
tion in  Europe,  223 

Phoenicians,  racial  feeling  of,  2  /. 

Physical  environment,  and  racial  char- 
acter, 233 

Physicians,  eminent  children  of,  319,  342 
Pilgrims,  origin  of,  303  ff.    See  Puritans 
Pioneer,  in  parable,  7,  371 
Piracy,  in  ancient  Greece,  243;  in  Iceland, 
297 

Pithecanthropus  erectus,  39 
Plague,  178;  in  Greece,  246 
Plains,  of  China,  171  ff. 
Plants,  age  of,  80 
Pliocene  man,  31,  61 
Plowman,  in  parable,  8  ff.,  371 
Pogroms,  135 

Poland,  birth-rate  in,  354;  movement 

from,  77 
Pole  of  cold,  70 

Political  causes  of  migration,  258  ff. 


Political  leaders.  In  America,  227;  in  Eu- 
rope, 224,  227;  map  of,  225 

Population,  of  Europe  in  1800,  235;  of 
Iceland,  270;  of  Ireland,  248  /.;  of 
Greece,  246;  increase  in,  362/.;  stress 
of,  334 

Portugal,  political  leaders  in,  227;  litera- 
ture in,  225  /. 
Potatoes,  in  Ireland,  228 
Powell,  F.  v.,  294/.,  376 
Preglacial  man,  42 

Presbyterians,  eminent  children  of,  319; 

racial  selection  among,  321  ff. 
Pressure  zone,  48  (map) 
Price,  Mr.,  161 

Primogeniture,  in  England,  250 
Printing,  in  Iceland,  279 
Professional  men,  children  of,  342/.,  347 
Progress,  relation  to  health,  88 
Protestants,  leaders  among,  342  ff.;  in 

France,  320,  342;  origin  of,  214/. 
Proto-Australoid  race,  83/.,  90,  92,  166, 

209;  in  Africa,  89 
Proto-Negroid  race,  83  /.,  90,  92,  166, 

209;  in  Africa,  89;  among  Norse,  256 
Public  service,  relation  to  birth-rate,  357 
Pueblo  Indians,  92,  108 
Puget  Sound  Indians,  103 
Puritans,  descendants  of,  318,  326,  343; 

migrations  of,  302  ff.;  selection  among, 

303/. 
Pygmies,  40,  78 

Q 

Quakers,  305,  322 

Quarrymen,  birth-rate  among,  353  Jf. 
Queen  Aud,  269 
Queen  Charlotte  Islands,  99  ff. 
Queue  in  China,  162  /. 

R 

Races,  birth-rate  among,  354  ff. ;  classi- 
fication of,  73;  defined,  3;  Dixon's 
83  /.;  genius  among,  228;  kinship  of, 
74;  mingling  of,  54/.;  plasticity  of,  20; 
relation  to  environment,  92 

Racial  character,  i  ^. ;  in  early  America, 
90;  in  California,  330;  distribution  of, 
227;  in  Iceland,  299;  and  physical  en- 
vironment, 233;  and  natural  selection, 
287 

Racial  feeling,  2  /. 

Racial  inheritance,  234 

Racial  mixture,  7,  78;  in  China,  166;  in 

Europe,  253;  and  glaciation,  59;  in 

U.  S.,  336 


390 


INDEX 


Racial  superiority,  77 

Racial  tendencies  of  civilization,  332 

Racial  test  of  cities,  346 

Rags,  in  China,  162,  164 

Raids,  115,  117  ff.;  in  China,  175;  season 

of,  123;  of  Vikings,  2^6  ff. 
Rain,  in  Arabia,  121;  in  China,  170  ff. 
Rainfall,  in  California,  227  (diagram) 
Raleigh,  Sir  Walter,  301 
Ran,  goddess,  292 
Randolph,  John,  324 
Red  Crag,  42 
Red  Cross,  140,  188 
Redfield,  C.  L,  365  376 
"Red  land,"  182 
Reindeer,  66 

Relief,  in  famines,  179,  189 

Religion,  distribution  in  Europe,  223;  and 
environment,  132/.;  and  natural  selec- 
tion, 341;  and  persecution,  222;  and 
racial  inheritance,  340 

Religious  denominations,  eminence 
among,  321  /. 

Religious  leaders,  223  (map) 

Residence,  of  American  leaders,  316  (map) 

Revenue  and  famine,  179,  181 

Reykir  hot  springs,  289 

Rhine,  Norse  at,  254 

Rhode  Island,  eminent  persons  in,  317 

Rhodesia,  86 

Rhone,  Norse  at,  254 

Rich  vs.  poor  in  China,  177  182 

Richards,  L.  E.,  324 

Ridgeway,  W.,  236,  376 

Rigsmal  Edda,  256 

Roaring  Forties,  91 

Rocky  Mountain  region,  Indians  of,  100; 
eminent  persons  in,  317 

Roman  Catholic  Church,  322/.;  celibates 
in,  341;  eminent  persons  in,  319/. 

Romans,  as  migrants,  248,  303;  science 
among,  212 

Rome,  advantages  of,  60 

Roundheads,  in  U.  S.,  77 

Rumanians,  broad  heads  of,  77 

Rural  districts,  birth-rate  in,  353;  leaders 
in,  348;  natural  selection  in,  194 

Rurik,  254 

Rus,  254  /. 

Russell,  B.,  377 

Russell,  W.  S.  C,  377 

Russia,  227;  contact  with  China,  165, 
200;  Jewish  persecution  in,  135;  migra- 
tions in,  77;  Norse  in,  254  ff.,  261 ;  sci- 
entists from,  312;  selection  in,  340 

Russians,  hysteria  among,  70 


S 

Sacramento  Indians,  104 

Sagas,  293 

Sahara,  57,  206;  migrations  in,  59 
Saigon,  ruins  near,  10  ff. 
Saint  Paul,  340 
Salwin,  R.,  15 

Samaria,  accessibility  of,  132;  Israelites 

in,  131 
Samoyedes,  53 
Samson,  133 
San  Francisco,  328  /. 
Sand,  in  Chinese  fields,  174 
Sappho,  241 
Saracens,  in  Sicily,  266 
Savanna  belt,  42 

Saxons,  248,  326;  conquest  of,  258/.;  in 
England,  265;  relation  to  Normans, 
264/. 

Scandinavia,  center  of  culture,  252  ff. 

School  teachers  in  U.  S.,  344 

Science,  and  curiosity,  212;  among  mis- 
sionaries, 195 

Scientists,  age  of  fathers,  365;  distribu- 
tion in  Europe,  223  (map);  origin,  in 
America,  312  ff.,  342,  346 

Scotch,  character  of,  215,  222;  migra- 
tions of,  77 

Scotch  Irish,  247 

Scotland,  celibacy  in,  344;  eminent  per- 
sons in,  220  ff.,  22$;  Norse  in,  254,  264; 
political  leaders  in,  227;  Presbyterians 
in,  322;  scientists  from,  in  U.  S.,  312 

Scripps  Institute,  327 

Sea  captains,  children  of,  319 

Sea  route,  to  America,  102 

Sea,  selective  power  of,  217 

Seeck,  O.,  212 

Seeker-for-Truth,  in  parable,  8,  371 

Seine,  Norse  at,  254 

Selection,  in  Crete,  238;  among  de- 
nominations, 321;  postglacial,  59. 
See  Natural  selection 

Self-assertion,  racial  trait,  214/. 

Self-determination,  308 

Selfishness,  in  China,  171,  186  ff. 

Self-reliance,  among  nomads,  128 

Semites,  racial  feeling  of,  3  /. 

Semple,  E.  C,  269,  377 

Sequoia  trees,  260 

Serfs,  in  Greece,  244 

Sergei,  G.,  377 

Shakespeare,  301 

Shanghai,  character  of  people,  160 
Shansi,  famines  in,  177/. 


INDEX 


391 


Shantung,  character  of  people,  i6o,  163 
/.;  famines  in,  177;  migrations  from, 
200  ff.;  official  greed  in,  171;  physique 
in,  185 

Sheep  herders,  in  U.  S.,  113 
Shen,  180 

Shensi,  famines  in,  176  ff,;  migrations 

from  149 
Show,  180 
Shyok  River,  26 
Siam,  15 

Siberia,  66;  changes  of  climate  in,  56,  58; 
climate  of,  55,  63 ;  environment  of,  217; 
hysteria  in,  70 

Sicily,  84,  216;  character  in,  218;  environ- 
ment of,  217;  health  and  seasons,  23; 
head  form  of  immigrants  from,  in  U.  S., 
74;  Normans  in,  265^.;  Norse  in,  255 

"Sick  Man  of  Europe,"  145 

Sissera,  130 

Size  of  families,  357 

Skin,  of  man  vs.  animals,  22 

Skull,  evolution  of,  30,  74;  measurements 
of,  81 

Small-pox,  in  Iceland,  297  /. 
Smiles,  Mr.,  342 
Smith,  A.  H.,  190,  377 
Snake  and  sun  cults,  79  (map) 
Snorri,  292 

Snow,  E.  C,  358,  377 

Snow-fields,  effect  on  winds,  48 

Sociability,  racial  trait,  212 

Social  environment,  and  achievement, 
352 ;  and  birth-rate,  354  /. 

Socialism,  racial  effect  of,  215 

Soil,  and  Chinese  floods,  173/. 

Solar  activity,  47 

Somme  River,  Norse  at,  254 

South  Africa,  races  in,  85  /. 

South  America,  Caspian  type  in,  89; 
early  migrants  to,  21 

South  Carolina,  eminent  persons  in,  315, 
318;  immigrants  to,  305 

South  vs.  North,  in  China,  158,  185/.,  203 

Spain,  celibacy  in,  344;  literature  in,  226; 
migrations  in,  77;  Norse  in,  254;  perse- 
cutions in,  341  /. 

Sparta,  helots  in,  237;  natural  selection 
in,  244^.;  population  of,  246 

Speaker-of-the-law,  289,  291 

Specialization,  and  environment,  34 

Species,  origin  of,  80 

Spiker,  Mr.,  168,  199 

Spitzbergen,  273 

Squashes,  92 

"Squeeze,"  in  China,  186 


S'rutavarman,  16 

Stature,  78 

Stefansson,  J.,  377 

Stefansson,  V.,  67,  279,  288,  377 

Stoddard,  T.  L.,  346,  377 

Storey,  J.,  325 

Storminess,  23 

Storms,  47 

Strandloopers,  85  /. 

Su,  180 

Suburbs,  leadership  in,  348,  352 
Suicide,  in  China,  187/.,  190,  192;  among 

Chukchees,  69;  in  Europe,  213 
Sultans,  capacity  of,  145 
Summer  Palace,  Pekin,  151  /. 
Summer  rain,  value  of,  108 
Sun  cult,  79  (map) 
Sunspots,  47 
Sun  Yat  Sen,  167 
Swan  maiden  tales,  79  (map) 
Swatow,  199;  Hakkas  in,  167;  vehicles 

in,  164 

Sweden,  political  leaders  in,  227 

Swedes,  character  of,  198 

Swimming,  in  Iceland,  289 

Swinton,  General,  331 

Swiss,  character  of,  220  /.;  cleanliness 
among,  289 

Switzerland,  achievements  of,  231;  celi- 
bacy in,  344 ;  death-rate  in,  287 ;  political 
leaders  in,  227 ;  scientists  from,  in  U.  S., 
312 

Syphilis,  in  Iceland,  281  /. 
Syria,  civilization  in,  59 
Syrian  Desert,  114  ff.;  deportations  to, 
139 

Szechuan,  177,  203 

T 

Taft,  W.  H.,  324 

Taimir  Peninsula,  glaciation  of,  55 
Taiping  rebellion,  167/. 
Taishan,  164 
Talifer,  265 

Tartars,  183,  227;  invasions  of  China, 
148,  202;  leadership  among,  153;  racial 
feeling  of,  3  /. 

Tattooing,  79  (map) 

Taxation,  in  Norway,  258  ff.  See 
Revenue 

Taylow,  Griffith,  75/.,  77/.,  79,  81,  88, 

206,  231,  377 
Teachers,  eminent  children  of,  342;  and 

marriage,  344 
Temperature,  in  Iceland,  91 ;  and  natural 


392 


INDEX 


selection,  44 ;  optimum,  22 /. ;  of  Siberia, 
55,  90 

Tents,  dwellers  in,  112  ff. 
Texas,  eminent  persons  in,  316 
Thais,  17 
Thaxter,  R.,  91 
Theft,  in  China,  175 
Theseus,  239 
Thessaly,  243 
Thing  court,  292 

Thirteenth  century,  disasters  of,  17 
Thompson,  J.  A.,  352,  377 
Thorodd,  291 
Thorwaldsen,  279 
Thralls,  among  Norse,  256  /. 
Thrift,  and  farming,  185^. 
Thucydides,  242,  246 
Thurio,  291 

Tibet,  uncleanliness  in,  289;  migrations 

in,  59,  149;  plateaus  of,  25/. 
Tientsin,  modernness  of,  164 
Tierra  del  Fuego,  53,  91 
Tlingits,  100 
Tools,  first  use  of,  28 
Torrey,  R.  A.,  184 
Totem  poles,  of  Haidas,  99 
Totemism,  79 
Town  meeting,  306 

Trade,  relation  to  birth-rate,  353  357 
Trade  unions  and  character,  336 
Training,  relation  to  achievement,  352 
Transcaspia,  races  of,  59 
Trees,  diagram  of  growth,  227;  in  glacial 

Europe,  52;  in  Miocene  era,  37 
Trojan  War,  240  /. 

Tropical  environment,  effect  on  human 

evolution,  23,  40/.,  49,  51,  58 
Tsi,  178 

Tsinan,  compared  with  Canton,  163 
Tsing,  178 
Tso  Hou,  177 
Tsok,  198 
Tuaregs,  123 

Tungus,  uncleanliness  among,  289;  hys- 
teria among,  70;  migrations  of,  149, 
195 

Turkestan,  invasions  from,  148 
Turkey,  character  of  races,  333 
Turkomans,  agriculture  of,  109;  raids 

of,  120,  126 
Turks,  208,  227;  and  Arabs,  115;  char- 
acter of,  142  ff.',  head  form  of,  77; 
leadership  among,  153;  massacres  by, 
137;  and  Mongols,  148;  political  lead- 
ers among,  227 
Tyler,  J.  M.,  377 


U 

Ulflgot,  291 
Ulster,  247 

Unitarians,  eminent  persons  among,  319, 
321  ff.,  324  ff.;  origin  of,  324 

United  States,  British  settlers  in,  65; 
census  of,  378;  character  of  people, 
330  ff;  333/-;  divorce  in,  361;  evolu- 
tionary tendencies  in,  336^.;  Indians 
of,  88;  racial  mixtures  in,  336;  round- 
heads in,  77;  school  teachers  in,  344; 
size  of  families  in,  357 

Unionism,  effect  on  character,  336 

Universalists,  eminent  persons  among, 
319,  321       origin  of,  322 

University  of  California,  327 

University  of  New  York,  324 

Upsala,  259 

Ural  Gulf,  54 

Ural  race,  83  /. 

Urban  environment,  348  ff. 

Urban  vs.  rural  birth-rate,  353 

Utah,  eminent  persons  in,  315/. 

V 

Vanden  Bergh,  L.  J.,  377 
Varangian  Guard,  254 
Variability,  23 
Venereal  diseases,  194 
Venice,  colonies  of,  237  ff. 
Venn,  J.,  31,  377 
Verkhoyansk,  70 

Vermont,  eminent  persons  in,  317 
Vienna,  227 

Vikings,  212,  254  ff.    See  Norse 

Villages,  leaders  from,  348 

Virginia,  eminent  persons  in,  318;  immi- 
grants to,  305 

Visher,  S.  S.,  312  ff.,  318  347,  352, 
377 

Volcanoes,  in  Iceland,  270/.,  294,  297/. 
W 

Wai  River,  177 
Waller,  L.  F.,  377 
Walloons,  303 

Wanderers,  in  China,  173,  184  ff.,  190  ff. 
Wang  Chau,  197 

War,  biological  effect  of,  338  ff.;  Eu- 
ropean leaders  in,  224 
Ward,  L.  F.,  377 

Washington,  city,  eminent  persons  in, 
315 

Washington  Family,  origin  of,  303 
Washington  State,  climate  of,  328;  In- 
dians of,  103 


INDEX 


393 


Webster,  D.,  325 

Wei,  182 

Wei  River,  177 

Wesley,  John,  321 

Wetzel,  cited,  30,  377 

Whites,  children  of,  in  Massachusetts, 

359;  racial  position  of,  77 
Whitney,  H.,  69,  377 
Who's  Who  in  America,  314  #. 
Wilder,  Dr.,  174/. 

William  the  Conqueror,  255,  264  /.,  267 

Williams,  F.  W.,  151,  154 /•»  377 

Williams,  Roger,  322 

Willis,  J.  C,  80/.,  377 

Wilson,  W.,  308 

Winthrop  family,  origin  of,  303 

Wissler,  Clark,  377 

Witches,  in  Iceland,  297 

Wives,  purchase  of,  190/. 

Women,  among  Arabs,  117/.;  in  China, 
162,  175;  cranial  types  of,  84;  "of  the 
Gentiles,"  133;  among  Hakkas,  167/.; 
hysteria  among,  69;  and  marriage,  343; 
and  migrations,  13,  304;  number  of 
children  of,  354;  Norse,  218;  at  Plym- 
outh, 305/. ;  position  of,  307,  360;  quar- 
ters of,  in  tents,  130;  sale  of,  187,  189 
ff.;  self-reliance  among  nomads,  128; 
128;  in  South  China,  166;  as  teachers, 
344 


Wrangel,  cited,  66 
Wurm  ice  age,  53 

Wyoming,  eminent  persons  in,  315/. 
Y 

Yaghans,  91 

Yakuts,  hysteria  among,  70 
Yakutsk,  in  glacial  period,  55 
Yale  University  Library,  277 
Yang,  180 

Yangtse  River,  181  /.,  195,  202;  settle- 
ment of  valley  of,  150 

Yellow  River,  floods  of,  177.  See  Hoang 
Ho 

Yen,  178 

Ying,  180 

Yoder,  cited,  365 

Yucatan,  cleanliness  in,  289 

Yukagir,  66 

Yuman  Indians,  104/. 

Yunnan,  settlement  of,  150 

X 

Xenophon,  246 

Z 

Zambesi  River,  86 
Zenobia,  118 
Zulus,  origin  of,  86 


^  ^  r  r  j,  n