YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

IS AMERICA
SAFE FOR DEMOCRACY?

IS AMERICA
SAFE FOR DEMOCRACY?

SK LECTURES GIVEN AT THE
LOWELl' INSTITUTE OF BOSTON, UNDER THE TITLE
"ANTHROPOLOGY AND HISTORY, OR
THE INFLUENCE OF ANTHROPOLOGIC CONSTITUTION
ON THE DESTINIES OF NATIONS"

BY
WILLIAM McDOUGALL
PROFESSOR OF PSYCHOLOGY IN HARVARD COLLEGE

NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1921

Copyright, 1921, by
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

Published June, 1021

THE SCRrBNER PRESS

FOREWORD
As I watch the American nation speeding gaily,
with invincible optimism, down the road to de
struction, I seem to be contemplating the greatest
tragedy in the history of mankind. Other nations
have dedined and passed away; and their places
have been filled, the torch of civilization has been
caught up and carried forward by new nations
emerging from the shadow-lands of barbarism.
But, if the American nation should go down,
whence may we expect a new birth of progress?
Where shall we look for a virile stock fit to take
up the tasks of world-leadership? It may be that
the yellow millions of the Far East contain the
potency of an indefinite progress and stability.
That is a vague and imcertain possibiUty. What
ever that potency may be, it behooves us, the
bearers of Western civilization, to take most
anxious thought that we may prevent, if possible,
the decline and decay which have been the fate of
all the civilized nations of Europe and of the Near
and Middle East.
Many excellent books have been published,

vi FOREWORD
urging the claims of "eugenics," smce Francis
Galton first stirred the conscience of Europe and
America on this problem of the preservation of
human qualities. Most of these books have been
written from the purely biological standpoint.
They give excellent accounts of the principles of
natural selection, of heredity, and of the Men-
deUan laws. It has seemed to me that a presen
tation of the case for eugenics from a more psy
chological standpoint and on a broad historical
background might usefully supplement these bio
logical treatises. For, important as are the facts
and principles of physical heredity, the general
reader may have some difficulty in connecting the
processes of ceU-division, the chromosomes of the
fruit-fly, or the coat-colors of piebald guinea-pigs
with the spiritual endowment of mankind. I have
therefore brought together in these few lectures
the findings of mental anthropology, which are
now beginning to be garnered on a large scale;
and I have tried to indicate, in as impartial and
scientific a manner as is possible in this still ob
scure field, their bearing upon the great problems
of national welfare and national decay. The body
of the book is the substance of six lectures given
at the Lowell Institute of Boston in the spring of
this year. I have added in foot-notes some evi-

FOREWORD vii
dential matter which may be neglected by the
cursory reader. And in appendices I have put
forward certain proposals which, if they could be
put into practice, would, I think, go far to remedy
the present disastrous state of affairs.
I would especially draw the attention of readers
interested in poHtical, economic, or social science
to the evidence cited in this volume which indicates
very strongly, if it does not finally prove, that the
social stratification which exists in modern indus
trial communities is positively correlated with a
corresponding stratification of innate moral and
inteUectual quaUty, or, in less technical language,
that [the upper social strata, as compared with
the lower, contain a larger proportion of persons
of superior natural endowments. This is a propo
sition which has been stoutly maintained by most
of the eugenists from Galton onward. But it has
been the greatest weakness of the eugenic propa
ganda that it is so largely founded upon and as
sumes the truth of this proposition. For the critics
and scomers of eugenics have vehemently denied
it, or poured ridicule upon it; and no proof of it
was avaUable for their refutation. In a paper read
before the Eugenics Education Society in London
("Psychology in the Service of Eugenics," Eti-
genics Review, January, 19 14) I pointed out that

viii FOREWORD
this great gap in the eugenist argument could only
be fiUed by applying the methods of experimental
psychology. Two of my pupUs (Mr. C. Burt and
Mr. H. B. EngUsh) made the first contribution
by such methods toward the fiUing of the gap;
and more recently several similar studies with
sinular positive results have been made in this
country. They are reported in the foUowing
pages. W. McD.
Harvard College,
April, 192 1.

IS AMERICA
SAFE FOR DEMOCRACY?

IS AMERICA SAFE FOR
DEMOCRACY?

Lsr this short course of lectures I propose to
direct your attention to a most difficult and ob
scure question. I have chosen this difficult topic,
not because I have any new or startling conclu
sions to announce, but because the facts and re
flections I am to put before you have urgent bear
ing upon many problems of private conduct and
pubUc poUcy. The importance of our topic is
very great for aU peoples; but for the American
people at the present time it seems to me to over
shadow and dwarf every other that any man
of science could propose for your consideration.
Why has it this supreme importance at this time
and place? Because you, the American people,
are laying the foimdations of the American nation,
a nation which ahready outstrips every other in
its influence upon, or its capacity of influencing,
the future history of mankind. You may stUl
have rivals in the fields of art and science and lit-

2 AMERICA'S RESPONSIBILITY
erature. There are peoples more numerous than
you; and there are states which control greater
areas of the earth's surface and larger masses of
population. But in two respects you stand un
rivaUed. First, in respect of the number of persons
among you who are brought imder the higher
influences of that civilization which now controls
the world, and which, if human foresight is not
wholly untrustworthy, promises to be the founda
tion of all future civiUzation, no matter how great
the changes it may undergo. Secondly, the Amer
ican people is unrivaUed in respect of the material
resources which it effectively controls as the es
sential basis of its power and culture in the pres
ent and of its progress in the future.
The great increase of knowledge which we owe
to the scientific labors of the nineteenth century
has put us, the bearers of the civilization of the
twentieth century, in a position that has no prece
dent, a position profoundly different from that of
any of the great civilizations of the past. The
Romans, the Greeks, the Persians, the Egyptians,
the Babylonians, were surrounded by unknown
possibiUties; their vision was confined to a smaU
area of the earth and to their own immediate past.
To foresee their future or to control it was for
them wholly unpossible. How different is our

NO GREAT UNKNOWN FACTORS 3
position ! We have mapped the whole earth; we
know its status and relations among the other
heavenly bodies; we can describe, in a general way,
its past history during many miUions of years; we
understand in some degree aU the physical ener
gies, and can in a large measure control them and
bend them to the service of mankind. AU the
races of men are known to us. There remains no
great reservoir of humankind which may issue
from some imcharted region to overwhelm and
destroy our civilization. And, most important of
aU, we are beginning to imderstand something of
the nature of man, something of the history of
the development of the species, something of our
bodUy frame and mental powers, and of the long
process by which our inteUectual and moral cul
ture has been achieved.
The Great War has given us one new item of
knowledge which completes our assurance that
we, the heirs of Western civilization, hold its des
tiny in our hands to make or mar. Before the
war it was an open question whether civilized
man, bred largely in towns to sedentary modes of
Ufe, could sustain the hardships and strains of
prolonged warfare; whether in a clash of arms
against some more primitive people we might not
be overborne and swept away for sheer lack of

4 COURAGE OF CIVILIZED MAN
nerve, of animal courage; whether our town-bred
bespectacled yovmg men, their imaginations quick
ened by education, and aU imused to physical
hardship, pain, and bloodshed, might not shrink
and crumble when brought face to face with the
horrors of war. But in the terrible years we have
Uved through we have seen regiments of cockneys
from the London suburbs, and of Lancashire lads
drawn from the mills and factories of the world's
greatest industrial hive, distinguish themselves
by gallantry and by patient courage in the field.
These men have remained resolute and cheerful
under a strain of warfare which, in respect of its
horrors, its intense physical and emotional shocks,
and the long continuance of the strain, has far
surpassed every previous and more primitive
warfare. We know now that civiUzation and
culture, even in their worst forms, do not neces
sarily sap the moral energies of men; rather, we
know that trained inteUigence and disciplined
wiU can withstand the extreme horrors of war
far better than the cruder more animal courage
of the primitive hunter and warrior.
Our civiUzation stands, then, in this position of
immense advantage as compared with aU civiliza
tions of the past. And on the American people
Ues the responsibiUty for its future in a greater

CYCLES OF CIMLIZATION 5
degree than on any other; because it has at its
command, in a higher degree than any other, all
the resources, material and spiritual, from which
our civilization proceeds.
I wUl state concisely the thesis which I shall
develop and attempt to prove to you in this course
of lectures. Looking back over the history of
mankind, we see that it consists in the successive
rise and decay of great civilizations borne by dif
ferent peoples in various parts of the earth. I
need not enumerate these; their names are famiUar
to you. The facts have been insisted upon by
many writers; they have been displayed by none
more clearly than by Professor Flinders Petrie
in his "Revolutions of CiviUzation." They are
summed up in the famiUar phrase, "cycles of civ
ilization." They are briefly as foUows. We see
again and again a people in some favored area of
the earth's surface slowly buUd up a great and
complex civilization, incorporating essential ele
ments of culture which it has acquired from some
older civiUzation, adding to them and moulding
them into harmony with its own genius and spe
cial needs. For many centuries the slow process
of upbuUding, growth, and enrichment goes on.
Then comes an arrest and, usuaUy after a com
paratively short period, the whole complex organ-

6 THE PARABOLA OF PEOPLES
ism decays and plunges more or less rapidly down
ward from the height it had attained. In some
cases the decay has gone so far that nothing re
mains of the people and its culture, beyond a few
mounds of earth and broken brick. In others the
people has continued to exist, but stagnant and
inert, contributing nothmg further to the prog
ress of mankind, retaining little or nothing of
what was most admirable in its period of ascent
and greatness.
It is as though each such people, having been
projected upon its upward path by some great
force, maintains its ascending movement until its
momentum is spent, then falls back to earth, a
mere mass of human clay, undistinguished above
others by any power to create, to progress, or in
any way rise above the common level of mankind.
If we seek a phrase which wiU convey most con
cisely the nature of this recurrmg process, the
process which has been denoted by the phrase
"revolutions or cycles of civilization," we may, I
suggest, best describe it as "the parabola of peo
ples." For the course of the rise and faU of a
people tends to resemble the trajectory of a stone
thrown obUquely upward from the hand, a long
ascending curve, an ahnost flat summit, and a
steep decline.

THE ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION 7
Many speculations have been provoked by the
contemplation of this recurring phenomenon.
The first response of the mind is to ask — Is this
inevitable, is this parabola the expression of some
inescapable law of nature? Are we also destined
to foUow the same curve and, sooner or later, to
plimge downward to stagnation or decay? Or
may we, by taking thought, hope to escape the
common fate of aU our predecessors? Can we
estabUsh our course so securely that our descen
dants may continue to progress, for an indefinitely
long period, in art and science and social organiza
tion, attaining heights of power, security, and
happiness unimaginable by us ?
In order to answer these questions, we must
have some understanding of the causes of the rise
and faU of the curve of civilization. The answers
that have been suggested faU into two main
classes: first, the answer impUed by the economic
interpretation of history; secondly, the anthro
pological answer. The former would see the
essential factors in changes of cUmate, discoveries
of new sources of wealth or of energy, or the open
ing up of new regions of the earth and the con
sequent shif tings of trade routes. The \ anthro
pological theory regards aU such economic factors
as of but subsidiary importance. It points out

8 ANTHROPOLOGIC INTERPRETATION
that peoples which were destined to cUmb the
curve have subdued and transformed the physical
world to their needs or, if iiecessary, have sought
out and conquered for themselves a more propi
tious habitat. It points to regions such as Meso
potamia and the NUe vaUey, where men have
made the desert bloom with aU that was needed
as the physical basis of great civiUzations. And
it points to other great regions, such as Africa
south of the Sahara, and South and North Amer
ica, regions which are richest in all that man
needs and which nevertheless produced hardly
more than savagery or barbarism, while Europe
and Asia saw the rise and fall of many civiUza
tions. It asserts also that in such regions as
Mesopotamia and Egypt there have been no great
changes (save such as man himself has pro
duced) which could accoimt for the rise or faU of
their peoples. It points to the fact that the
Roman Empire, which for four hundred years
controUed the resources of the fairest regions of
Europe, Northern Africa, and Asia, levying trib
ute upon aU the known world, went down be
neath the assault of the barbarians from the
North, without any great change of economic
conditions that can be assigned as a cause. Such
instances show that the economic factors are of

THE ALLEGED OLD AGE OF NATIONS 9
secondary importance; they show that the most
favorable area can become the seat of a great
civiUzation only when it is occupied by a people
more capable than most of profiting by its geo
graphic advantages; and that these advantages
wUl not avaU to save a people from decay, if and
when it loses its natural superiority.
One anthropologic theory has been widely ac
cepted as accotmting for the decay of peoples.
Leaving the problem of their ascent untouched, it
asserts that peoples grow old, just as men and
animals do, and that they must as inevitably de
cline in vigor after a certain age. It cannot be
too strongly insisted that this fataUstic theory is
utterly unfounded, if it is offered as anything
more than a descriptive formula.
Professor Flinders Petrie, who has brought out
so clearly the facts we are considering, and who
points out that the period of the cycle or parabola
has approximated in many instances to one thou
sand eight himdred years, advances a theory
which claims to explain both the rise and the faU
of the curve. He supposes that every cycle is
initiated by a biological blending of two races;
that this gives to the blended stock a new energy
which carries it up the scale of civilization; that,
after about one thousand eight hundred years.

IO PETRIE'S THEORY
this effect is exhausted and that, in consequence
of loss of vigor, decline inevitably sets in.
There may be some truth in this view as re
gards the initiation of the rise of a civilization.
There is some evidence that the crossing of closely
related stocks does conduce to increase of vigor
and probably also to variabiUty; and that these
effects must be favorable to national progress
seems obvious. Vigor, energy of mind and body,
is certainly an aU-important factor, without which
all other natural endowments and advantages will
effect Uttle. And variabiUty of the stock would
seem to be a necessary condition of the produc
tion of the persons of exceptional endowments
without whom a nation can neither rise in the
scale of civilization nor maintain a great posi
tion. But as regards the decline of peoples, Petrie's
theory seems to contain less of truth. The old
view that inbreeding necessarily results in de
generation has been much blown upon of late.
Facts are accumulating which seem to show that
very close inbreedmg is compatible with contin
ued and even increased vigor of the stock.
Now, it is this second part of the problem in
which we are practicaUy interested. We belong
to a stock which has produced a great civiUzation,

KNOWLEDGE OUTRUNS WISDOM ii
one which seems to be stiU on the ascending part
of its curve. Our concern, our responsibiUty, is
to maintain if possible that ascending curve, or
at least to postpone as long as possible the onset
of the period of decline, if that, in truth, must
inevitably come. And there are not lacking indi
cations that our Western civilization may already
have reached its climax, may even now be sUding
down the curve of decline. For we must not
aUow ourselves to be dazzled by the material
achievements of the recent past. In trying to
estimate our position, we must have regard to
moral and inteUectual achievements of kinds less
easUy appreciated than the aeroplane and the big
gim, the submarine and the poison-gas.
It is true that we have obtained a wonderful J
command over the physical energies of the world;
but if we have not, individuaUy and coUectively
as nations, the wisdom, the patience, the self-
control, to direct these immense energies conform
ably to high moral ideals, our tampering with
them wUl but hasten our end, wiU but plunge us
the more rapidly down the slope of destruction.
There is but too good ground for the fear that
our knowledge iiaai-QUtrun _pur wisdom, that,
though we have learned to exploit the physical
energies of the world, we have not the wisdom

12 THE THESIS STATED
and moraUty effectively to direct them for the
good of mankind.
Leaving, then, the obscure problem of the ori
gins of civiUzations and of the causes of the ascent
of peoples, I wish to concentrate your attention
upon the more urgent and practicaUy important
problem of the causes or conditions that bring
about their decline. > In respect of this great
problem, my thesis is that the anthropological
, theory is the true one, that the great condition oj
, the decline of any civilization is the inadequacy oJ
] the qualities of the people who are the hearers of it.
This inadequacy may be one of two kinds; or
; it may be, perhaps generaUy has been, of both
! kinds. Inadequacy of the one kind may result
; from the increase of complexity of the environ
ment which accompanies the rise of civiUzation,
which is, in fact, an inevitable and necessary
feature of it. Without change of the essential
quaUties of a people, those quaUties may become
relatively inadequate to the support of its civiliza
tion; just because advancmg civilization makes,
with every step of progress, greater demands
upon its bearers. Let me Ulustrate by reference
to three great features which, in various degrees,
appear in aU civUizations. Furst, increasmg con
trol of natural resources gives men leisure and

COMPLEXITY OF ENVIRONMENT 13
opportunity to seek relaxation and amusement.
Now leisure and amusement are most dangerous
things, as some of us know. Few men are capa
ble of using leisure and of choosing their amuse
ments entirely wisely, and some men are quite
incapable of doing so. WeU, civilization in
evitably lays upon great masses of men this re
sponsibiUty. How do they respond to it? We
know how in the great age of Rome the circus,
the combat of gladiators and of wUd beasts, and
the chariot races, became the passionate deUght
of the multitude. We know how many forms of
luxury, wines, perfumes, foods, baths, slaves, with
resulting habits of indulgence, were introduced
from aU parts of the world. Under such com
plexities of environment many men who, under
simpler conditions, would have Uved soUd, useful,
and happy Uves, became enervated, their inter
ests and leisure increasingly absorbed in these
useless if not actuaUy harmful amusements.
Secondly, the increase of complexity of per
sonal relations tends also to demand ever higher
quaUties from the persons concerned. Consider
the relations of employer and workman. In the
days of slavery, whether in Greece or Rome or
Virginia, how simple were the quaUties required
for the satisfactory working of the institution.

14 MORAL COMPLEXITIES
the relation ! The owner of an estate worked by
slaves had only to be an intelUgent and kind-
hearted man in order to be surrounded by happy
faithful workers, a benevolent autocrat in the
midst of grateful and devoted foUowers. And
in the intermediate stage of smaU fanning and
smaU industry, where the employer is in close
personal contact with aU his men, a smaU dose of
kindliness and good sense goes a long way to the
maintenance of satisfactory relations. But to
day, in our industrial world, what great demands
are made on the qualities of the employer ! How
patient, how understandmg, how far-sighted, how
humane he must be, if he is to avoid bitter strife
with his work-people !
Thirdly, and perhaps most important, the in
creased intercourse between peoples, which is a
leading feature and condition of progressing civ
ilization, inevitably weakens, when it does not
altogether destroy, the influence of the customs
and moral traditions by which our Uves are
guided. Instead of bemg moulded insensibly to
conform to the customs and traditions which have
sufficed to bring our forefathers safely through
the perils of Ufe, to guide them in the simpler
environment of the past, we are confronted by
ever more numerous possibUities of choice be-

PROGRESS BRINGS DEMANDS 15
tween rival customs and traditions and new be-
Uefs and theories. We are caUed upon to choose
wisely, to steer our course warUy, among imtried
but perhaps attractive novelties, new reUgions,
new social theories, new ethical precepts. And
the result of aU this is inevitable; it is the price
that must be paid for progress; not only do the
customs and traditions to which each man ad
heres exert a less powerful sway over his conduct,
but also the harmony of the society in which and
by which he Uves is weakened and disordered.
In these ways, and in many others, every ad
vance of dmilza.tion makes greater demands upon
the quaUties of its bearers; and it is, I think, ob
vious that in these respects our present civiliza
tion has surpassed aU its predecessors, surpassed
them in the opportunities for leisure and amuse
ment, in the complexity of personal relations, in
the variety of customs, traditions, beUefs, theories
of conduct, with which we are brought in con
tact, aU demanding on our part the exercise of a
wisdom, a self-control, and a degree of devotion
to a moral ideal, sudi as no previous civiUzation
has required.
We are making great efforts to meet these de
mands, we are multiplying and improving our
educational institutions; and, in this coimtry es-

1 6 CAN EDUCATION MEET THE NEEDS?
peciaUy, the risLtig generation seems to be respond
ing, by maldng fuU use of the advantages provided
for it. But there remains to be answered the all-
important question — Is it possible, by improved
and extended education, adequately to prepare
the rising generations for the immense responsi-
bUities they must bear ? Are their innate quaUties
such as wiU enable them to rise to the level re
quired by the increasing complexity and difficulty
of the tasks that wiU be laid upon them? Will
the human quaUties which have carried our civi
lization upward ^to its present point of complexity
— ^wiU they suffice to carry it further, or even to
maintain it at its present level?
That is a grave question. But a stiU graver
question caUs for our most earnest consideration,
namely: Does not progressive civiUzation, while it
makes ever greater demands on the quaUties of
its bearers, does it not tend to impair, has it not
always ia the past actuaUy impaired, the quaUties
of the peoples on whom it makes these increasing
demands? History and Anthropology seem to point to the
same answer to this grave question — namely, to
the positive answer. History seems to exhibit
unmistakably this tendency of civiUzation to im
pair the quaUties of its bearers; and Anthropology

THE ANTHROPOLOGIC THEORY 17
shows us how and why it has so worked in the
past and stiU is tending, perhaps more strongly
than ever before, in this direction.
Here, then, is the anthropological theory of the
decline of peoples:
Every human being, and therefore every com
munity of human beings, every populace, inherits
from its ancestry a stock of innate quaUties which
enable it to enjoy, to sustain, to promote, a civ
ilization of a certain degree of complexity. As
civilization advances, it makes greater and greater
demands on these quaUties, requires their exer
cise and development in ever fuUer degree; imtil
it approaches a point at which its complexity out
runs the possibiUties of the innate quaUties. At
the same time it tends positively to impair those
quaUties; so that, as the demands increase, the
latent reserves of human quaUty are diminished.
Therefore a time comes when the supply no
longer equals the demand; that moment is the
culminating point of that civilization and of that
people, the turning-point of the curve from which
the downward plunge begins. This downward
tendency may be gradual and difficult to discern
at first; but History seems to show that it is apt
to be an accelerating process.
Anthropology is the latest and most backward

i8 MENTAL ANTHROPOLOGY
of the sciences. The proper study of mankind is
man. But how difficult is that study ! It is aot
very difficult to study the things that man has
made, his languages, his arts, his manufactures,
his social organizations, his achievements of all
kinds. But how difficult to infer from these the
nature of man's constitution ! How difficult to
correlate any pecuUarities in these products of
his activities with any pecuUarities of natural
endowment ! The physical anthropologists have,
during the last haU-century, accumulated a vast
mass of data about certain of his bodily quaUties
— the proportions of his skuU and other bones,
the color of his eyes, his stature and his com
plexion and his hair. These data are of great
value; but they concern merely his material struc
ture. It is the mental constitution of man, the
varying sum of his mental quaUties, that is alone
of direct importance and with which we are con
cerned. The bodUy pecuUarities are of impor
tance chiefly in so far as they may serve as
indicators of mental quaUties. It is this mental
anthropology which is so difficult a study that it
has only quite recently begun to take shape as
a science, the science we caU modem psychology.
And that science is, accordingly, in a very rudi
mentary condition, hopeful and active, but still

THE RACIAL PROBLEM 19
the scene of the most widely divergent views in
respect of its fundamental questions. EspeciaUy
as regards the innate basis of the human mind,
we StiU have Uttie Ught and much difference of
opinion. Yet only knowledge of the innate basis
of the mind wUl enable us to arrive at well-
foimded views, in face of the great problems of
the rise and faU of nations.
No wonder, then, that, when these problems
began to be actively debated early in the last
century, there were acute differences of opinion,
much error and much false dogma. For not only
was aU such discussion carried on ia the total ab
sence of the necessary basis of knowledge, but it
was a discussion in which the participants almost
inevitably were moved by strong desires other than
the desire for truth, in which judgment was dis
torted by strong prejudices and sentiments. The
debate inevitably raised the question of the rela
tive values of the human races, the superiority
or inferiority of this race to that, of one people to
another. In the absence of aU certain knowledge
of the fundamental facts, what hope was there
that racial bias should be discounted and kept in
check? The story opens with the myth of the Aryan
race. This "race" was a phantasy erected by

20 THE ARYAN MYTH
racial prejudice on a basis of the study of lan
guages. Community of language was accepted,
in the face of aU probabiUty, as evidence of com-
mimity of race. And the learned world was con
vulsed with controversies over the origin of the
Aryans, a race which had never existed. From
the first, racial prejudice was at work; for the
Aryans were conceived as the race which had
produced aU that was most esteemed in the cul
ture of Europe and of Asia; and, from the first,
the whole question was confused by the search
for the lost ten tribes of Israel. The errors of
this early stage of the discussion provoked some
of the most influential writers of the middle of
last century to repudiate the notion of differences
of mental constitution between the races of men.
J. S. MUl declared: "Of aU vulgar modes of escap
ing from the consideration of the effect of social
and moral influences on the human mind, the
most vulgar is that of attributing the diversities
of conduct and character to inherent natural
differences." And he was foUowed by many
others. For at that time the prevaUing view of
the human mind, of which MiU was the chief
exponent, was aU against the assumption of racial
differences; and the prevailing humanitarian sen
timent, of which also MUl was a leading expo-

POWER OF EDUCATION 21
nent, made strongly in the same direction. The
psychology of that time was the "Association psy
chology" that had come down from Locke and
Hume. It taught that at birth the human mind
is a blank sheet, and the brain a structureless
mass, lacking aU inherent organization or tenden
cies to develop in this way or that; a mere mass
of imdefined potentialities which, through experi
ence, association, and habit, through education
in short, could be moulded and developed to an
unlimited extent and in any manner or direction.
There prevailed, therefore, at that time a pro
found beUef in the unlimited power of education.
J. S. MUl himself had been most carefuUy edu
cated from his earUest years by his father; and he
attributed his own achievements in the inteUec
tual sphere whoUy to that fact, overlooking a stUl
more important fact, namely, that he was the
son of his father, a man of great inteUectual vigor
and capacity. Even those who perceived the
truth that by education you cannot make every
chUd into a great man beUeved, nevertheless, that
the educative process had only to be appUed to
some few successive generations, in order to raise
any people or any human stock to an indefinite
degree in the scale of inteUectual and moral value.
Humanitarian sentiment worked powerfuUy in

22 NOT UNLIMITED
favor of this theory of the unlimited power of
education. For there is something cold and
cruel, somethmg repugnant to the natural kindli
ness of the normal man, in the opposite theory,
the theory that some men, and even whole races
of men, are bom incapable of being educated be
yond a very modest level of inteUectual and
moral achievement. We should all Uke to agree
with the member of the British Parliament who,
indignantly repudiating an aspersion cast upon
some section of his countrymen, declared that
"one man is as good as another — ^and a great deal
better too, sometimes."
So striking are the immediate effects of educa
tion, and so strong is the influence of humanitarian
feeling upon opinion, that this confidence in the
unlimited power of education stUl prevails m the
popular mind; it is, I think, the basis of much of
the fine optimism with which the American peo
ple confronts its tasks, the impUcit theory on
which your practice is based.^
Yet, smce the day of MiU, science has done
much that saps this theory; it has achieved new
1 For example, I am told by a prominent educationist
that America is engaged in levelling up the Philippines to
her own standards by instituting universal and compul
sory schooling among them.

ALL MEN ARE EQUAL 23
knowledge which, if it were generaUy understood,
would go far to imdermine the complacency with
which the popxdar mind contemplates the future.
This new insight into the nature of man forbids
us scomfuUy to set aside, as the vulgar errors of
the "race-theorizers," aU attempts to estimate the
intrinsic values, the cultural potentialities, of dif
ferent human stocks. It calls upon us to weigh the
evidence most carefuUy and impartiaUy, putting
aside, as strictiy as in us Ues, both racial prejudice
and humanitarian sentiment; to recognize that,
if Nature has made men of imequal value, the
cruelty is hers, not ours, and that we do no wrong
in ascertaining and recording the facts.
The framers of The Declaration of Indepen
dence embodied in it the celebrated proposition
that "aU men are created equal." There are
two senses in which this sentence may be inter
preted. It may be taken to mean that aU men
are equal in respect of their claims for justice,
for humane treatment and the kindly feeUng of
their feUows, for opportunities to make the best
of their powers of service amd of happiness. On
the other hand, it may be, and sometimes has
been, taken to mean that aU men are bora
with equal capacities for inteUectual and moral
development. There can be no doubt, I think.

24 IN WHAT SENSE?
that the former interpretation is the true one.
The untruth of the second interpretation is so
obvious, and in aU ages has been so obvious, that
we do wrong to the great men who framed the
proposition, if we assume that the second mean
ing was intended by them. In the former sense
the proposition conveys a great moral tmth and
a moral ideal which aU men can accept as a funda
mental principle of conduct.

II
About the time at which J. S. MUl denounced
the vulgar errors of the race-theorizers, and at
which T. H. Buckle, the historian of civiUzation
in Europe, claimed to show that the peoples of
the various regions of the earth are moulded by
their physical environments Uke so much soft clay,
the theory of the aU-importance of race took a
new turn and gave rise to a school of thought
which has flourished greatly, which stUl flourishes,
and which has produced great and disastrous his
torical effects.
In 1854 Count Gobineau pubUshed his treatise
on the "InequaUty of the Races of Man," and
thereby foimded the German school of race-dog
matists, sometimes caUed the school of poUtico-
anthropology. He announced to the world: "I
have become convinced that everything in the
way of human creation, science, art, civilization,
aU that is great and noble and fruitful on the
earth, points toward a single source, is sprung
from one and the same root, belongs only to one
famUy, the various branches of which have domi
nated every civiUzed region of the world." This
25

26 THE GERMAN RACE-DOGMA
famUy he asserted to be the Teutonic race. Gobi-
neau's race-theory chimed so weU with the politi
cal aspirations of the leaders of Germany that,
with appropriate modification to the effect that
the modem Germans are the purest representa
tives of the super-race, it became the official doc
trine of that coimtry. It was adopted and propa
gated assiduously by a multitude of men, both
great and smaU. Richard Wagner was one of the
ardent disciples of this school. Nietzsche's con
ception of a "great blond beast" of a superman
gave the dogma a literary expression which pro-
foimdly influenced many young Germans. Ger
man anthropologists busied themselves to dis
cover evidence in its support. H. S. Chamber
lain, popularly known as the Kaiser's favorite
anthropologist, gave it its most complete expres
sion in his "Foundations of the 19th Century,"
a book which greatly influenced the Germans,
from Wilhelm II downward. In these ways, by
means of this conspiracy officiaUy promoted for
the perversion of the trath, the German people,
docUe as always to their elaborately organized
system of official instruction, was persuaded to
beUeve, against the evidence of most obvious
facts, that it was the chosen people of the world.
And the acceptance of this race-dogma did much

RACE HATRED 27
to convince the leaders and the masses of the
German people that they were moraUy justified
in setting out in 1914 to exterminate their weaker
neighbors, as a first and necessary step to that
world-rulership to which they beUeved themselves
to be destined by Nature or by God. And the
professors, if we may judge by many utterances,
including the infamous manifesto signed by ninety-
three of the most prominent of them, were just
as suggestible and deluded as the masses. This
dogma of the natural and predestined supremacy
of the German people gave rise incidentaUy, but
inevitably, to a polemic against the Jews, and
greatiy promoted the crusade of the Anti-Semites.
For the Jews had long claimed to be the chosen
people of the Lord; and their remarkable per
sistence as a people, in spite of aU adverse influ
ences, and, it may be added, their remarkable
achievements, lent some color to this view. Thus
the race-dogma accentuated racial hatreds and
intemational hostiUties. Odious as aU this was,
it had one good effect. It stimulated some men,
more espedaUy a number of capable Jews, to ex
amine in a critical spirit the evidence on which
the race-dogma claimed to be founded.
Notable among these are Friedrich Hertz,
author of "Modem Race Theories," and Ignaz

28 METHODS OF RACE-DOGMATISTS
ZoUshan, whose book, "The Race Problem," pub
Ushed in 1909, is a critical examination of the
German race-dogma and a temperate and success
ful defense of the racial value of the Jews. These
writers had no difficulty in exposing to impartial
readers the exaggerations and distortions of the
German race-dogmatists. The logic of the latter
was deplorable, and their disregard of facts was
obvious to the most casual reader. It was their
habit to discover some traces of physical quali-
, ties, such as taU stature, blue eyes, long heads, or
fair hair, among whatever people had achieved
any noteworthy work, and, taking this as evi
dence of some infusion of Germanic blood, to
attribute the achievement of that people wholly
to this aUeged strain in the population con
cerned. I wiU not delay to expose their methods and
the falsity of their claims. I wiU merely point
out that a less extreme and more defensible form
of this race-theory stiU finds many supporters.
Dr. C. Woodruff,! ^nd Mr. Madison Grant,* m this
country, De Lapouge' m France, are examples.
They claim an intrinsic and great superiority, not
^ "The Expansion of Races."
^ "The Passing of the Great Race."
' "Les Selections Sociales."

CRITICS OF THE RACE-DOGMA 29
for the Germans or the Teutons, but for the Nor
dic race of Europe, which is represented in Ger
many, it is true, but not so strongly as in other
areas. Anthropologists are now pretty well agreed
that this Nordic race reaUy did exist, and that,
mixed in various proportions, its blood is stiU widely
represented in various parts of the world. Without
claiming for it any general innate superiority, we
may fairly inquire whether it possessed and stiU
exhibits any human quaUties in pecuUar degree
or combination. But, before passing to examine
the evidence for differences of natural endowment,
let us glance at the arguments of those who to
day represent the school of MUl, denying aU dif
ferences of mental endowment, or regarding them
as so sUght as to be negUgible factors in world-
history. Of the many critics of the race-dogmatists, I
wiU cite only the names of M. J. Finot, author of
"The Prejudices of Race," of Mr. J. M. Robert
son, the vindicator of Buckle, and of Mr. J. Oake-
smith. Mr. Oakesmith's book on "Race and
NationaUty" (1919) is the latest important work
on this side of the argument and weU represents
the rest. These authors, who deny aU impor
tance to racial composition and differences of
innate endowment, may conveniently be classed

30 METHODS OF THE RACE-SLUMPERS
fover against their opponents, the race-dogmatists,
as the "race-slumpers." It is characteristic of
them that they in the main avoid the straight
issue and content themselves with exposing the
errors of the race-dogmatists. They make much
of the undeniable tmth that none of the civiUzed
peoples of the world are of pure race, but rather
are aU alike the products of repeated blendings of
races and peoples. They point out that, if any
racial pecuUarities of mental constitution exist,
they are so obscure that no one has been able to
define them and measure them, as the physical
anthropologists have succeeded in defining and
measuring certain physical quaUties as indicators
of race. They point to the fact that in many
instances men bom of primitive and even savage
parents have shown themselves capable of acquir
ing aU the elements of culture of the most highly
civiUzed communities, and of playing an honor
able part in the complex Ufe of such a community.
They deUght in teUing us how the native children
in this or that missionary school excel their white
feUows m learning the A B C, or even in acquir
ing the three R's. EspeciaUy they avoid the
direct issue by demonstrating at length the obvi
ous truth that race and nationaUty are not coin
cident. This is merely a red herring drawn across

IS "RACE" SUBJECTIVE ONLY? 31
the track, to put us off the scent. The "race-
slumpers" have shown, it must be admitted,
that the facUe generalizations of many historians
upon race and national character have been of
the most flimsy nature, often erroneous and some
times absurd. We must recognize with them that
these flimsy assumptions have worked harm; and
we must agree with them in condemning in the
most outspoken way the evU work of the more
extreme race-dogmatists.^
But when Mr. Oakesmith concludes that the
practical value of "race " is purely subjective ; that
"race" is merely an emotion, Uke that of the sol
dier who is proud of his regiment's history; when
the "race-slumpers" assert or imply, as they
do, that aU men are bom with the same mental
endowments, that aU human stocks are of equal
value, and that the anthropologic composition of
a people is of no influence upon the course of its
history, then we must part company from them.
These writers have shown that the training of the
pure historian does not qualify him to propoimd
'Oakesmith (p. 58) says of Chamberlain's work: "It is
false in its theories; ludicrously inaccurate in its asser
tions; pompous and extravagant in its style; insolent to
its critics and opponents." With these strictures I en
tirely agree.

32 A NEW START NEEDED
sweeping generalizations about racial quaUties;
and that, when he undertakes to do so, in entire
ignorance of the findings of anthropology and
equipped only with the faUacious psychology
which is embodied in common speech, he cannot
hope to arrive at the truth. They have shown
that the historian, if he would rightiy interpret or
explain the course of the history of peoples, rather
than be content merely to describe it, must go
to school with the anthropologists, must take ac
count of aU their findings, and must wait patiently
until we shaU have accumulated more data and a
surer insight into that obscurest and most difficult
of aU problems with which science is concerned —
the mental constitution of man and its subtie
variations. In aU this question of race and nationality we
need, in short, to make a new start. Instead of
throwing ourselves passionately into one or other
of the opposed camps, the camp of the race-dog
matists or that of the race-slumpers, we must
examine the evidence afresh with strict impar-
tiaUty, unmoved by national prejudice or by
humanitarian sentiment. EspeciaUy we must
disentangle and clearly distinguish between na
tional character and racial or ethnic quaUties.
For the confusion of these conceptions has been

NATIONAL CHARACTER 33
the root of most of the trouble. National char
acter, as I have taken some pains to show,! is not
the mere sum or average of individual charac
ters or quaUties. But that is not to say that in
dividual quaUties play no part in shaping national
character. Both parties have made the mistake
of regarding national character as the sum or
average of individual quaUties; the race-dogma
tists assuming that the nation in aU its doings
always expresses certain individual quaUties,
which they assume to be common to aU members
of the nation; the race-slumpers pointing out in
return that, at different periods of its history, a
nation exhibits itseU in very different characters;
for example, they point out that the Jews were at
one time an agricultural and warUke people, but
that in modem times they have seemed very
averse from both agriculture and war; and they
deduce from such facts the conclusion that the
quaUties of any population are completely fluid
and indefinite.
It wiU, I think, help us to define our problem
more exactly, if we state it concretely in the fol-
i"The Group Mind. A Sketch of the Principles of
Collective Psychology, with Some Attempt to Apply
Them to the Interpretation of National Life and Char
acter." New York, 1920.

34 EXCHANGE OF QUALITIES
lowing way.! Lg^. ^g hnagme that in some one of
the great weU-defined nations — say the British—
every infant, throughout a period of fifty years,
could be exchanged without the knowledge of its
parents for an infant of another people. If this
were done, at the close of the period of fifty
years the anthropologic constitution of the nation
would have been completely changed or exchanged.
Would that affect the future course of its national
life? If so, in what manner and degree? If we
suppose the exchange to have been made with some
other nation of simUar composition and level of
cidture, the race-slumpers — Messrs. Finot, Oake
smith, Robertson — would confidently reply: "No,
it would make no difference." Would they give
the same reply if the exchange were made with
some remoter people, say the Japanese, or Ar
menians, or ItaUans; or with a stUl remoter peo
ple, say the Hottentots or the Bushmen of
southern Africa, or the Malays of the Far East?
Their principles logicaUy would compel them to
give the same reply; but I fancy that, when con
fronted with the issue in this concrete form, the
most extreme of them would hesitate to do so.
1 As I did some twelve years ago in my "Introduction
to Social Psychology," p. 330, fifteenth edition, Boston,
1920.

INTELLECTUAL ENDOWMENT 35
They would probably put us off with some refer
ence to physical incompatibiUty of climate, and
so forth. For these writers do not and cannot
deny important physical pecuUarities of race; their
negation appUes only to differences of mental en
dowment, in respect of which the estabUshment
of the facts is so much more difficult.
Let us see, then, what evidence we have bear-;
ing on this great question of differences of innate
mental endowment. And we wiU begin with the
problem of inteUectual endowment, or innate ca
pacity for the development of inteUect or inteUi
gence. For, though the moral factors may be
more important, inteUigence is a valuable quaUty
and not to be despised; and it is more easily mea
surable than the moral quaUties.
Let us notice first that in Anthropology we
have to deal with human beings in mass, and
have to treat our facts by statistical methods, as
far as possible. Therefore the pointing to indi
vidual cases of the presence of weU-marked quali
ties, even if such cases be numerous, is out of
order, and merely confuses the issue. Consider
this for a moment in relation to a simply measured
physical quaUty, say stature. When the anthro
pologist asserts that one population, A, is shorter
than another, B, he is speaking of averages; he

•^ 60 61 62 M 6(t 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 73
Inchea
Figure I
A normal curve of distribution of stature in a population, the
average stature of which is 66 inches.

60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 Inches

Figure II
The overlapping curves of distribution of stature in two
homogeneous populations of which one (A) has the average
stature of 63 inches, the other (B) 69 inches.

36

STATISTICAL METHOD 37
does not mean to deny that taU men may be found
in A and short men in B; and to point to even
extreme instances of such aberration from the
average does not invalidate his generalization. If
the two populations contrasted are fairly homo
geneous, the statures of each may be represented
roughly by a curve, the abscissae of which repre
sent the various heights, each ordinate the per
centage of the population which has the height
marked on the horizontal line. These are the
normal curves of distribution. Or if one popula
tion is mixed or formed by the intermarriage of
two stocks of unequal stature, it may show a
double peak.! In either case the average stature
is a significant figure; and the generalization re
mains vaUd, even though you point to very taU
men among A and to short men among B. In
considering mental quaUties, we must keep this
way of viewing the facts constantly ui mind,
and must avoid the fallacy of seeking to upset
* Such a double-peaked curve would result if the two
populations represented by the curves A and B of Fig. II
were mixed, and the measurements of stature of a large
sample of the mixed population were plotted on a single
curve. Such double-peaked curves of physical qualities
have been found, e. g., the curve of distribution of the
cephahc index among the Greeks of Asia Minor (Ripley,
"Races of Europe," p. 116).

38 STATURE AND ENVIRONMENT
generalizations by pointing to exceptional in
stances. The example of stature is instmctive by analogy
in another way. When two populations are found
to diSer in average stature, we are not justified in
assuming forthwith that this difference expresses
a difference of innate constitution. We must in
quire first into the conditions under which the
two populations Uve. If A Uves in an infertile
area, under conditions of hardship and poor nutri
tion, its lower stature may be due to this fact.
For there are clear instances in which low stat
ure of a whole population may be traced to such
causes. Only if the conditions are favorable to
the fuU development of stature in both groups,
does difference of the average stature imply dif
ference of innate constitution. But, when such
influences have been taken into account and al
lowed for, it appears clearly that the stature of
men, or the extent of their growth in stature, is,
even under the most favorable conditions, deter
mined and limited by innate constitution. ' By
taking thought a boy may add a Uttle to his stat
ure, but the amotmt he may so add is strictly
limited. Further, stature is hereditary. Here
agam the statement is tme statistically; and the
statistical generalization is not invaUdated by in-

THE VIEW OF THE PLAIN MAN 39
stances of taU sons bom of short parents. What
we mean by the statement is that, on the average,
the sons of short forefathers wiU be, imder equaUy
good conditions, shorter than the sons of taU fore
fathers. Now, apply these ways of thinking to
mental qualities, and we shall find evidence that
inteUectual stature and inteUectual growth are
subject to generalizations very simUar to those
which are f oimd to hold good for physical stature
and physical growth. This is an aU-important
thesis, fimdamental to our whole problem.
The "race-sliunpers," in their denial, both ex-
pUcit and impUed, of aU significant differences be
tween one man and another as regards mental
qualities, are the champions of common sense and
the views of the plain man — views in which the
plain man has been supported by both law and
medicine until very recent years. For the plain
man, and law and medicine also, accepted the
traditional assumption that our mental powers
are the expression of a supematural principle, the
soul, miraculously implanted in each one of us at
birth; and, whUe they recognized great differences
of bodUy endowment, they ignored comparable
differences of mental endowment, vtdth certain ex
ceptions. The man of genius on the one hand,
the idiot and the madman on the other hand,

40 LIGHT ON MENTAL ENDOWMENT
were mysterious exceptions; but, apart from these
'exceptions, aU men were born equal, and aU dif
ferences of attainment were attributed to differ
ences of opportunity and education; aU men had
equal powers and equal responsibiUties, and must
be treated as strictiy aUke, unless their departure
from the average was so extreme that they might
claim to be men of genius, madmen, or idiots. Of
such cases common sense, the law, and medicme
washed their hands, disclaiming all responsibiUty
— ^for they did not fit into the theory; the genius
was aUowed to go his own way, the madmen and
idiots were handed over to special institutions and
there secluded.
Very recently a step forward has been made
in this connection. Medical men have recog
nized that idiots, the poor creatures whose defect
of inteUect is so great as to be obvious, as it were,
to the naked eye, are not sharply marked off as a
class from their feUow men. They have sought
and found many transitional forms which connect
the idiot vidth the normal or average man; and
they have devised appropriate terms by which to
denote those who approximate in various degrees
to the condition of the idiot. The law has come
to their help and has constituted a class of "men
tal defectives," persons whose inteUectual capad-

MENTAL DEFECTIVES 41
ties are so poor that they cannot be regarded as
fuUy responsible, but who must, for their own
sakes, be put into special schools and institutions;
because they cannot profit by the educational proc
esses provided for the normal child, cannot com
pete on even terms with the normal man. In these
schools and institutions they have been carefuUy
studied, and the foUowing facts fuUy estabUshed. i
Many of them differ greatly from the idiot (whoi
generally has defects of brain and body obvious
to the eye) in that to the untrained observer they
appear to be normal persons; and their brains and
physical development, even to the skiUed observeif,
present no marked peculiarities. Nevertheless, dp
what you wUl for these people, lavish upon them,
from their earUest infancy, aU the skUl and care
of specialists in medicine and education, and you
cannot make them into normal adults, fuUy re
sponsible persons, capable of holding their own
in the world. The best of them, after being care
fuUy trained and taught some simple trade, can
go out into the world and, imder favorable condi
tions, can eam a Uving, marry and produce chfl
dren, and lead more or less useful respectable
Uves. Others (and there are aU grades and no
sharp divisions) cannot be brought to this level;
if they are sent out into the world to lead the

42 MENTAL DEFECT INBORN
normal Ufe, they fail and become paupers, tramps,
or hoboes; or they appear again and again in the
poUce courts for trivial offenses. Others are so
obviously defective that they cannot be aUowed
to attempt to lead the normal life; and they are
kept, much to their own benefit, in the appropriate
institutions, harmless and happy and often, in a
limited way, useful. These people iUustrate the
tmth of what I said in my first lecture of the in
creasing demands of civilization upon the quaUties
of its bearers. In earlier times and in sunpler
communities such people undoubtedly existed or
exist; but under those simpler conditions their de
fects would not disqualify them for the common
life. In a simple mral community they may rub
along fairly weU. The mental defect of these per
sons, their defect of intelligence, is, then, not due
to lack of education or opportunity; it is an inborn
constitutional defect. ~
A second great fact has been estabUshed by the
modem study of these mental defectives — ^namely,
that their defect is not only inborn, or innate; it
is also hereditary. In most cases it is inherited
from similar parents or grandparents; and, if they
produce chUdren, it is Ukely to be transmitted to
some or aU of them. We do not yet fuUy imder
stand the laws of its transmission; but one fact

MENTAL TESTING 43
seems to be fuUy estabUshed: if two such defec
tives marry and produce chUdren, aU those chU
dren wiU also be "mental defectives."
In recent years an immense amount of study
has been devoted to these cases by highly compe
tent workers.! The facts as stated are estab
lished. No recitation of instances of boys who
have risen to eminence from the gutter can shake
them. May we suppose, then, that these mental
defectives form a class sharply marked off from
normal persons; as it used to be assumed that the
idiots formed a class sharply marked off? Or is
it possible that inteUigence or inteUectual stature
closely resembles physical stature ui respect of its
distribution through the population ? Evidence is
fast accumulating to show that this view is tme.
An important step in mental anthropology has
recentiy been made. The method of intelUgence-
tests (or mental testing) has been devised, and in
the army and elsewhere has been assiduously ap
pUed. The methods have been proved on a scale
which shows that the results achieved are "statis-
ticaUy" vaUd, though enors may and do occur in
mdividual cases. Popular opinion of "mental
! See Doctor H. H. Goddard's "Human Efficiency and
Levels of Intelligence," and his "Psychology of the Nor
mal and Abnormal," Princeton, 1920.

44 A SAMPLE OF MENTAL TESTING
testing" is naturaUy divided: those of us who did
weU when tested naturaUy think it a good system;
those of us who did badly incUne to the opinion
that it is an absurd academic fad. But the evi
dence that its results are statisticaUy vaUd is
overwhelming. I put before you a sample of the results obtamed
in the testing of a large batch (many thousands) of
recmits from a given area. This particular sam
ple (which I owe to the kindness of one of my
pupUs, Mr. N. D. Hirsch, who took part in the
conduct of the testing) is especiaUy interesting,
because it includes both white and colored recmits,
and because these were drawn from an area in
which faciUties for schooling were relatively poor,
so that many of these recnuts had enjoyed very

TABLE I

A

B

c +

c

C-

D

D-

E

W. L....

2.6

6

12

26

23

28

0

0

W. I . . .

.2

1-4

3-3

14

19

37

22

2

C. L. . . .

I.O

1-4

3-1

9

19

39

26

0

C. I . . . .

•5

•3

•S

3-2

8

33

46

7

Uttle schooling or none at aU. The Table I shows
the recruits arranged in four classes: white Uterates
(W. L.), white illiterates (W. I.), colored Uterates

LITERATES AND ILLITERATES 45
(C. L.), and colored UUterates (C. I.). The indi
viduals of each of these classes are distributed in
percentages under eight letters, in the order of
decreasing inteUigence.
There are many interesting features about this
table. We see that each class taken by itseU gives
approximately an asymmetrical curve! of distribu
tion of inteUigence. The curves for the white
iUiterates and the colored Uterates run pretty
closely together, indicating that these two classes
show approximately the same degree of inteUi
gence "statisticaUy"; whUe the white Uterates'
curve shows considerable shift to the left, and
that of the colored iUiterates a shift to the right.
You may be disposed at first sight to attribute
the differences of kitelUgence disclosed to differ
ences of degree of education, of schooling; but
reflection shows that the assumption wiU not fit
the facts.
First, the tests were deUberately designed in
order to give no advantage to the more educated
man as such. But, you may say, his education
has made him more inteUigent. WeU, perhaps it
has in some degree. But if education is the source
' The reader can easily picture for himself the curve of
distribution implied by the figures for each of the four
classes.

46 THEIR LEVELS OF INTELLIGENCE
of the difference between the white literates and
the white UUterates, and between the colored Ut
erates and the colored illiterates — what has made
the difference between white and colored? Again,
what makes the differences between the groups A
to E in each class? They must be in the main
native differences. A men occur in aU classes.
Further evidence of this may be seen in the nature
of the curves. Each taken alone is asymmetrical.
If we amalgamate the two curves for whites and
the two curves for coloreds, we get curves nearer
a normal curve of distribution. But both curves
vriU stUl show a too abrupt descent on the right.
This is partly accounted for if we remember that
a certain number of young men were rejected at
sight as obviously unfit to serve, including aU the
declared mental defectives. The addition of them
would bring both curves nearer to the form of a
normal symmetrical curve of distribution. Fur
ther, when a large group of coUege students were
tested (three thousand men, aU of whom had
enjoyed the advantages of full school and some
coUege education) they were found to spread out in
a simUar wide curve of widely different grades; the
curve is not so wide as the curve representing aU
the whites of Table I, because the lower grades
(D and E) are missing altogether. It resembles

HEREDITY DOMINATES 47
closely the curve for the white Uterates. Here the
educational factor has been practicaUy the same
for aU, yet the degrees of inteUectual capacity as
revealed by the tests are widely spread.
AU these facts point to the one conclusion,,
namely, that innate capacity for intellectual;
growth is the predominant factor in determining\
the distribution of inteUigence in adults, and that :
the amount and kind of education is a factor of;
subordinate importance.
The superiority of the white Uterates to the
white UUterates is due, then, not whoUy or mainly
to their schooling, but rather to an inborn greater
capacity for inteUectual growth. Spontaneous
selection has been at work in this region, where
schooling is difficult to obtain; and, on the whole,
those boys most fitted by nature to profit by
schooling have obtained it. It must be noted
that the class of UUterates includes many boys
who attended school for a few years only and
then dropped out. Does not common experience
teach us that, where schooling is difficult to ob
tain, the brighter boys who find themselves mak
ing good progress in school are those who are most
Ukely to continue at school? And is it not prob
able that the brighter boys and the sons of the
more intelUgent parents are more likely to enter

48

EDUCATION AND CAPACITY

school than the duUards and the sons of imintelU-
gent parents ?
Another point of interest is suggested by
Table II, expressed in "mental age."! -pj^g ^jy.

TABLE II

Mental Age

Difference

W. L 

14-5 \
12.2 J
12. 1 1
I0.6 J

2-3

W I 

C. L 

C. I 

ference between Uterates and UUterates is due
partly to innate differences, partly to education;
but the difference is much greater in whites
than in coloreds. If we assume that the attrac
tion of the schools works selectively in equal de
gree on whites and coloreds, and this seems a
fan: assumption, then it foUows that the higher
the level of innate capacity, the more is it im
proved by education.
FinaUy, when aU the white recmits of the
whole army are thrown into a single table, they
give a curve conforming very closely to a normal
curve of distribution.'
* A conventional scale in which the position of a very
intelligent adult is expressed by the figure 20.
' See p. 37.
PROVING OF THE TESTS 49
Such findings require confirmation by the more
thorough testing of practical Ufe, and they have
had such thorough confirmation. For example,
of a large group of coUege students who, after
being tested, entered an officers' training-school,
many were eventually rejected because they
proved unfit to be officers. Of those who scored
A or B in the tests at entry, eight-ninths passed
through the school successfuUy; of those who
scored C — or D, seven-eighths faUed; of those
who scored C, 50 per cent faUed. Further, it
was found that men who scored below C generaUy
proved inadequate to the duties of a non-com
missioned officer.
The official report, after carefuUy weighing aU
the evidence, states: "These examinations were
intended, and are now definitely known, to mea
sure native inteUectual abUity; they are to some
extent influenced by educational acquirement, but
in the main the soldier's inbom inteUigence and
not the accidents of environment determines his
mental rating.'' !
 ti 
1 "Army Mental Tests," by P. S. Yoakum and R. M.
Yerkes, 1920, p. 17. Professor S. M. Terman, who has
had large experience in the application of mental tests to
children, writes: "We are beginning to learn that all of
these measures combined are powerless to reduce greatly

so PROVING OF THE TESTS
the number of over-age children in the grades. Notwith
standing the persistent campaign which has been waged
against the evils of retardation for the last dozen years,
the number of retardates remains to-day much the same
as it was when the campaign began. . . . The facts . . .
point fairly definitely to the conclusion that the differences
which have been found to exist among children in physical
traits are paralleled by equal differences in mental traits,
particularly inteUigence. It will be shown that these in
nate differences in intelligence are chiefly responsible for
the problem of the school laggard." ("The Intelligence
of School Children," p. 24.)

HI
I HAVE put before you evidence that in the
population of this country innate inteUectual ca
pacity (or the capacity to develop inteUigence)
is continuously distributed, in much the same
fashion as a physical quaUty such as stature. It
is tme that we cannot exactiy define this vague
thing which we measure and caU "inteUectual
capacity." Is it a simple unitary factor which
may be a MendeUan unit? Some psychologists,
using a most ingenious statistical method (the
method of conelation and the hierarchy), have
argued that these various levels of inteUectual
capacity depend on the possession of more or
less of such a single common factor, which they
caU general inteUigence or "the G factor"; and
they have proposed to caU it "inteUective en
ergy." ! You may object that this is a vague no
tion, and may ask — ^What exactly is this inteUec
tive energy ? It is fair to reply that it is something
' Cf. especially papers by Professor C. Spearman, Mr.
C. Burt, and others in the British Journal of Psychology,
and Doctor Maxwell Garnet's "Education and World-
Citizenship," London, 1921. SI

52 INTELLECTIVE ENERGY
which we can measure and recognize, though we
cannot describe it or adequately conceive it; and
that in this respect it is just Uke electricity or
other physical energies, which the engineer mea
sures and controls but caimot fuUy understand or
adequately describe. But, even if this is a mis
taken view, and if the level of inteUectual capacity
is a resultant of many factors, that does not inval
idate the conception for anthropological purposes.
Physical stature (or the capacity to attain a certain
stature) is a resultant of many factors (lengths of
many bones), yet it is an inbom or innate quaUty;
though affected by environment, yet it is deter
mined by heredity; it is inborn in various degrees
in individuals and in races, some having more and
others less of it; and the same is tme of inteUec
tual capacity.
This conclusion is distasteful; for it sets a Umit
to the power of education. It may seem Ukely to
discourage the enthusiasts of education; but it
should not do that. Even though the effects of
education are limited by Nature, it is of the high
est importance that we make the most and the
best of the human material which she supplies.
Those who resent this Umitation of the power of
education are very apt to stmggle against the con
clusion by an argument of this kind. They de-

INTELLIGENCE AND RACE

53

scribe instances of boys, taken from a deplorable
environment and from undesirable parents, who,
having been put under good conditions and
given good education, have become useful or even
distinguished citizens. But even a large number
of such cases can do nothing to invaUdate our con
clusion. They may be set off completely by cit
ing cases of the opposite type, cases of boys who,
though denied every opportunity for schooling,
nevertheless have attained to the very highest
levels of distinction — ^boys like Abraham Lincoln
or George Stephenson, the creator of the EngUsh
railroads. Let us look now a Uttie more closely at the!
racial distribution of inteUectual capacity. Un-'
fortunately, facts are few, and, though I would
rather choose for discussion any other race than
the Negro, they alone of the colored peoples have
been studied in a way which makes possible a
comparison with the white population.

TABLE m

A

B

c +

C

C-

D

D-

E

Whites. . . .

2.0

4.8

9-7

20

22

30

8

2

Coloreds. . .

.8

1.0

1.9

6

IS

37

30

7

Officers....

SS-o

29.0

12.0

4

0

0

0

0

54 NEGRO INTELLIGENCE
That races are endowed in different degrees
with innate inteUectual capacity is impUed by the
difference between the curves for whites and
coloreds (Table III). We have seen that the
curve for the colored Uterates ahnost coincides
with that for the white iUiterates. We have seen
that the difference of level between the white
Uterates and UUterates is determined in part by
education, in part by natural endovraient. Note,
then, that whichever factor is predominant, or if
either alone is responsible, the racial difference of
native endowment stands out clearly.
Now, the colored men of this country are
largely, I suppose, of mixed white and Negro de
scent. It may be suggested that the native in
feriority of the colored in respect of this quaUty
(inteUigence) is an evU effect of the cross-breeding
of these two widely dissimilar races. That is a
possibiUty. But facts are strongly against it.
First, the colored men of the Northern States
showed distinct superiority to those of the South,
in respect of their performance in the army in-
telUgence-tests. Have they not a larger propor
tion of white blood? I do not know, but I sus
pect it.
Secondly, we have the fact that some of the
leaders of the colored people deUberately advocate

NEGRO INTELLIGENCE 55
the improvement of the colored people by further
miscegenation. A fact not conclusive, but a sig
nificant admission.
Thirdly, we have the aUegation, frequentiy
made, that ever}- colored man who has risen to
high distinction has been of mixed blood. It is
perhaps difficult to prove the rule; but it is diffi
cult to find exceptions.!
Fourthly, we have a few studies which suggest
that, when two races of different inteUectual ca
pacity are crossed, the offspring are (statisticaUy)
intermediate, and that they approximate to the
superior race according to the proportion of their
blood derived from it.
As regards the Negro race, I know of no such
study; probably the descent of the colored people
cannot be traced with suflacient accuracy for this
purpose.^ ¦ The late Professor N. S. Shaler was a close student of
the colored people, and was affectionately disposed toward
them. In his book "The Neighbor" (Boston, 1904),
which bears on every page the marks of the spirit of jus
tice and benevolence, he states: "Almost all the Negroe3
of this coimtry who have shown marked capacity of any
kind have had an evident mixture of white blood" (p.
163). He mentions a single exception.
' Professor R. S. Woodworth, in an article on the " Com
parative Psychology of Races" (Psychological Btdletin,

S6 INDIAN INTELLIGENCE
But we have two recent studies of Indians
and cross-breeds of white and Indian blood, made
quite independentiy by different observers and by
different methods in different places. The Indians
studied were aU Uterates, pupUs in Indian schools
and coUeges. The results of the two investiga
tions agree. One observer! concludes that the In
dians of mixed blood are superior in inteUectual
capacity to the fuU-blooded Indians by one fuU
year of mental age. The other (Professor Hunter,
University of Kansas) compared white chUdren
with Indians of fuU blood, and with those of
one-quarter, one-half, and three-quarters of white
blood; he shows that there is a large difference in
voL XIII, 1916), summarizes the findings of three ob
servers, all of whom, applying "intelligence-tests" to white
and colored children, found the intellectual capacity of
the coloreds to be (statistically) inferior to that of the
whites. One of them (Ferguson) divided the colored
children into four groups, according to the depth of col
oration, and, accepting shade of color as an indication of
the proportion of white blood, concluded, that "in the
more intellectual tests, success increased with the propor
tion of white blood." Shaler wrote: "It is a common
opinion, held by the blacks as well as the whites, that an
infusion of white blood increases the intelligence of the
Negro, while at the same time lowering his moral qual
ities." Ibid., p. 162.
» Mr. T. R. Garth (University of Texas).

CROSS-BREEDING AND INTELLIGENCE 57
s
inteUectual capacity between the white and the
Indian, and that the cross-bred approximate to
the white level in proportion to then: share of
white blood; and, after carefuUy considering aU
the possibiUties, cautiously concludes that the dif
ference is probably due to race.!
It seems highly probable, then, that the same
rule holds good for the mulatto, and that, if pure
Negroes were compared with whites, the differ
ence of inteUectual capacity would be consider
ably greater than that actuaUy found between
whites and coloreds.^
This conclusion is, I think, in harmony with
the indications afforded by the whole history of
the Negro race — ^not only in Africa and AAerica,
but in Oceania and especiaUy in such regions as
! Summaries of the work of Mr. Garth and Mr. Hunter
appear in the reports of the meeting of the American
Psychological Association at Chicago, December, 1920
{Psychological Bulletin, 192 1).
' In the Journal of Applied Psychology for 1919 Messrs.
S. L. Pressey and G. F. Teter report "A Comparison of
Colored and White Children by Means of a Group-Scale
of Intelligence." They examined 187 colored and 2,800
white children of the same ages and drawn from the
schools of the same area. They conclude: "The colored
children of a given age average at about the average for
white children (in the same city) two years younger"; and
they add: "Analysis by test shows the colored children to

58 IS INTELLIGENCE HEREDITARY?
Haiti and Liberia. It is not in the least uivali-
dated by the statistics we so often see, showing
the progress of the colored people since emanci
pation, and by the acknowledged fact that some
men of color have shown themselves to be truly
great men.!
\ Now let us turn to a second question. These
jdiEferences of inteUectual capacity are inborn;
Ibut are they hereditary? We have already noted
certain facts which imply the positive answer.
If the differences are racial, they are hereditary
in the race. But within the same race, or in a
population blended from many closely aUied
stocks, such as the white Americans, are they
hereditary? average below white children of the same age on all the
tests." This difference between white and colored chil
dren is the more significant, if we take into account the
view which is widely held and which is probably true of
many if not of all cases, namely, that inequality of adult
inteUigence is due, not so much to more rapid development
of the more intelligent throughout childhood, but rather
to an earlier arrest of development in the less intelligent.
1 Shaler, who made a lifelong study of the Negroes and
who wrote with warm appreciation of their many fine
qualities, recorded, nevertheless, the following judgment:
"All the facts we have point to the same unhappy con
clusion, that the Negro considered as a species is, by na
ture, incapable of creating or maintaining societies of an

HEREDITARY GENIUS 59
WeU, we have seen that the lower levels, the
levels of the mental defectives, are hereditary.
Further, medical men have shown certain other
forms of "mental defect" to be hereditary, e. g.,
certain forms of insanity, or rather the predis
position to these, also the predisposition to epi
lepsy and the neuroses.
At the other end, the upper end of the scale,
the studies of Galton! and his disciples have
shown good ground for beUeving that excep-^
tionaUy high inteUectual capacity is hereditary^
Standing alone, Galton's reasoning is perhaps in
conclusive; and many have sought to escape his
conclusions by attributing the achievements of
the sons and grandsons of great men to their su-
order above barbarism, and that, so far as we can discern,
this feature of his nature, depending, as it does, on the
lack of certain qualities of mind, is irremediable" ("The
Neighbor," p. 139). Again he wrote: "Unlike the most
of the people who come to us from Europe, his race [the
Negro] is not provided with the motives that lead to
safety. His elevation and maintenance, so far as we can
see for all time, absolutely depend upon the help he is to
receive from the state-building race" (op. cit,, p. 172).
It is thus apparent that the results of the recent applica
tion of the exacter methods of mental measurement bear
out the opinion of impartial judges based upon long and
careful observation of the less exact kind.
» "Hereditary Genius."

6o INTELLIGENCE OF THE PLAIN MAN
perior opportunities. But, when taken with the
rest of the evidence, Galton's conclusions seem
to me to be in the main incontestable, for they
are in Une with and harmonize with aU the rest.
If, then, the degrees of inteUectual capacity
at the extremes of the scale are hereditary, it
seems highly probable that the same is tme of
the intermediate part of the scale. But have we
any direct evidence of this? Is there any evi
dence that the inteUectual capacity of the ordi
nary plain citizen, of you and me and Smith and
Jones, is determined largely by heredity? Com-
,mon observation seems to point that way, but
it is inconclusive. And we have hitherto only
the beginnings of a direct attack on this problem.
Professor K. Pearson! ^^ produced some evi
dence that mental quaUties are transmissible in
exactiy the same degree as physical quaUties. He
is a great statistician, but the mental quaUties
he dealt with are vague iU-defined conceptions,
and his conclusions are open to criticism on that
ground. Some years before the war one of my
pupUs at Oxford made a direct attack on the
problem, and the results are significant, though
on a smaU scale. At Oxford are gathered as
' Biometrika, vol. EQ.

INTELLIGENCE AND SOCIAL STATUS 6i
teachers many men from the whole British Em-
pu^, highly selected in virtue of inteUectual dis
tinction. Now it so happens that in a certain
private school in Oxford a majority of the boys
are sons of these men. We therefore set out to
compare the inteUectual capacity of the boys of
this school with that of boys of another school
corresponding to your pubUc schools. This
"pubUc school"! ^g^g ^jj exceptionaUy good
school of its kind, the teaching being in many
respects better than in the other — the private
school; the boys were from good homes, sons of
good plain citizens — shopkeepers and skiUed arti
sans, and so forth.
Without going into detail I may say summarily
that the result was to show a very marked
superiority of the boys of the school frequented
by the intellectual class.^ The result is aU the
1 In the American sense of the term.
' Mr. H. B. English, who conducted this research, has re
ported it in the Yale Psychological Studies for 1917: "Men
tal Capacity of School Children Correlated with Social
Status." Mr. EngUsh concludes: "Although the groups
are smaU, they are exceedingly homogeneous and thor
oughly representative of the children in two social or
ecoQomic strata. The writer does not hesitate, therefore,
to predicate these results for the children of the entire
classes represented or to conclude that the children of

62 SOCIAL STRATIFICATION
more strUiing, if you reflect on the following facts:
First, every boy has two parents and inherits
his qualities from both. Secondly, it has not been
shown that university dons prefer clever wives,
or that they are particularly clever in choosing
clever wives. There is room for difference of
opinion. It remains, then, highly probable that,
if the wives of these men were aU as superior in
respect of intellect as their husbands, the superior
ity of their sons to the boys of the other group
would have been still more marked.
The result suggests a question of very great
interest. Does the social stratification of society
correspond to, is it correlated with, a stratifica
tion of inteUectual capacity? The positive an
swer has been widely assumed on general grounds
of probabiUty by those who have studied heredity.
Others ridicule the idea, and produce, as usual,
their instances which do not conform to any such
general mle. The result of the research just now
mentioned supports the positive answer.
the professional class exhibit between 12 and 14 years of
age a very marked superiority in intelligence." "Al
though he is not prepared to say, and does not in fact be
Ueve, that environment has had nothing to do with the
superiority of one group over the other, he is convinced
that the hereditary factor plays an altogether predominant
part.'[

SOCIAL STRATA 63
But the question is extremely important, and
I cite therefore the results of another direct at
tack on the problem.! Miss A. H. ArUtt (of
Bryn Mawr CoUege) tested 342 children from the
primary grades of schools of one district. Of
these, 191 were of American-born white parents,
80 were bom of ItaUan immigrants, 71 were
colored. They aU spoke EngUsh vrithout diffi
culty. The Americans were divided, according to
the social status of their parents, into five groups,
conesponding to those defined by Professor Taus
sig: (i) professional; (2) semi-professional and
higher business; (3) skiUed labor; (4) semi-skiUed
labor; and (5) unskUled labor. Groups (4) and
(5) were amalgamated.
The results show very marked differences be
tween the groups. They give four dissimUar
curves of distribution. The medians (I. Q.) of the
four groups were (i) 125, (2) 118, (3) 107, (4) 92.
! I may cite also similar results obtained by another of
my pupils at Oxford, Mr. Cyril Burt, who concludes his
article as foUows: "For aU these reasons we may conclude
that the superior proficiency at intelligence-tests on the
part of the boys of superior parentage was inborn. And
thus we seem to have proved marked inheritabiUty in the
case of a mental character of the highest 'civic worth.' "
"Experimental Tests of General InteUigence," British
Journal of Psychology, vol. Ill, 1909.

64 SOCL\L AND RACIAL DIFFERENCES
I. Q. stands for "intelUgence quotient," and is
commonly used as a convenient abbreviation for
"inteUectual capacity as revealed by mental test
ing." The "median" is considered to be a rather
more satisfactory figure than "the average" for
the comparison of one group with another; it is
commonly not widely different from "the aver
age." The foUowing table expresses the grades
of intelligence attributed to the various groups on
the basis of the testing.

TABLE IV

Americans of social status (i) 

.. LQ.

= I2S

" " " " (2)

./IQ.

= 118

" " " (3) 

. . L Q.

= 107

" " " « (4) 

. . I. Q.

= 92

ItaUans 

.. LQ.

= 84!

Colored 

.. LQ.

= 83

AU Americans grouped together 

. . I. Q.

== 106

* If this figure should be confirmed by further research,
it would, of course, not justify us in drawing any inference
about the population of Italy as a whole, nor even about
that of Southern Italy, from which region most of these
immigrants have probably come. The recent Italian im
migrants are probably not a fair sample of the population
of Italy. I have omitted the decimal figures from Miss
ArUtt's figures. I am much indebted to her for sending
me detaUs of her observations. Her fuU paper has not
yet been pubUshed (summary in Psychological Btdletin,
February, 1921).
It is noteworthy that Professor Terman, a high author-

INTELLIGENCE AND SOCIAL STATUS 65
A third research of a simUar kind points to the
same conclusion.! Tests were made of 548 chU
dren from the schools of one city. The chUdren
were ananged in four groups according to the
occupation of their father, namely professional,
executive, artisan, labor. The results are stated
in terms of the percentage of chUdren of each
group who scored a mark higher than the median
mark for the whole number of 548 chUdren, and
are as foUows: — ^professional group, 85 per cent;
executive group, 68 per cent; artisan group, 41
per cent; labor group, 39 per cent.''
ity, has found similar indications in working with the chil
dren of Italian and Spanish and Portuguese immigrants.
In his book ("InteUigence of School ChUdren," New York,
1919, p. 56) he gives the foUowing figures for the I. Q., or
measure of relative intelUgence of the foUowing classes of
chUdren drawn from the same schools:
Spanish  78
Portuguese  84
ItaUan  84
North European  105
American  106
'S. L. Pressey and R. Ralston, Journal of Applied
Psychology, vol. m, 1919: "The Relation of General
IntelUgence of School ChUdren to Occupation of the
Father." ' Professor Terman, reporting on the results of tests ap
pUed to a large number of American school-chUdren, states :

66 INTELLIGENCE AND SOCIAL STATUS
We have, then, pretty good evidence that ca
pacity for inteUectual growth is inborn in differ
ent degrees, that it is hereditary, and also that
"IntelUgence of no to 120 I. Q. [this range is defined as
' superior intelUgence,' the bulk of the children, about 60
per cent, ranging from 90 to no I. Q.] is approximately
five times as common among chUdren of superior social
status as among chUdren of inferior social status, the pro
portion among the former being about 24 per cent of all
and among the latter only 5 per cent of aU. The group
[i.e., the group of 'superior intelUgence'] is made up
largely of children of the fairly successful mercantile or
professional classes." He defines as of "very superior
intelUgence" those children who scored in the tests more
than 120 marks. "Children of this group are . . . un-
usuaUy superior. Not more than 3 out of 100 (i. e,, of all
tested) go as high as 125 I. Q., and only about i out of
IOC as high as 130. In the schools of a city of average
population only about i chUd in 250 or 300 tests as high
as 140 I. Q. In a series of 476 unselected chUdren there
was not a single one reaching 120 whose social class was
described as 'below average.' Of the chUdren of superior
social status, about 10 per cent reached 120 or better.
The 120-140 group (i. e., of very superior intelUgence) is
nM.de up almost entirely of chUdren whose parents belong
to the professional or very successful business classes.
The chUd of a skilled laborer belongs here occasionaUy,
the chUd of a common laborer very rarely indeed. At
least thin is true in the smaller cities of California
among populations made up of native-born Americans."
("The Measurement of InteUigence," p. 95, New York,
1916.)

MORAL QUALITIES 67
it is closely conelated with social status.! Fur
ther, we have good evidence that different races
possess it in widely different degrees; that races
differ ia inteUectual stature, just as they differ
in physical stature.
We have considered so far only one human
quaUty, inteUectual capacity. This is very im
portant. But other quaUties also are important.
We know how a man or a boy of normal, or su
perior, inteUectual capacity may faU to make good
for lack of^oral_qualities. We know that the
moral quaUties show a considerable independence
of inteUectual capacity. In regard to them the
same questions arise. Are they inbom in various
degrees? Are they hereditary? Are they dis
tributed in different degrees and combinations
in races and in the strata of the population of
such a country as this?
These questions are even more difficult, and
more apt to provoke acute differences of opimon,
than the similar questions regarding inteUectual
capacity. Experimental psychology has hardly
!It seems highly probable that degrees of intelUgence
are not merely correlated with degrees of social status, but
that intelUgence is related to social status as ground to
consequent or cause to effect. For yet another piece of
evidence supporting this aU-important conclusion, see
p. 152.

68

ARE THEY INNATE?

begun to contemplate these problems; we have
to glean our evidence from other sources. One
smaU piece obtained by the experimental method
seems worth citing as a suggestion. Mr. K. T.
Waugh appUed a number of tests to students in
four coUeges of British India (Lucknow), one Chi
nese coUege, and some American coUeges. The
tests were largely concerned with memory, and
were not weU suited to test inteUectual capacity.
They revealed only sUght differences, which were
sUghtly in favor of the Indian students — except
in one quaUty, namely power of concentrating the
attention.! In this the Chinese exactly equaUed

' Mr. Waugh's report was made to the meeting of the
American Psychological Association at Chicago, Decem
ber, 1920 (" Comparison of Oriental and American Student
InteUigence"). The functions tested were (i) concentra
tion of attention, (2) speed of learning, (3) association-
time, (4) immediate memory, (5) deferred memory, (6)
range of information. His results are embodied in the
foUowing table:

Test

Scores \

AMERICAN

CUlNliSE

IKDIAN

I
2
34 S
6

7566
46 S8
80 23

75
6238 IS

62
45 58 54
88 24

STRENGTH OF WILL 69
the Americans; the Indians feU decidedly short
of them. The facts that in other tests the Indians;
equalled or exceUed the Americans, and that in
two tests, which measure the power of concentra
tion of attention, the Chinese equaUed, whUe the
Indians feU far short of the Americans — these
facts inspire confidence in the objectivity of this
result. They go far to show that the differences
found are not due to racial bias in favor of his
own race on the part of the observer, or to condi
tions of experimenting unduly favorable to the
American students. This result seems to me
extraordinarily interesting and suggestive. For,
what is this power of concentrating attention?!
It is essentiaUy wUl-power. I need only remind"
you of what WUUam James wrote of this.! Now
the more or less orderly and successful govem-
ment of the three hundred miUions of India by a
mere handful of British men, during more than a
Where retentiveness is equal but speed of learning un
equal, and power of concentration correlated with superior
speed of learning, we may safely attribute the superiority
in speed to superiority of concentration.
1 "Effort of attention is thus the essential phenomenon
of wUl" ("Principles of Psychology," vol. II, p. 562).
Compare also the discussion and similar conclusion on this
topic in Doctor MjixweU Gamett's "Education and World-
Citizenship."

70 BRITISH WILL-POWER
century, is one of the most remarkable facts in the
history of the world. It is a marveUous achieve
ment. And EngUshmen have marveUed over it.
And, when they have sought to explain how it has
been possible, they have always come to the same
conclusion. They have recognized that the na
tives of India, or very many of them, have much
inteUectual capacity; that they are clever, quick,
versatUe, retentive; that some of them have bril
Uant inteUects. But such observers have fre
quently expressed the opinion that, as compared
with their British rulers, the natives of India are
relatively defective in character or wiU-power; and
they have found the explanation of British ascen
dancy in this fact. Now, at the very first attempt
to apply exact methods in the comparative study
of Indians, this opinion finds confirmation. If this
conclusion is reaUy well-founded, as it seems to be,
might we not infer from it that, if the quaUties of
Indians and British had been reversed in this sin
gle respect — if the Indians had been as innately
superior in wiU-power as they seem to be inferior
— then, not improbably, a few Indians would at
the present time be mUng over and administer
ing the affairs of aU Europe, and perhaps of aU
America as weU? It is a strange reflection. It
is not utterly fantastic and absurd. It may at

THE INDIAN MUTINY 71
least serve to suggest how profoundly pecuUari
ties of moral constitution may affect the destinies
of peoples.
In this connection let me remind you that the
quelling of the Indian Mutiny was, before aU
things, a triumph of wUl-power. If even a few of
the British leaders, if Havelock, John Nicholson,
and Baird Smith, and one or two others had faUed,
ever so Uttie, in the supreme tests of wiU-power
from which they came out triumphant, the British
would have been swept from the country, and
British rule in India would have been brought
to an end about the year 1857.

IV
The moral factors of human nature are very
complex. Let us turn to the field of art, and see
whether we caimot :find in the arts of Europe the
expression of racial pecuUarities pf^ moral consti^
tution. The problem of racial manifestations in
Europe would be simpler if we could assume, as
has sometimes been done, that the population of
Europe, or of western Europe, represents in the
main two distinct races, the so-caUed Latin and
Teutonic races. But anthropologists are pretty
weU agreed that it is derived in the main from
three distinct races, which, although much mixed
and partiaUy blended in all countries, are spread
out in three great east-to-west bands; the taU
fair Nordic race in the North; the short dark
long-headed Mediterranean race in the South;
the darkish round-headed Alpine race in between;
that is to say, the blood of each of these races
predominates in these three zones respectively.
In spite of this compUcation, we may contrast
the art of the South with that of the North, and
inquire how far any constant and general differ
ences are attributable to differences of racial
composition or anthropologic constitution.
72

NORTHERN AND SOUTHERN ART 73
Mr. A. Gehring! has drawn such a contrast
most skUfuUy; and, lest I should seem to be af
fected by any bias of my own, I wUl foUow his
lead closely, attempting to give you the pith of
his observations.
He contrasts the art of the Nordic race with
that of the Graeco-Latins in whom the blood of
the Meditenanean race predominates. Taking
one art after another, he shows that the same
essential differences appear. In aU arts the classic
qualities predominate in the South, the romantic
in the North.
The classic quaUties are clearness, formality, |
circumscription, simpUcity, directness of appeal
to the senses, elegance, symmetry, proportion,
observance of the unities of time and place, ra
tionalism, and, I think we may add, a high de
gree of a quality only recently pointed out as a
fundamental quaUty of works of art, namely the
preservation of what is caUed "psychical dis
tance"; that is to say, the subject, the topic, is
kept remote, more or less unreal, and subordinate,
while the essential of success Ues in the form of
the artist's treatment.*

' "Racial Contrasts," 1908.
'C/. "The /Esthetic Attitude," by H. S. Langfeld, 1920.

74 THE ROMANTIC QUALITY
The romantic qualities are the opposite of
these — ^profusion of characters, of quaUties, situa
tions, objects and detaUs, and of suggestions of
all these things beyond those actuaUy portrayed
or presented; complexity of relations, of plot,
of design, of emotions; indirectness of appeal,
rel)dng upon suggestion of a wealth of imagery
and vague meaning, by the figurative and sym-
boUcal usage of aU material; the suggestion of
mystery, of the unknown and unfathomable;
all prompting, not so much to direct and purely
aesthetic enjo3Tnent, as to moral and mystical
reflection on man and nature.
To iUustrate these differences I wiU only ask
you to compare mentally: classical with northern
mythology; a classical temple with a gothic cathe
dral; the best ItaUan painting with works of
Rubens, Durer, Turner, Rembrandt; ItaUan
music with the music of Wagner and Beethoven;
the classical theatre with the plays of Shakespeare
and Goethe's Faust; Homer and Virgil and Hor
ace with Wordsworth, Shelley, Carlyle, Coleridge,
and Meredith. If we would see the contrast
in its fuU degree, we must compare the greatest
works of the greatest artists; for in these the
inward nature of the artist is most truly and
spontaneously expressed. There are no doubt

CLIMATE AND ART 75
exceptions (e.g., Michael Angelo and Dante'),
but on the whole the contrast is striking and of
the same nature in all the arts. Other writers
have pointed out the same differences, and some
have suggested explanations. M. Boutmy, for
example, would attribute the difference to the
influence of cUmate: the mystical, reflective, in-
tiospective quaUty of Northern art to the foggy
atmosphere; the clear, direct appeal to the senses
in the South to the clear sunny atmosphere.*
This is hardly an adequate explanation. For we
see that, when a predominantiy Nordic people,
such as the EngUsh, transfers itself to another
climate, to New England, where it enjoys a lati
tude and a briUiant climate comparable to those
of southem Europe, it continues in its art to ex
hibit the same pecuUarities; they are nowhere
more strongly presented than in the works of
Emerson and Whitman and of other American
writers. If climate has anything to do with the
production of the difference, the effects of climate
1 It must be remembered that there was a strong infu
sion of Nordic blood in northern Italy; and, though it
seems to have left few physical traces at the present time,
it was probably more strongly represented at the time of
the Renaissance than it is now.
' "La psychologie du peuple anglais."

76 HUMAN INSTINCTS
must have become impressed on the mind, trans
missible and hereditary, through many genera
tions of influence.
Mr. Gehring discerningly remarks: "It is con
ceivable that vast differences in national activ
ities and institutions are the results of insignif
icant divergences of mental structure." This is,
I think, very true, if we insert the word seemingly
before "insignificant divergences of mental struc
ture." Is it possible to point to any divergence
of mental structure between the Meditenanean
and the Nordic races which would explain wholly
or in part these wide differences of expression in
art? What constitutional innate differences do
these express ? And can we fimd other differences
of activity which seem to express the same diver
gence of mental stmcture or moral endowment?
In seeking such innate differences we may properly
tum to the instinctive endowment. We have
recently come to recognize, thanks chiefly to
WiUiam James, that human nature comprises a
number of distinct instinctive tendencies or in
stincts; that these, though deeply hidden and
disguised in the adult man, are nevertheless the
mainsprings of aU our activities, bodily, emo
tional, and inteUectual; that one man differs
from another in the native strength of these sev-

INSTINCTS AND HISTORIANS 77
eral instincts.! And, though it seems clear that
the same instincts are common to the whole hu
man species, it may be that one race differs from
another (statisticaUy) in respect of the relative
strengths of the several instincts.
In seeking an explanation along this Une, we
must not postulate a special instinct as the under
lying ground of every special form of national
activity, as the Uterary historians too often have
done.* We may oifly invoke, for our historical
explanations, instincts which on other grounds we
have found reason to beUeve to be common to
the whole human race, and which conform to
the psychological and biological conception of
instinct. Let us notice first how some great critics have
endeavored to define the essence of the romantic
quaUty in art. Walter Pater said: "It is the
' Cf. my "Introduction to Social Psychology," where
the part of instincts in human life is discussed at length.
' Renan was the great exponent of this ad hoc invention
of instincts, this facile mode of explanation of historical
facts; e. g., in his polemic against the Jews, he asserted
that they were devoid of the instincts for mythology, for
polytheism, for epic, for drama, for poUtics, and for miU
tary organization. He never stopped to inquire whether
any people possess such instincts, nor even to ask what
he meant by the word "instinct."

78 ROMANCE AND WONDER
addition of strangeness to beauty that constitutes
the romantic character in art; and the desire of
beauty being a fixed element in every artisUc
organization, it is the addition of curiosity to
this desire of beauty that constitutes the romantic
temper." Another critic gives substantiaUy the
same definition of the romantic. "If we analyze
the feeUng we shall find, I think, that it has its
origin in wonder and mystery. It is the sense
of something hidden, of imperfect revelation."
(Hedge.) Curiosity or wonder, then, seems to be the
essence of the romantic. Now, curiosity, with the
emotion of wonder which enters as an essential
element into aU such emotions as awe, admiration,
and reverence, seems to be due to the workmg
within us of a tme primitive instinct.! If we
assume that this instinct is stronger in the Nordic
than in the Meditenanean race, we shaU have
an hypothesis which vrill partly explain the differ
ence between their arts; namely, it wiU largely
explain the romantic quality of Northem art.
Is there any other difference which fits this as
sumption ? WeU, curiosity or wonder may, with-

^ Cf. my "Social Psychology," pp. 57, 129, and chapter
XIII.

THE INCURIOUS ROMANS 79
out exaggeration, be called the mother of phi
losophy and of science. Now modem science is
very largely a product of northern Europe, of
those countries where the Nordic blood predom
inates; not exclusively so by any means. But
note this fact: the Greeks, who founded philos
ophy and science, were probably, in their great
age, compounded of the Nordic and the Mediter
ranean races. The Romans were almost purely
Meditenanean. They produced great men, great
lawyers, soldiers, administrators, and poets; but
no phUosophy and no science. For four hundred
years they ruled absolutely the fairest part of
the world, in a state of high civiUzation; but
they invented nothing, discovered nothing, made
no progress in science. Otto Seeck, the historian
of the decay of the classical world, has drawn a
vivid picture of this scientific stagnation.! jjg
points out how even in the art of war, on suc
cess in which their whole empire was founded
and maintained, the Romans made no progress,
invented no new weapons, but fought in the same
old way with the same old weapons throughout
the centuries of their predominance. Note an
other indication of the weakness of their curiosity.
1 "Geschichte des Untergangs der antiken Welt "

8o NORDIC CURIOSITY
In spite of their supremacy, their high civiUza
tion, their navy and mercantUe marine, they
remained a Mediterranean power: their saUors
penetrated hardly, if at aU, beyond the piUars
of Hercules; while the barbarous Vikings in their
smaUer ships sailed to Iceland, Greenland, and
America, and perhaps landed on the banks of
the Charles River. Here, then, is further evi
dence that in the Mediterranean race the instinct
of curiosity is relatively weak. But wonder, if it
is the mother of science, is also an essential ele
ment in religion, entering, as I said, into the
reUgious emotions of awe, admiration, and rever
ence. It foUows that, if our hypothesis is correct,
we should expect to find some appreciable differ
ence between the religions of Northern and
Southern Europe. To that topic I wiU return.'
Let us pursue further the differences revealed
in art. For the hypothesis of a stronger dose of
curiosity in the Nordic race wiU only partiaUy
explain these differences. Are there indications
of a similar difference between the Mediterranean
and the Nordic races in respect of any other of
1 My friend, Mr. GUbertson, has drawn my attention
to the fact that in some of the Norse folk-tales the younger
brother triumphs over his scornful elders by reason of his
insatiable curiosity. A very significant fact.

MEDITERRANEAN SOCIABILITY 8i
the human instincts? I seem to see clear indica
tions of one other such difference. The Southern
Europeans are more sociable than the Northern.
They deUght in conversation, in coming together
in large masses, in expressing their emotions col
lectively, in great coUective outbursts of applause,
of admiration, or of execration. In aU ages their
civilization has been essentiaUy an urban civiliza
tion; they are naturaUy urbane; the city has
always been their natural habitat.
Men of Nordic race, on the other hand, are
taciturn; they take part in social gatherings oifly
with difficulty and hesitation; they are content
to Uve alone in the seclusion of the family circle,
emerging from it only in response to the caU of
duty or ambition or war. The isolated home is
their invention, their dearest possession; and the
individualized family home is one of their pecuUar
contributions to the culture of the world.! -pj^g
facts are aU summed up in the phrase — "An Eng-
Ushman's home is his castle." This difference
runs through every form and detaU of social Ufe
and organization. We may safely infer that it
is the expression of an innate difference of con
stitution. ' Cf. "Histoire de la formation particulariste," by Henri
de TourviUe, Paris, 1905.

82 NORDIC TACITURNITY
What is it, then, that impels men to gather
together without ulterior purpose, to shrink from
isolation as the most intolerable of evils, to find
satisfaction in merely being together en masse?
It is the working of a distinct and now generaUy
recognized instinct, common to the human species
and aU the gregarious mammals; it is the impulse
of the gregarious or herd instinct. We have, it
seems, good reason to add to our hypothesis the
assumption that this herd instinct is relatively
weak in the Nordic, strong in the Mediterranean,
peoples. We now have a fuUer explanation of
the differences between the arts of the two peoples.
The art of the Mediterraneans is essentiaUy and
most characteristically public art, the art of the
theatre, of the orator, sculpture, architecture, and
poetry for public recitation at festivals; and wor
ship is essentially a public, formal, rituaUstic act.
Their art is, in aU its forms, markedly objective
and conventional; and "conventional" means that
it observes generally recognized mles which ren
der it easily intelligible to the masses.
The art of the North, on the other hand, is sub
jective, individual, pecuUar, defying or ignoring
aU conventions. And the arts most characteristic
of the North are reflective nature poetry and the
novel or romance which reflectively portrays

SOUTHERN VIVACITY 83
and analyzes character; both, you see, forms of
art fit to be enjoyed only in isolation, by the
brooding reader who is content to be moved to
laughter or to tears in soUtude.
The Nordic race, then, is more curious and less
sociable than the Mediterranean. In it the in
stinct of curiosity is stronger, the herd instinct
is weaker. But stiU we do not seem to have an
hypothesis capable of explaining fuUy the di
vergences of Northem from Southem art. The
vividness and directness of appeal of Southem
art, its more passionate, more sensuous quaUty,
stUl require explanation. These quaUties we may
naturaUy associate with a universaUy recognized
difference between the peoples who have created
these arts. The Meditenanean peoples are viva
cious, quick, impetuous, impulsive; their emotions
blaze out vividly and instantaneously into violent
expression and violent action. The Northem peo
ples are slow, reserved, unexpressive; their emo
tions seem to escape in bodUy expression and
action with difficulty. If we recognize this as a
constitutional difference between the Meditena
nean and the Nordic races, we complete the hy
pothesis needed for the explanation of their diver
gences in art.
But can we form any vaUd conception of such

84 NORDIC ENERGY
a constitutional difference? It is sometimes as
sumed that in the Southern peoples the^rajotioos
land their impulses are inherently stronger than
in the Northem. This seems to me entirely fal
lacious. If it were tme, we should except to find
the Northern peoples comparatively inert, placid,
sluggish, inactive. But see what they have done:
their restless energy is chiefly responsible for the
transformation of the modern world; they pri-
marUy have peopled North America and Aus-
traUa, governed India, penetrated to the heart of
Africa, settled in every island of Malaysia and the
Pacific Ocean, scaled ahnost aU the great moun
tains and reached the North and the South Poles.
It is obvious that no difference in the relative
strength of any instinct could account for the
difference we are now considering; for the differ
ence finds expression in all emotions and in aU
modes of activity. It seems to be a perfectly
general difference of constitution; whereas aU
instincts are more or less specific.
WeU, modem medicine comes to our help and
suggests the tme explanation. The modem psy
chological study of the so-caUed nervous disorders
has shown that the functional nervous disorders
are reaUy of mental origin, and that they faU into
two distinct groups, of which hysteria and neu-

EXTROVERTS AND INTROVERTS 85
rasthenia are the types, respectively. Now it is
found that men and women who break down under
nervous strain or emotional shocks tend to de
velop symptoms of the one or other kind, accord
ing as they belong to one or other of two con
stitutional types. We owe the clear distinction
of these two types to Doctor C. G. Jung of Zurich.!
He calls them the extrovert and the introvert
types. The weU-marked extroverts are those
whose emotions flow out easUy into bodUy expres
sion and action. They are the vivid, vivacious,
active persons who charm us by their ease and
freedom of expression, their frankness, their quick
sympathetic responses. They are Uttle given to
introspective brooding; they remain relatively
ignorant of themselves; for they are essentiaUy
objective, they are interested directly and prima
rily in the outer world about them. When and
if they break down under strain, their trouble
takes on the hysteric type, the form of dissocia
tions, paralyses, anesthesias, amnesias; 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.
* "Analytic Psychology."

86 CONSTITUTIONAL TYPES
His nervous and mental energies, instead of flow
ing out freely to meet and play upon the outer
world, seem apt to turn inward, determining him
to brooding, reflection, deUberation before ac
tion. And, when he is subject to strain, his ener
gies are absorbed in internal conflicts; he be
comes dead to the outer world, languid, absorbed,
self-centred, and fuU of vague distress.
Now, this difference of constitutional type is
not due to difference of environment and train
ing. Within the same famUy you may see weU-
marked examples of both types, though all have
been subjected to almost identical environmental
influences. The difference between the two types
seems to be the expression of a subtle difference
of physiological constitution which pervades ev
ery part of the nervous system. What exactiy
it consists in we do not know. Many years ago I
threw out an hypothesis as to the nature of this
pecuUarity of nervous constitution arid I beUeve
it is essentiaUy conect or on the right Unes. But
it is too technical a matter to discuss here. Suf
fice it to say that it seems to explain the facts,
and the suggested pecuUarity is one which may
weU be transmitted hereditarily.!
* "The Conditions of Fatigue in the Nervous System,"
Brain, vol. XXXII, 1909.

NERVOUS TROUBLES 87
Now, physicians who have specialized in nervous
disorders m both the North and South of Europe
assure me that the Northerners are much more
commoifly subject to the neurasthenic type of
trouble, the Southerners to the hysteric type.
This fits exactiy vrith the imiversaUy recognized
difference between North and South.
We may fairly complete our hypothesis by
assuming that the Meditenanecm race is con
stitutionally extrovert, the Nordic race consti-
tutionaUy introvert. Of course, exceptions may
occur; the statement can be only statisticaUy
tme; and especiaUy, in view of the fact of the wide
mixture of blood of the two races, and the pecuUar
mixture of innate quaUties that results from race
blending, we may expect many mixed and iU-
defined types; which is what we actuaUy find.
We seem now to have completed our hypoth
esis for the explanation of the divergence of the
North from the South of Europe in respect of
their artistic expressions. The Nordic race is
constitutionaUy introvert; it is strong in the in
stinct of curiosity, the root of wonder; weak in
the herd instinct, the root of sociabUity. In the
Meditenanean race these pecuUarities are re
versed; it is extrovert, weak in curiosity, strong
in sociabiUty.

88 THE ALPINE RACE
If our hypothesis is correct we shoiUd expect
to find other differences between North and South
to the explanation of which it may be appUed.'
In discussing art it was possible to leave out of
our view the third great race which has contrib
uted a full share of its blood to the population
of modem Europe, namely, the Alpine race, which
geographicaUy occupies, or predominates in, the •
middle zone. For the art of this race (the art of
the Slavs, and that generaUy known as Celtic)
has been somewhat apart from the two great
rival traditions, the classical and the romantic.
But at this point we must bring this race into our
1 One such striking difference, which may be noted in
passing, is the greater proneness to alcohoUc intoxication
of the Nordic peoples and the great sobriety in this respect
of the Mediterranean peoples. Sir ArchdaU Reid (in his
"Present Evolution of Man") has argued that the greater
sobriety of the populations of the South of Europe is the
consequence of their longer usage of alcohoUc Uquors,
which he supposes to have weeded out from them aU
strains pecuUarly susceptible to their influence. It seems
to me more probable that the explanation is to be found
in the introvert quaUty of the Nordic race. Alcohol acts
on the nervous system in a way which renders it tempo
rarily extrovert; and thus for the introvert it brings reUef
from the brooding melancholy to which he is constitution
aUy Uable; it enables him to enjoy the freedom of emo
tional expression which in his normal condition is denied
him by his introvert constitution.

ALPINE QUALITIES 89
discussion. It must suffice to say that, in both
physical and mental qualities, it seems to stand
between the Mediterranean and the Nordic races.
PhysicaUy it is distinguished from the Mediter
ranean race by ha\ing a round rather than a long
head. MentaUy, it seems to be introvert rather
than extrovert, but not so extremely introvert
as the Nordic race. It has in common with the
Meditenanean race a high degree of sociabUity;
and is, I think, though here I speak less confi-
dentiy, Uke it, relatively weak in curiosity.
The Nordic race is, then, to be distinguished
physicaUy from the other two races by fair
hair and complexion and by high stature. And
it seems to be unlike both of them in respect of
the three mental quaUties we have defined. These
two physical quaUties serve as the indicators of
the blood of this race; and maps of the physical
quaUties of the European peoples show clearly the
regions of its predominance. Are there any maps
reveaUng a similar distribution of mental or moral
pecuUarities? I wiU put before you some maps
which show the distribution of certain physical
and moral traits.
The first map shows that fair complexion pre
dominates in the northeastern part of France, and
that this area of "fairness" is prolonged in two,

9°

PHYSICAL QUALITIES

Brunetness France

AHER TOPIHASP
ZOO.OOO OBSERgOION]

directions, namely southwestward to Bordeaux
and southward along the vaUey of the Rhone.
The map of the distribution of stature agrees
closely with this, showing predominance of taU
stature in the same regions.' Historical and
archaeological evidence shows that these are tbe
regions in which the Nordic tribes estabUshed
^Cf. Professor Z. Ripley's "Races of Europe." I am
indebted to Professor Ripley for his permission to repro
duce these maps.

SUICIDE
miENSITY^T SUICIDE

91

FRANCE
lOT-Z-S
After MossELu'fir.

themselves most fuUy, driving out or extermi
nating in large measure their forerunners of Al
pine and Meditenanean race.
Now examine the map showing the relative fre
quency of suicide in the provinces of modern
France. You see that this map conesponds very
closely with the other. Wherever the physical
marks (fair complexion and high stature) of the
Nordic race predominate, there suicide is frequent,
and conversely.

92 SUICIDE AND RACE
The suggestion is that suicide is frequent in
proportion to the predominance of Nordic blood.
E. MorselU (the ItaUan aUenist) has pointed out
this correlation and has deduced the conclusion
that the Nordic race is more apt at suicide than
the other European races. Cautious anthropolo
gists (including Professor Ripley, from whose val
uable book on "The Races of Europe" I have
copied these maps) have refused to foUow him.
It is necessary to be something of a psychologist,
perhaps, if one is to appreciate the evidence. For
other men of science, even the medical men, are
systematicaUy trained to ignore the mind of man.
For them it is something unreal, because intangi
ble. They are wiUing to attribute such a phe
nomenon as the prevalence of suicide in an area
to climate, or diet, or geological formation, or the
electric disturbances of the atmosphere, for aU
these are "real." But to attribute it to mental
pecuUarities or conditions seems to them pure
mythology. WeU, MorseUi traced and mapped the frequency
of suicide in aU parts of Europe. It must be ad
mitted that he reUed too much upon language as
a criterion of race; and he showed very convinc
ingly that there is a very high conelation between
suicide and the use of the German language, that

SUICIDE IN FRANCE 93
those who speak German are very apt to commit
suicide. Some of you may at once infer that the
language is the cause of the suicide; and perhaps
it would be difficult completely to refute such a
simple and attractive theory. But, looking at
the facts more widely, we see that the frequency
of jujcide Isl cigrelatedjiQt,ojJy,. or chie%r with
language, but rather with the physical quaUties of
the Nordic race. Take France; the correlation is
dose. Professor Ripley suggests it is due to the
fact that the Nordics occupy the regions of great
est industrial activity and prosperity, where larger
towns are frequent. But that they occupy these
regions is a fact which in tum requires explana
tion. Tum, then, to another detaUed map — that
of England.
Notice that there are three regions in which
suidde is least frequent, namely Wales, Com-
waU, and an area lying a Uttle to the north of
London. AU three are areas in which the Nordic
blood is but Uttle represented. The Welsh repre
sent the pre-Saxon population, with Uttle admix
ture of Nordic blood; and that they are mentally
very different from the EngUsh is a fact of com
mon knowledge. Very striking is the contrast
between ComwaU and Devonshire. Every sum
mer visitor to these counties notices the very

94

SUICIDE IN ENGLAND

PEPL.
MILUONi.
INHABrrANtS

iNlBSIIYOF^um ENCjLAND 1072,-&
Afttt MOBSELU '&.

marked mental differences between theu: popula
tions. Devonshire is a typicaUy English county.
Its population has played a prominent part in
many of the most characteristically EngUsh activi
ties, especiaUy in sea-roving, in colonial adven
ture, and pioneering. It is the traditional home
of the EngUsh "sea-kings." The population of
ComwaU, Uke that of Wales, is in the main de
scended from the British tribes which were driven
westward by the Anglo-Saxon invaders. Among

SUICIDE IN ENGLISH COUNTIES 95
them the andent British language has only re
centiy died out. In respect of aU other conditions,
the two counties are extremely similar, save that
Devonshire is rather more fertile. Both are pre
dominantiy agricultural and pastoral and seafar
ing, with an equable mUd climate. Yet, as regards
the frequency of suicide, we see the large differ
ence indicated by the map. Perhaps even more
striking is the smaU area north of London. The
physical anthropologists have shown that, owing
to circumstances not fuUy understood, the popu
lation of this region shows predominance of the
physical qualities of the pre-EngUsh or British
tribes. It seems to be an island of the old British
population, sunounded by, but not displaced or
swamped by, the tide of Anglo-Saxon invasion.
And in this smaU island of population, the physi
cal and economic conditions of which differ hardly
appreciably from those of the sunounding coun
ties, suicide remains at its lowest rate, namely
that of Wales and ComwaU.
On the other hand, suicide reaches its highest
rate in Sussex, the population of which county is
perhaps the most purely and typicaUy Saxon of
aU England.
Now consider Table V.

96 SUICIDE IN EUROPE
TABLE V
ANNUAL SUICroES PER MILLION POPULATION'
Denmark  268
Scandinavia  127
N. Germany  150
S. Germany  165
England  72
S. Australia  90
Wales  52
Ireland  10
Spain  17
Russia  30
N. Italy  46
S.Italy  26
It will be seen that suicide is most frequent in
the Scandinavian countries, those of which the
population is most purely Nordic; moderately
high in England and South Australia, where the
population shows a fair proportion of the physical
qualities of the Nordic race. The rate is very
low in Ireland, in spite of all the political troubles
and economic distress of her people; and very low
in Spain, South Italy, and Russia, where the
Nordic blood is scarce.
In view of aU these facts, we can hardly doubt
that the racial hypothesis contains much truth.
Of course, other factors than race are important.
1 This table is extracted from E. MorseUi's "Le Suicide."

SUICIDE AND HOMICIDE 97
Germany, north and south, has undue pre-emi
nence; it may be due to language or government
or other lack of harmony. But the facts, taken,
aU together, do strongly support the racial hy
pothesis, And they do so the more strongly, if we'
take into consideration the foUowing facts. Sui
dde is a form of violence, of homicide; we might,
then, on superfidal consideration, expect to find
suidde most frequent where other forms of vio
lence and of homicide abound. But the facts
are just the converse of this expectation. It is
in Southem Italy, Corsica, and Sardima, where
the population is most purely Mediterranean, that
crimes of violence, especiaUy homicide, are most
frequent; whUe suicide is very infrequent. Fur
ther, suidde is three to four times as frequent
among men as among women in aU peoples. It is
fourteen times as frequent among the whites of
New York State as among the colored popula
tion, proportionately to their numbers. Can this
be attributed to sodal advantages enjoyed by
women aU over the world, or by the colored peo
ple of New York? No; it is constitutional. The
racial hypothesis is immensely strengthened, when
we see that these pecuUar features of the distri
bution of suidde and homidde are in perfect har
mony with the conclusions we have drawn from

98 DIVORCE IN EUROPE
the comparison of the arts of Northern and South
em Europe; they are just what we should expect,
if the three European races differ in mental con
stitution in the ways assumed by our hypothesis.
But, before dwelUng on this, let us glance at yet
another moral pecuUarity which stiU further
strengthens the argument, namely the frequency
of divorce. Maps of the frequency of divorce or
separation in Europe show a close correlation of
high frequency of divorce with the physical quaU
ties of the Nordic race. The relation is disturbed
Iby reUgious influences. But take France. We
see that high frequency of divorce and separation
occurs in the same areas in which suicide and the
physical quaUties of the Nordic race abound.
WeU, the introvert and unsociable race is the
one prone to suicide and divorce. The sociable
and extrovert race is prone to homicide, but not to
divorce or suicide. Is not this in accordance with
the mental pecuUarities which on other grounds
we have assigned to the two races? We know
that the introvert tends to brood over his difficul
ties; he readUy becomes a prey to internal conflict
of the emotions; and, as a matter of fact, such
conflict does not only give rise to nervous disorder
pf the neurasthenic type, but, in not a few of
these cases, leads on to suicide. As regards di-

MEDITERRANEAN HOMICIDE

99

FREQUENCV
DIVORCE
(SEPARM10NS)
FRANCE. 1660-79
.Aftff aftEimu.0NV

I Z4
10*103.)

vorce, we may suppose that the injured Nordic,
the unsociable introvert, broods over his wrongs,
and then, nursing his resentment, either seeks
redress in the law courts, or deserts his partner
and becomes Uable to be divorced for desertion.
In the impulsive sodable extrovert, on the other
hand, the emotion of anger blazes out, passes at
once to action and often to homicide; and, when
he is injured by the unfaithfulness of his partner,
he does not brood upon the problem — he solves it

loo NORDIC SUICIDE
at once by using knife or pistol upon one or both
I of the guilty parties.
Perhaps it is not fantastic to suppose that our
third point of difference also tends in the same
direction. The curious Nordic, we may suppose,
brooding and pondering in secret distress the
problem of his partner's infideUty, strives to un
derstand how such an act has become possible:
while for the impetuous incurious Mediterranean
the fact alone suffices; his hand is not arrested by
any desire to understand the conditions which
have produced it.
And even in suicide curiosity may play its part.
Is not death a great adventure into the unknown?
May not the desire to know the last secret have
urged some reflective and unhappy souls, exas
perated by the mystery of human lUe, to pene
trate by their own act the impenetrable veil?
I wiU pass very quickly over another allied
topic, the distribution of the forms of reUgion.
The distribution of aU the great reUgions of the
world presents interesting and suggestive ques
tions of race, especially perhaps Buddhism, which,
after rising and spreading rapidly tn India, passed
equaUy rapidly away eastward, to become endur-
ingly estabUshed among aU branches of the yeUow
race. But I will keep nearer home and insist

RELIGION AND RACE loi
only on the distribution of Protestantism and of
Roman and Greek CathoUdsm, the three great
reUgious forms of Europe. The suggestion that
this is largely a matter of race is not new. It has
often been made and often denied. In the main
the two forms of Catholicism are reUgions of
authority, of convention, of ritual; they are pre
eminently sodal in their rites and celebrations.
Only the Protestant reads his Bible in his doset
and communes alone with God, pondering the
problems of Ufe and death. Only the Protestant
Church has spUt into a thousand pecuUar sects,
each maintaining its pecuUar creed and practice;
and only Protestants have traversed wide oceans
in search of lands where they might worship God
after their own fashion. Or, rather, Protestantism
is the oifly one of the three forms which permits
and even encourages such individuaUsm and in
dependence. Now, of course, the vast majority of men grow
up in and adhere to the church of their fathers.
But the Protestants did, as a matter of historical
fact, break away from the Church of Rome; and
those who have broken away are in the main just
those peoples and those sections of nations in
which the physical qualities of the Nordic race
predominate; whUe aU those in which the other

I02 THE PROTESTANTS
two races clearly predominate have remained sub
ject to the Catholic Church of East or West.
Among the former are the populations of North
ern France, Holland, Denmark, Scandinavia, Fin
land, England, of most of Scotland, and of North
em Germany. Ireland, the western Highlands,
Southem France and Germany, and aU to the
south and east of them remain subject to the
reUgions of authority. There are exceptions to
the mle, e. g., Wales, CornwaU, parts of Belgium
and of Switzerland; and it is tme that Calvin and
other great reformers belonged to Switzerland.
But other influences have played a part.
Is it, then, mere coincidence that the peoples in
which predominates the blood of the curious, in
quiring, unsociable, reflective, introverted Nordic
race, and these only, with few small exceptions,
have broken away from the religions of authority,
of convention, of formal ritual, of outward action
and emotional display ? The historian may point
to the personal and poUtical circumstances of the
reign of Henry VIII of England, or suggest a
score of altemative explanations from the depths
of his learning. But he seems to me to ask too
much of our creduUty, if he would ascribe the
whole conelation to a multitude of historical
accidents. In this connection I would insist upon the im-

NATIONAL CULTURE 103
portance of a principle which I have enunciated
in my "Group Mind." ! It is this. The innate
mental qualities of any stably organized people or
nation are revealed more clearly in the national
character and in the national institutions than in
the characters of indi\'iduals. For the character
of each individual is ^•ery greatiy moulded by the
national institutions and traditions among which
he grows up; to such an extent, in fact, that his
native disposition may seem to be swamped, over
laid, and totally obscured by the tendencies ac
quired through training, imitation, and social
pressure of aU sorts. But the culture of each of
the modem nations has been slowly buUt up,
partly by original invention, but more largely by
absorption of elements imitated from other na
tions. Of the family of nations, each contributes
something to a common stock of culture derived
by tradition from the past; from this common
stock each nation selects what best suits its peo
ple; and, having adopted such an element, modi
fies it to suit its own nature more exactly. Thus
the culture, the sum of the traditions and institu
tions, of each nation, grows in an environment
which exerts constantly a selective and moulding
influence upon it; just as, according to the Dar
winian theory, the various species of animals have
' New York, 1920.

I04 ADAPTATION OF CULTURE-SPECIES
become slowly differentiated and evolved by the
selective and moulding action of their environ
ments. In the case of the national culture-species,
the environment which thus selects and moulds
the enduring elements is the sum of the native
quaUties of the people. I would caU this the
law of the adaptation of the culture-species. We
may see iUustrations of it on every hand. From
the operation of this law it results that each na
tion which has enjoyed a long period of develop
ment, without serious interruption, has acquired
traditions and institutions that are in harmony
with its predominant native qualities. Therefore,
in the development of each member of such a
nation, nature and nurture work harmoniously
together. Just for this reason it is so difficult to
distinguish, in any one member of such a nation,
the influence of his native disposition from that
of the culture by which his development has
been moulded.
This law is of little significance in relation to
such peculiarities as the frequency of suicide and
divorce. But it is of great importance in relation
to aU things regulated by legislation and by estab
Ushed custom and tradition, such things as re
Ugion and social organization, the form of the
family, the viUage community, land-tenure, po
litical and educational institutions.

FRENCH AND BRITISH 105
Bearing this law in mind, let us examine what
appears to be a particularly instmctive instance
of a large difference in the destinies of two peoples,
determined by a smaU difference of anthropologic
constitution. I refer to the French and the British nations.
Both stand in the van of Western civiUzation;
both have produced many men of the first order
in many spheres of activity. Each inhabits a
beautiful, rich, and fertile country, of temperate
climate, weU placed geographicaUy in every re
gard, cultural, climatic, commercial, miUtary. In
aU these respects the French nation has, if any
thing, the advantage of the British.
Both nations have been great conquerors and
colonists. Yet how different at the present time
are their positions as world influences! The
French have conquered and ruled immense areas
of the surface of the earth. Yet nowhere outside
France is there any large community of people
of French descent and speech living under the
French flag; nowhere save in Canada any con
siderable population of French descent.! And
France's tenure of those great colonial territories
' It is said that approximately 1,000,000 of the popula
tion of the French possessions in North Africa are of
French descent. This is to be set over against the mil
lions of Australasia, Canada, and South Africa.

io6 THEIR WORLD INFLUENCE
over which she now mles seems to be compara
tively precarious and uncertain. Britain, on the
other hand, not only administers the affairs of
one-fifth of the people of the world, but has
peopled North America and AustraUa, and keeps
under her flag immense territories inhabited by
her sons. And, while the French language and
traditions seem to have smaU prospect of a fu
ture outside France, the English language and
British traditions seem to be in a fair way to pre
vail increasingly throughout the world. Further,
in nearly aU her great colonial adventures — in
India, in Canada, in Louisiana, in the West In
dies, in China, in Africa — France has come into
rivalry with the British and has been worsted.
Is all this great divergence of destiny due to
a converging series of historical accidents? Or
is there one underlying cause or condition ? May
we not fairly seek the ground of this difference of
destiny in some difference of anthropologic con
stitution of the two nations? The key to the
problem seems to me to have been given in a pas
sage written long ago by a French traveUer in this
country, Volney. I wUl read you the passage in
which he contrasts the French with the British
colonist. "The French colonist deliberates with
his wife upon every thmg that he proposes to do;

FRENCH SOCIABILITY 107
often the plans fall to the ground through lack
of agreement. ... To visit one's neighbors, to
chat with them, is for the French an habitual
need so imperious that on aU the frontier of
Louisiana and Canada you wiU not find a single
French colonist established beyond sight of his
ndghbor's home. ... On the other hand, the
English colonist, slow and taciturn, passes the
whole day continuously at work; at breakfast he
coldly gives his orders to his wife . . . and goes
forth to labor. If he finds an opportunity to sell
his farm at a profit, he does so and goes ten or
twenty leagues farther into the wUdemess to make
himself a new home."
There you have, I suggest, the key to the differ
ence we are examining. And this testimony does
not stand alone. It is in harmony with a great
number of social differences presented by the two
peoples; the centralized form of government in
France as against the local autonomies of Brit
ain; the form of the French family and the laws
and customs regulating famUy life, e. g., the laws
of inheritance; the educational system as against
the English lack of educational system; the pre
dominance of co-operative centraUy organized
activities among the French; the individual enter
prise and lack of systematic organization of the

io8 HISTORICAL EXPLANATIONS
British.! AU these and other simUar differences
have been pointed out and dwelt upon by many
French writers ;2 and various attempts have been
made to explain them as the result of historical
events, such as the more thorough Romanization
of Gaul, the conquest of England by WUUam of
Normandy, the different operation of the feudal
system in the two countries. The EngUsh his
torian, T. H. Buckle, was one of those who dwelt
upon these differences and who claimed to ex
plain them from such historical episodes. He
summed up the difference in two convenient
phrases, the predominance of the spirit of pro
tection in France, and the predominance of the
spirit of independence in Britain. I will not de
lay to examine these proposed explanations and
to show you their inadequacy. I have done so
elsewhere.^ I will only remark that so general
1 The difference is strikingly illustrated by the Roman
ized and codified law of France and the chaotic common
law of England, which is dominated by judge-made
precedents. I understand from Dean Roscoe Pound that
the law of England only narrowly escaped Romanization
at one period, thanks to the independent spirit of some
EngUsh lawyers.
^ See especiaUy Ed. Demolin's "A quoi tient la supe-
riorite des Anglo-Saxons?"
' "The Group Mind."

RACL\L COMPONENTS 109
a phenomenon requires for its explanation a gen
eral deep-lying cause, such as is only to be found
in some difference of native qualities between the
two peoples.
Let us compare the two peoples in respect of
racial composition as revealed by history and by
physical anthropology. The French people seems
to have been formed by a mixture and partial
blending of the three great European races in
approximately equal proportions. The British
people seems to have been formed chiefly by a
mixture and partial blending of the Nordic and
the ^Meditenanean races; the Alpine, which prob
ably predominates in France numericaUy, being
hardly represented, and the Nordic predominat
ing over the other elements. Probably most
anthropologists would assign Nordic blood to
Britain to the extent of 60 or 70 per cent, the
rest being largely Meditenanean; and to France
some 25 per cent Nordic blood, with perhaps 40
per cent Alpine and 35 per cent Meditenanean.
This is a very rough estimate, of course.
We may ask: Given the moral pecuUarities of
the Nordic race which we have infened on other
grounds, does this considerably greater propor
tion of the blood and the quaUties of that race
suffice to account for the contrast between the

no BRITISH WANDERERS
two nations expressed by Buckle's phrase — the
• predominance of the spirit of protection in France
; and of the spirit of independence in Britain ? It
does, I think, go some way to explain it; especially
if we note that sociabiUty or gregariousness, which
we saw to be strong in the Mediterranean race, is
at least as strong, perhaps stronger, in the Alpines.
We have seen from Volney's description how the
sociabiUty of the Frenchman handicaps him, as
compared with the Briton, when he becomes a
pioneer and colonist in new lands.
We may suppose also that the greater curiosity
of the Nordic race contributes to give the Briton
that restless wandering habit which has spread
him over all the surface of the earth; so that, no
matter to what remote region you may pene
trate, you are apt to see some soUtary Briton walk
in on you and casuaUy demand the loan of a copy
of the London Times.

V
Having found reasons for assigning certain
quaUties to the three great races of Europe, we
are attempting to apply this hypothesis to the
explanation of that striking difference between
the French and British nations which is summed
up in the phrase — the prevalence in France of the
spirit of protection, in Britain of the spirit o:
independence. I said that the greater sociabiUty of the French,
which I attributed to the greater strength of the
gregarious impulse in the Meditenanean and Al
pine races, goes some way to explain this differ
ence; and that the stronger curiosity of the Nordic
race would also contribute to this difference.
But the differences between the institutions
and customs of the two peoples at home and
abroad seem to require the assumption of a further
difference of innate quality. The Briton's intol
erance of authority, his disUke of being controlled,
governed, administered, and his preference for in
dividual initiative, show themselves in aU his con
duct of affairs; they are well expressed in the ac
cepted dictum that the British, when engaged in

112 FRENCH LEADERSHIP
any large enterprise, "muddle through" somehow.
They have always had to "muddle through," be
cause they wiU not submit to being deUberately
organized and led, according to any logicaly
thought-out scheme. The first partial exception
in their history was the acceptance of compulsory
miUtary service under the extreme pressure of the
Great War.
The French, on the other hand, have always
been ready to accept organization and leadership,
to look for it to the State or to some man of dom
inating personality — a Napoleon, a Gambetta, a
Boulanger, or a Richelieu.
We may note in passing that this tendency to
seek personal leadership seems to be still stronger
in the Germans, among whom the Alpine blood
is even more strongly represented than in the
French. Their dociUty under an autocratic and
arbitrary bureaucracy; their suggestibiUty in aU
matters of beUef; their devotion to the Kaiser
(which even now threatens to restore him to the
throne) ; the flourishing of a host of little princes
and grand dukes; the spirit of caste, which leads
each man to seek a definite position in the official
hierarchy and from it to look up humbly to aU
above him in the scale — all these are significant of
a society in which a docile race is dominated by

GERMAN DOCILITY 113
one of a more seU-assertive quality.! This actu
aUy and historically is, I suggest, the condition of
affairs in Germany and the key to its history; and
to a less degree it is true of France also.
The history of the purest stocks of the Nordic
race iUustrates abundantly and overwhelmingly
their defect of dociUty, their possession in the
highest degree of the opposite quaUty of self-
'The organization of Germany for her bid for world
domination seems to have been in the main the work of
the Prussian aristocracy, the Junkers, a class in which the
Nordic blood preponderates. The tendency of the masses
of the German people to proclaim "Deutschland iiber
AUes" is a recent phenomenon, induced and sedulously
culti\-ated in their docUe minds by the ofl&cial hierarchy.
Bismarck said: "The preponderance of dynastic attach
ment, and the use of a dynasty as the indispensable cement
to hold together a definite portion of the nation caUing
itself by the name of the dynasty is a specific pecuUarity
of the German Empire" ("Bismarck, the Man and the
Statesman," vol. I, p. 322. Butter).
The late German Emperor is reported to have pro
claimed: "There is only one master of the nation. And
that is I, and I wiU not abide any other." ... "I need
Christian soldiers, soldiers who say their Pater Noster.
The soldier should not have a will of his own, but you
shoxUd aU have but one wiU and that is my wiU; there is
but one law for you and that is mine." The EngUsh na
tion quickly resented the claim to the divine right of kings
and settled the question promptly and finally, very soon
after the "right" was proclaimed to it.

114 NORMAN ENTERPRISE
assertion, exhibiting itself as initiative, enterprise,
impatience of control. The Normans, a pure
Nordic stock, exhibited this quality in a tmly
marveUous degree in their great age, when they
conquered northern France, aU England, Sicily,
and much of Italy and of the Mediterranean
coasts. For these astonishing feats were accom
pUshed, not by the power of great highly organ
ized states and immense armies of conscripts,
slaves, or mercenaries, but by smaU bands of vol
unteers associated together for each particular
enterprise under some chosen leader.
The anthropologists of the school of Le Play
have offered a most interesting theory of the
origin in prehistoric times of this very marked
difference between the Nordic and the Alpine
race. I have no time to put it before you.! gyj^
whatever its origin, it must, I think, be accepted
as one of the clearest and most important differ
ences of racial quality. Are there, then, any rec
ognized factors in human nature which may be
the innate basis of this difference?
Yes. I have shown^ that docUity and self-
assertion are rooted in two distinct and opposed
1 1 have given a condensed account of this theory in my
" Group Mind."
2 In my "Introduction to Social Psychology."

NORDIC SELF-ASSERTION 115
instinctive tendencies, which I have proposed to
caU the instincts of submission and of self-assertion
respectively. I have shown reason to believe that
the former is the root of all dociUty and sugges
tibiUty, that it is the principal factor in aU those
social phenomena which some authors have erro
neously ascribed to the herd instinct.! And I
have shown that the other, the instinct of self-
assertion, is the most essential, the aU-important
factor, in what we call character, that complex
organization from which spring aU manifestations
of wiU-power, aU voUtion, resolution, hard choice,
initiative, enterprise, determination.
If, then, we add to the quaUties already assigned
to the Nordic race an exceptional degree of
strength of this instinct of self-assertion, and
attribute to the Alpine race a stronger instinct
of submission, we complete our hypothetical de
scription of their radal quaUties in a way which
solves our present problem. It is this greater
dose of seU-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 organiza-

'£. g., W. Trotter, in "Instincts of the Herd in Peace
and War."

1x6 BRITISH MUDDLE
tion, has enabled him to "muddle through" the
Napoleonic Wars, the Crimean War, the Indian
Mutiny, the South African War, and, lastly, the
Great War. It is this which, in spite of his lack
of subtlety and sympathy and intellectuaUty, has
enabled him to subdue and govern the 300,000,000
of India. And it is this, in combination with his
other quaUties, that has rendered him the suc
cessful colonist par excellence.
Let us note in passing that the addition of this
quaUty to the picture of the Nordic race com
pletes, or makes more adequate, our explanation
of the distribution of the Protestant reUgion in
the world; for it shows us that the men of this
race are by nature Protestants, essentiaUy pro
testers and resisters against every form of domi
nation and organization, whether by despot,
church, or state.
Now consider for a moment the question of dif
ferences of innate moral quaUties between more
widely unlike races. We have found evidence of
such moral differences where there is no evidence
of differences of inteUectual level, and between
races closely alUed and of similar civUizations.
Is it not probable that, between races which
show marked differences of inteUectual capacity
and which, in physical quaUties and in level and

RED MEN AND BLACK 117
type of culture, are widely different, there may be
stUl larger differences of innate moral qualities?
I think it is highly probable. But I do not feel
competent to say much on this head. One would
need an intimate acquaintance with extra-Euro
pean dvUizations, such as I cannot claim.
I would point out that, in respect of the peo
ples which have evolved no distinctive culture
of their own, any reply to this question is pecu
Uarly difficult, just because they lack the devel
oped traditions and institutions which, as I have
argued, give the best and clearest expression to
the native quaUties of any developed nation. But
consider a single striking instance of such differ
ence of moral quaUty — the difference between the
Red man and the Black. Consider the difference
of their relations to the Whites, throughout the
history of this country. The Negro has in a way
adapted himself to the position imposed upon
him. He has multipUed, in spite of the ravages
of disease,! both in slavery and freedom. But the
Red man has never let himself be impressed into
the sodal system of the dominant Whites; in some
pecuUar way he has proved resistant; he dies
' It is well known that alcohol, tuberculosis, and syphilis
have taken a heavy toU of both Red and Black.

ii8 NEGRO DOCILITY
rather than submit. Does not this imply some
deep-seated moral difference between the two
races? If the Red man had the adaptability of
the Negro, would he not have become a ver>-
important factor in the history of these United
States of America? The same difference has ap
peared clearly throughout the West Indies, where
the more adaptable black race has superseded the
red men, even more completely than in this coun
try. I am not sufficiently acquainted with the
two races to attempt to define the racial qualities
which have determined this difference. I wiU
suggest merely, on the basis of a sUght knowledge:
(i) that the Negro race is pronouncedly extrovert,
and that the red men are equaUy extreme intro
verts; (2) that the black race is more strongly
gregarious and sociable; (3) further, that the red
race is strongly self-assertive, while in the Negro
the submissive impulse is strong. The last point
may be Ulustrated by a tme story of a Negro
maid, whose Northem mistress, after treating
her with great forbearance for a time, in spite of
shortcomings, tumed upon her and scolded her
vigorously. The maid showed no resentment,
but rather showed signs of a new satisfaction,
and exclaimed: "Lor', Missus, you do make me
feel so good." Is not this a typical and signifi-

NEGRO AS FOLLOWER 119
cant inddent? I wiU even venture to suggest
that, in the great strength of this instinct of sub
mission, we have the main key to the history of
the Negro race. In its own country it has always
been ruled by absolute despots, who have obtained
the most abject submission from their subjects,
even when they have ruled with the utmost
cmelty. These despots have often been men of
foreign blood, Arabs largely. When Negroes have
been weU handled, with firmness but with kind
ness and consideration, as by the French officers
who have trained the black regiments of France,
they have proved themselves to be capable of
extreme courage, devotion, and loyalty; to be,
in short, ideal followers.!
' Cf. "Le Courage," by Voivenel and Huot, Paris, 1918.
Shaler (op. cit.) insists upon the imitativeness and the
eminent faithfulness of the Negroes to their white masters,
and upon their sympathetic responsiveness; they "have
the whole range of primitive sympathies exceedingly weU-
developed. They have a singularly quick, sympathetic
contact with the neighbor; they attain to his state of mind
and shape themselves to meet him as no other primitive
people do. Those who have had a chance to compare in
this regard the Negro and the American Indian must have
been struck by the difference between the two peoples in
this most important feature." Intimate contact with
Oceanic Negroes (in the Torres Straits) and with Malays
during many months impressed me strongly with the

I20 PROVIDENCE AND IMPROVIDENCE
The extreme faciUty with which the pure
Negroes adopt the most extravagant superstitions,
and the great influence of these upon their con
duct — these facts pomt to and support the same
assumption, namely an exceptional strength of
the submissive instinct, the root of aU dociUty and
suggestibiUty. There is a moral difference which distinguishes
most of the peoples of primitive culture from
those which have developed or acquired dviliza-
tion; this, though it is difficult to explain, seems
to be of the first importance. It may be defined
as the difference between providence and improvi
dence. Improvidence is marked in the Malay
magnitude of this same difference between these outlying
branches of these two races. Shaler points also to another
striking difference between the black man and the red.
He asserts that the Negro is much more capable of sus
tained labor, and he connects this with the fact that the
Negroes have long practised a rude agriculture, whUe the
ancestors of the red men were hunters and nomads. It
seems to me doubtful whether this difference is rooted in
innate or racial quaUties. Any disposition to sustained
labor is certainly conspicuous by its absence in the Oceanic
Negroes with whom I am acquainted. It is difficult to
conceive of such a disposition as an hereditary quaUty;
this difference between Black and Red in America may weU
be due to the different conditions of life of the two races
in the present and in the recent past.

PROVIDENCE AND INTELLIGENCE 121
and the Negro, the two tropical races par excel
lence; in less degree, perhaps, in the peoples of
India (it is said that the Hindu famUy habituaUy
squanders extravagant sums on such ceremonials
as weddings and funerals) ; and in the Polynesian,
Indonesian, and Melanesian; in fact, in all the
races which have long inhabited the tropic regions,
where man can survive without taking much
thought for the monow.
The opposite quality, providence, on the other
hand, is shown in a high degree by aU the peoples
that have developed a high civilization. If we
look more dosely at these quaUties, we see that
improvidence is a negative quality; it is due to
the absence of something which makes a man
provident. Is this merely a matter of intelUgence
and imagination? I think not. The imagina
tion of the Negro race seems to be vivid and
powerful. It may be tme that many of the im
provident races are of rather low inteUectual
capacity. But a man may be extremely provi
dent, in fact a real miser, in spite of a low degree
of inteUigence.
If a man is to be provident, he must be so
constituted as to find some satisfaction in posses
sion; that is to say, there must be in him an im
pulse to save or hoard which finds satisfaction in

122 PROVIDENCE AND INSTINCT
the act of hoarding, an impulse which prompts
him to postpone enjoyment of the pleasure of
immediate use to the satisfaction of possession.
Such an impulse is shown by many animals, and
I have claimed it as a true instinctive tendency of
human nature.!
The strength or weakness of this tendency is, I
suggest, the main factor in determining that a
man or a race shaU be provident or improvident.
And it is very easy to see how natural selection
may have developed this quality in peoples In
habiting 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 Phoeni
cians, who long inhabited the dry desert regions.^
Its strength seems to be a quality essential to any
people that is to build up a civflization based on
1 " Social Psychology."
* I may add that whUe writing these pages I have re
ceived from Australia a letter informing me of the opinion
of the greatest Uving authority on the black natives of
that continent; to the effect that the race is extremely de
ficient in, or wholly innocent of, the acquisitive impulse.

ACQUISITIVE SOCIETIES 123
the accumulation of wealth, on commerce and
industry, as every higher dviUzation has been.
Owing to this necessity, every communistic or
sodaUstic scheme which would aboUsh private
property is an empty dream, an unreaUzable ideal,
a Utopia. The strength of this impulse seems to
var>' widely even in nearly related peoples, and
also from one family to another. It would cer
tainly seem to be stronger in the lowland Scotch
than in the Irish; and it is, I think, not improb
able that its variations are a principal ground of
the social stratification which tends to arise in aU
acquisitive societies, that is to say, in aU civilized
peoples. We have found reason to beUeve 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 exceUence (as
so extravagantly claimed by the race-dogmatists),
it yet has certain quaUties which have played a
great part in determining the history, the insti
tutions, the customs and traditions, and the geo
graphical distribution of the peoples in whom its
blood is strongly represented.
With two exceptions (namely differences of in
teUectual stature, and those subtle pecuUarities of
nervous constitution which determine extroversion

124 MUSICAL TALENT
and introversion) aU the pecuUarities we have
assigned hitherto to races have been degrees of
strength of certain instinctive tendencies.
We must ask — Are there other innate inherited
quaUties, besides these instincts which in their
sum and balance are so large a part of the basis
of moral development or character? The answer
clearly is — Yes. We know that individuals dif
fer in such things as musical and mathematical
talent; and we know, also, that these talents are
hereditary, and that, in respect of musical talent
at least, there are marked differences between peo
ples. For example, no one can question the fact
that the Welsh people is (statistically) more musi-
caUy gifted than the EngUsh.
The innate basis of such talents is a very ob
scure matter; we do not know whether such a
talent is an hereditary unit-quality or not. Prob
ably it is complex. But we really are in ahnost
total ignorance. I mention these special endow
ments, in order to enforce the contention that the
innate basis of the mind may be far richer and
more complex than is commonly assumed by the
psychologists. One medical psychologist of great experience
and repute. Doctor C. G. Jung, has been led by
many years devoted to deep exploration of the

THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS 125
mmds of ner\'ous patients to beUeve that the in
nate basis of the mind comprises much that is
specific and differentiated; he has revived the
theor>' of innate ideas. He beUeves that each of
us inherits what he caUs "the coUective uncon
scious," a part of the mind which manifests itself
most dearly in dreams and in states of mental
disorder, but which colors and biases aU our
thinking. This "coUective unconscious" reveals
itseU chiefly in certain "archetypes," ideas which
have a wide symboUcal function, images which
stand for or symbolize certain universaUy recur
ring relations and problems of human Ufe. He
holds that, though certain older and most funda
mental of these "archetypes "are common to the
whole human race, each race and each people that
has Uved for many generations under or by a
particular type of civiUzation has specialized its
"coUective unconscious," differentiated and de
veloped the "archetypes" into forms pecuUar to
itseU. He claims that in many cases he can discover
the radal origins, the blood, of his patients by
studying the forms of symboUsm and the aUegori-
cal figures which appear in their dreams. He
claims even that sometimes a single rich dream
has enabled him to discover the fact, say, of Jew-

126 ARCHETYPAL IDEAS
ish or Mediterranean blood in a patient who
shows none of the outward physical marks of such
descent. And he finds these "archetypes" ex
pressed in the mythology and foUc-lore of each
people, as weU as in their dreams.!
Clearly, if these views of Doctor Jung are weU
founded, they are of the first unportance for our
topic; they would carry the doctrine of racial
pecuUarities of mental constitution much farther
than I have done so far. I wish that I could give
you a confident opinion for or against Jung's doc
trine. The interest and importance of these views
has seemed to me so great that I have put myseU
into the hands of Doctor Jung and asked him to
explore the depths of my mind, my "coUective un
conscious"; that is to say, having no weU-marked
symptoms of insanity or neurosis, I have assidu
ously studied my own dreams under his direction
and with his help. And the result is — I "evermore
came out by that same door wherein I went." I
do not know. I cannot find grounds for a decided
opinion. I seem to find in myself traces or indi
cations of Doctor Jung's "archetypes," but famt
and doubtful traces. Perhaps it is that I am too
mongrel-bred to have clear-cut archetypes; per
haps my "coUective unconscious" — if I have one
! Cf. his "Psychology of the Unconscious."

FREUDIANISM AND JEWS 127
— ^is mixed and confused and blurred. One of
Jung's arguments weighs with me a good deal
in favor of his view. He points out that the
famous theory of Freud, which he himseU at one
time accepted, is a theory of the development and
working of the mind which was evolved by a Jew
who has studied chiefly Jewish patients; and it
seems tc appeal very strongly to Jews; many,
perhaps the majority, of those physicians who
accept it as a new gospel, a new revelation, are
Jews. Il looks as though this theory, which to
me and to most men of my sort seems so strange,
bizarre, and fantastic, may be approximatdy tme
of the Jewish race.
Again, one caimot ignore the fact that Jung
has a number of ardent disciples who hold his
theory tme, because they find it helpful in the
treatment of their patients. In face of this situa
tion, suspended judgment vrith an open mind is
the only scientific attitude.
But, though in my opinion the evidence adduced
by Jung in support of his theory of archetypal
ideas is not such as should secure acceptance
of the theory by aU impartial inquirers, it is worth
whUe to point out that we have no positive knowl
edge which is incompatible with the theory. It
is tme that the theory is hardly to be reconcfled

128 NEO-DARWINISM
with the Neo-Darwinian prmciple which is so
vridely accepted, somewhat dogmaticaUy, by
many biologists at the present time, the principle
which denies the possibiUty of the transmission
from generation to generation of the effects of
use, the gains of faciUty and function made by
the efforts of each generation. But, as I shaU
presently insist, this principle is by no means
finaUy established. On the other hand, there is
a certain amount of vague evidence, beyond that
adduced by Jung, which makes in favor of some
such view as his. First, it is becoming generaUy
recognized by biologists that the Darwinian prin
ciple of selection is not in itself adequate to ac
count for the evolution of the world of Uving
things, and especiaUy that it is inadequate to
account for the evolution of the mental powers
of the human species. Secondly, popular opinion,
based upon a vast amount of vague and unana-
lyzed experience, is decidedly opposed to scientific
opinion in this matter. And in these obscure
regions the popular tradition is often more nearly
right than the opinion prevaUing in the scientific
world at any particular phase of the development
of science. Scientific opinion is too apt to deny
the possibiUty of aUeged forms of happening, on
the ground that we cannot understand how such

THE PSCHYOANALYSTS 129
things can happen. It cannot be too strongly
insisted that denial on such ground is always un
justified, and that it is especiaUy unjustifiable in
the obscure realm of the human mind, about which
our positive knowledge is stiU so scanty and rudi
mentary. Popular opinion in this matter would
seem to be influenced chiefly by simflarities in
mental traits (both moral traits and pecuUar in
teUectual capadties and tendencies, such as forms
of wit, aptitudes for language study, for mechani
cal contrivance, for imaginative ffights) which
may often be observed in members of a famUy.
Such similarities may be plausibly attributed to
personal contact and imitation in many cases.
But in other cases this explanation wiU not apply;
yet the similarities may be very striking. Thirdly,
the larger school of psychoanalysts, who foUow
Freud rather than Jung, find evidence of certain
constantly recurring symbols in dreams and fan
tasies which, if the evidence is sufficiently good,
necessitate the assumption of innate factors in the
mind very simUar to Jung's archetypal ideas.!
' I refer more especiaUy to such s)miboUc images as the
snake. In other ways, Professor Freud's own theory of
the neuroses impUes clearly the principle of inheritance
of racial experience, and Professor Freud, in his later
writings, has fuUy recognized this impUcation. In his

I30 INNATE MORAL SENTIMENTS?
Fourthly, the perennial interest of chUdren in cer
tain kinds of objects (both real and fanciful) of
which they have had no experience, but which
must have figured much in the imaginations of
their remote ancestors, seems to point to the in
heritance by the race of some traces of such ances
tral experience. It is difficult to account m any
other way for the spontaneous and vivid mterest
of almost aU European chfldren in stories of fairies,
goblins, ghosts, witches, wolves, bears, caves, and
enchanted forests. Fifthly, the development of
moral sentiments in many chUdren, thek resent
ment of injustice, their appreciation of honesty
and tmth-telUng, and other such moral reactions,
seems so spontaneous and untaught that it is diffi
cult to beUeve that these moral reactions or moral
sentiments are not, in some manner and degree,
preformed or hereditary in their constitution.
There seem to be large differences between chil-
" General Introduction to Psycho-analysis" he writes: "I
am of the opinion that these primal phantasies ... are
a phylogenetic possession. In them the individual reaches
out beyond his own life, into the experiences of antiquity.
... It seems very possible to me that everything which
is obtained during an analysis in the guise of phantasy
. . . were once reaUties in the primeval existence of man
kind, and that the imaginative chUd is merely filUug in
the gaps of individual truth with prehistoric truth."

vMORAL INSANITY 131
dren in respect of the ease with which such moral
sentiments develop under the influence of exam
ple and training. And if the opinion widely held
by aUenists and criminologists, to the effect that
some chUdren are by nature insusceptible of moral
training, though not lacking in inteUigence, if this
opinion is not utterly baseless, it is strong evi
dence of the inheritance by the normal chUd
of some preformed moral sentiments, some ten
dency for such sentiments to take form in the
mind spontaneously, however much their devel
opment may need to be furthered by experience
and moral training. Again, there seem to be
national and racial differences in this respect which
do not seem to be whoUy expUcable in terms of dif
ferences of national tradition. There are, for ex
ample, among both dvilized and uncivilized peo
ples, some which are notoriously untruthful; some
which are remarkably chaste, though not deficient
in the sex impulse; some as remarkably unchaste.
A sixth kind of evidence, pointing in the same
vague way to a greater complexity of the innate
constitution of the human mind than is commonly
recognized by sdence, is afforded by the testimony
of many persons whose work has made them
familiar with aUen races and with cross-bred races.
Thus, it is asserted by many experienced Anglo-

132 COMPLEXITY OF INNATE ENDOWMENT
Indian officials that education of Hindus by the
methods and materials used in European educa
tion is positively deleterious to then: mental devel
opment. And it is widely asserted of some of
the populations which have been formed by the
blending of widely dissimUar races, that both the
inteUectual and moral development of the majority
of individuals among such populations is seriously
defective in some obscure and iU-defined way. It
is often aUeged that such persons reveal a funda
mental lack of harmony in their character, an
abnormal liabUity to moral conflict and disorder.'
I wiU venture to state tentatively the view to
which all these vague Unes of evidence seem to
me to point. The innate basis of the mind is
richer, more complex, than present-day science is
wiUing to admit. On both the moral and inteUec
tual sides the innate potentiaUties are richer, more
various, and more specific, than can be described
in terms of degrees of inteUigence and degrees of
strength of the several instinctive impulses. Just
as that pecuUarity which enables a man to become
' E. g., "It is a common opinion, held by the blacks as
weU as by the whites, that an infusion of white blood
increases the intelUgence of the negro, while at the same
time lowering his moral quaUties." (N. S. Shaler, "The
Neighbor.")

THE ISIOST VALUABLE QUALITY 133
a great mathematidan (or a great musician) is
certainly innate and hereditary, though we cannot
define or conceive in what this hereditary basis
consists; so also the development of the highest !
moral character only proceeds upon the basis of
a hitherto undefined innate and hereditary pecu- \
Uarity. This undefined innate basis of moral charac- :
ter is perhaps of aU innate quaUties the most *
A^aluable possession of any human stock. It is '
the innate basis of a quaUty which we may
best name dependabiUtyor tmstworthiness. This
quaUty is no simple unit; it cannot be ascribed to
the operation of any one instinct; and, though it
impUes inteUigence, it is not closely conelated
with high intelUgence. In respect of this complex '
and vaguely defined quaUty, races and peoples
seem to differ widely. Without its presence in a ;
high degree, no people can achieve or sustain a '
high level of civiUzation. Consider how the
punctual and effident working of any one of our
great pubUc services impUes a high degree of
tmstworthiness on the part of a vast number of
persons. When we see a great mail-train gUde,
punctual to the minute, into the railroad depot,
after traversing hundreds or thousands of mUes
of varied territory, after bunowing through

134 TRUSTWORTHINESS
mountains, crossing great rivers, wmdmg through
deep gorges, thundering across vast plains, we do
not often sufficientiy reaUze on how many human
beings this achievement has depended, or how
great demands on their tmstworthiness it has
made. It is because such services make these
great demands that a people is justiy proud of
the efficiency, the punctuaUty, the freedom from
accident, and the dependabiUty of such great
pubUc services. It is for the same reason that
some peoples, even among the civiUzed nations,
seem to be incapable of maintaining efficient ser
vices of this kind. It is for this reason that,
among many peoples which have estabUshed such
services, the posts of critical responsibUity are
generaUy fiUed by foreigners, men of a different
race which seems to be more highly endowed with
this complex quality of tmstworthiness. It is not
too much to daim for this quaUty that it is more
important than any other, inteUigence not ex
cepted, for the maintenance of a high level of
dviUzation. If, in any people that has attained
such a high level, this quaUty should decline
(statisticaUy) we might anticipate a correspond
ing decline in the efficiency of all its pubUc ser
vices. We might expect to see its poUce force
become cormpt, its courts of justice less efficient,

INTELLIGENCE AND MORAL QUALITY 135
its criminals bolder and more numerous, its post
al deUveries irregular, its railroad trains unpunc-
tual and subject to many acddents, its bank-
mptcies and commerdal panics more frequent, its
strikes more reckless; and in war, the supreme
test, it would, in spite of much bravery and high
intelUgence, be relatively ineffective. This is ad
mittedly the expression of a somewhat specula
tive opinion which cannot claim to be founded on
scientificaUy estabUshed facts.
Another speculative question may be touched
on here, namely — Is there any conelation between
high inteUigence and the possession of the more
desirable moral quaUties; that is, do these tend
to "go together"; are highly intelUgent persons
(statisticaUy) on the whole better equipped with
moral quaUties than less intelUgent persons ? Pro
fessor Terman! provides some evidence that there
is positive conelation between inteUigence and the
possession of the better moral quaUties, and one of
considerable degree. If this result is accepted it
does not necessarily foUow that the conelation is
hereditary; but it is difficult to account for it in
any other way. If such hereditary conelation
were estabUshed, it would be a fact of the very
first importance; for the methods of measuring
1 "IntelUgence of School Children," p. 58.

136 CHANGES OF MORAL QUALITIES
inteUigence, which have been proved to be trust
worthy by so many extensive researches of recent
years, would then provide an indirect measure of
the moral quaUties, which, though faUible m indi
vidual cases, would be statistically trustworthy.'
I mentioned Doctor Jung's theory of archetypes,
not only because it serves as a warning against
dogmatic negation,^ but because it raises m an
acute form two closely allied questions that are
of prime importance for our main topic — namely,
the question of the persistence of peculiarities of
mental endowment, and the question of the modes
and influences by which they undergo change.
1 1 have found only one other piece of evidence directly
supporting Professor Terman's. Mr. H. V. Race ("A
Study of a Class of Children of Superior IntelUgence,"
Journal of Educational Psychology, 1918), by the aid
of mental tests, selected from a large number of chil
dren twenty-one who showed the highest degree of intelU
gence. He then studied these twenty-one children inten
sively and concluded that "they are apt to be unusuaUy
able in various fields of human learning," and "they
are highly social in the scientific sense of the term. They
tend to have good dispositions and lend themselves gen
erously to the needs of the group."
*A warning especiaUy important in view of the fact
that some reactionary psychologists are showing a ten
dency to revert to the old view that the innate basis of
the mind comprises nothing more than a number of sim
ple reflex tendencies.

INTELLECTUAL QUALITIES 137
Before turning to these topics, let me sum up
on the differences of innate mental quaUties which
seem to be weU-founded rather than speculative
assumptions. We have seen that the three great
races of Europe seem to have possessed distinc
tive moral quaUties, that these are, just Uke the
physical qualities of those races, represented in
the modem peoples in various degrees and com
binations, according to the proportions in which
they inherit the blood of these three chief races.
We have no evidence that these races, or the
peoples formed by their partial blendings, dif
fer in degree of inteUectual capadty. But, nev
ertheless, in their highest achievements, in the
production of which inteUect and character co
operate, we see evidences of quaUtative differ
ences in the working of their minds — in art and
reUgion and poUtics, as we have seen, and I think
we may safely add in phUosophy and science. In
these most purely inteUectual spheres, general dif
ferences are widely recognized and may, I think,
be attributed to the same moral pecuUarities,
subtly influencing and moulding the national tra
ditions of thought. The cleamess and perfection
of expression of the French and ItaUans, their
preference for logical order and the deductive
principle, their formaUsm, their rationaUsm —

138 ENGLISH INTELLECT
I these are traditional national characteristics.
They seem to be connected with the impetuous-
ness, the immediacy of expression, and the strong
sociabiUty of the Mediterranean race; for these
have moulded the languages into instruments of
vivid clear-cut logical communication.
The strength of the EngUsh inteUect is its em
piricism, its constant appeal not to estabUshed
and clearly formulated principles from which it
may deduce conclusions, but rather to new facts.
It constantly goes out, like the pioneers so weU
described by Volney, alone and unconcerned by
its loneliness, its detachment from aU inteUectual
precedent and companionship, and looks for new
facts and new explanations, without feeling the
need of fitting these into the framework of a sm-
gle logical and consistent system.
The German inteUect shows the reflective per
sistency of the introversion common to its two
chief constituent races; in its strong regard for sys
tem and organization, in its tendency to accept as
tme whatever is sociaUy and officially recognized
as part of the system of thought, it reveals the
submissive and highly sociable tendencies; whUe
it lacks somethmg of the cleamess of the Medi-
tenaneans and of the pioneering independence
and empirical curiosity of the EngUsh.

ACQUIRED QUALITIES TRANSMITTED? 139
We have found reason to bdieve that men and
races differ in their innate mental constitution,
on both the inteUectual and the moral sides. Do
such pecuUarities persist through hundreds, per
haps thousands, of generations? Or is the in
nate basis of the mind plastic, easUy transformed ?
Can a few generations of inteUectual education
and moral training appreciably modify or im
prove the innate constitution of any population?
The answer depends upon the answer to an un
solved biological problem, the most urgent of all
the biological problems; one the answer to which
profoundly concerns every state, and especiaUy
these Uiuted States of America; for many great
questions of pubUc policy should be determined
largely by the answer to this biological problem,
the problem — Are acquired qualities transmitted
from one generation to another? The two great
EngUsh founders of the modem theory of evo
lution, Darwin and Spencer, beUeved in such
transmission. But at present the majority of bi
ologists say — No. This negation is based upon,
deduced from, a theory of a German professor,
Weissman, a theory which may or may not be tme.
Now, one good result of the Great War is that we
have broken away from the thraldom to theories
of German professors to which the scientific world

I40 PERSISTENT PHYSICAL QUALITIES
submitted before the war; and this particular
theory is ahready less confidently held. The
theory can be tested and the problem can be
solved by inteUigently directed experiment.'
Such research must occupy some years at least,
and in the meantime we have a vast amount of
printed matter but no decisive facts to go upon.
But from many biological facts we can make this
inference with some confidence. Innate quaUties
are in the main very persistent; and, even if modi
fications or qualities acquired by use are trans
mitted, the accumulation of such effects is in
most, probably aU, cases a very sUght and slow
and gradual process, requiring many generations
to produce an appreciable degree of effect.
The persistence of physical quaUties is most
impressive. We have portraits of Egyptians who
lived many thousand years ago, which closely
resemble living men of the same region. We have
instances of isolated patches of population which,
amid all the shiftings and blendings of European
1 1 may say that in Harvard CoUege we have put in
hand a long experiment which should eventuaUy give us
a definite answer to this profoundly important problem
— on one condition — namely, that we can secure the small
funds needed to carry the experiment through to its con
clusion.

CHANGES OF RACIAL QUALITIES 141
peoples, seem to have remained unchanged in
physical type for many thousands of years (e. g.,
the island of population of the Cro-Magnon type in
the Dordogne region of France'). We have the
curious fact that the blood of various races shows
chemical reactions pecuUar to each race. As Pro
fessor Ripley says: "The persistence of ethnic
pecuUarities through many generations is beyond
question" (page 120). On the other hand, there
are instances in which change of habitat or of
mode of life seems to have produced a slowly
accumulating change of racial quaUties; e. g., Ufe
in hUl coimtry and life in complex civiUzed com
munities — ^both these seem in the course of many
generations to produce somehow a raising of the
cephalic index, that is, a relative broadening of
the skuU.
We must therefore compare branches of the
same race which have Uved widely apart; if these
remain aUke, and if also branches of unlike races
which have long Uved under similar conditions
continue to show in fuU their racial differences,
then we have good evidence of persistence of ra
cial quaUties in spite of environmental influences.
Such instances are known. The Negro race has
long Uved in vridely separated areas — in Africa,
» Cf. Ripley's "Races of Europe," p. 179.

142 PERSISTENCE OF MENTAL QUALITIES
Malaysia, the West Indies, North and South
America. Yet it continues to show in aU these
areas the same fundamental physical quaUties,
and, what is more important, the same mental
quaUties. And in Malaysia and the Pacific we
see populations of Malay and of Polynesian and
of Negro blood which have long lived under well-
nigh identical conditions, and which nevertheless
contmue to exhibit in fuU degree the physical and
the mental diEferences of these races. These facts
were pointed out by A. R. WaUace, and I have
myself observed them. Some of you may assent
easily to the view that physical quaUties are very
persistent; but may find it difficult to accept the
same view of mental quaUties. For bones and
skuUs are solid tangible objects; they seem dura
ble and persistent. But how can such intangi
ble immaterial entities as mental quaUties persist
unchanged for thousands of years? WeU, even
the quaUties of the bony framework are handed
down in an utterly mysterious manner, which
biologists try to make a Uttle less mysterious by in
voking the "continuity of the germ-plasm." And
the transmission of mental qualities is no more
and no less mysterious than that of physical quaU
ties. But it is weU to reaUze that such mental
quaUties as the instincts are among the most

ENDURANCE OF INSTINCTS 143
durable things we know. The great instincts
common to most of the higher animals were
evolved long before mountain ranges such as the
Alps assumed their present form; and they may
weU survive when aU the mountains that we
know shall have been wom away.
Indirect evidence and general considerations
point to the great persistence of innate mental
qualities, even under changed concUtions. The
early descriptions of the moral quaUties of the
inhabitants of Europe and especiaUy of Gaul,
which have come down to us from Tacitus and
Caesar and others, seem to show that the Nordics
and the Alpines and the Meditenaneans of that
time were distinguished by the same pecuUarities
which mark them now and which, throughout the
historic period, have played their parts in deter
mining the forms of their art, of their customs,
and of their institutions.
Even the evidence of Jung and his disciples,
which perhaps is the best evidence we have of
the gradual modification of innate mental quaU
ties by transmission of the effects of use, is never
theless at the same time evidence of the strong
persistence of such quaUties. For the observers
of this school claim to be able to trace in living
men the influences of customs and ways of think-

144 SUPERIORITY OF SAVAGE ANCESTOR:
ing which seem to have been impressed on th(
race thousands of years ago and which have per
sisted in spite of all the vicissitudes of the people;
of Europe in the historic period.
Is there any evidence of the opposite kind
pointing to rapid change and plasticity of the
racial mental constitution? It is difficult to find
any. One popular faUacy which is commonlj
accepted as such evidence we may dispose of ir
a few words. It is often supposed that the superi
ority of civiUzed man to his savage forefathers is
an innate superiority, which he owes to his long-
continued subjection to the influences of culture
It is agreed by those who have considered the
matter that there is no good ground for this
belief. The superiority of civUized man consists
in, or arises in the main from, the fact that he has
at his command all the accumulated resources
and traditions of civilization. There is no good
evidence for the belief that he is in any way in
nately superior to his savage ancestors. In fact,
the probabUity seems to be that he is (statisti
caUy) inferior .

VI
We are now in a position to return a considered
answer to the question as to the influence of in
nate radal quaUties upon the course of national
life, which we formulated concretely in our second
lecture. You wiU remember that we put the
question in this form. If every infant of one
nation were substituted for one of another nation,
until the two peoples were completely exchanged,
what effects would this substitution have upon
their subsequent history? Let us imagine this to
have been done in the year 1200 A. D. to the
French and British peoples. Obviously, there
would have been produced no sudden or violent
change of the course of national Ufe in either
country. But would there not have taken place
a gradual change of customs, laws, and institu
tions in both countries, so that in many respects
they would have approximated to one another;
and then perhaps have diverged, after a crossing
of their paths? Is it not probable, for example,
that France would not only have conquered great
areas of the earth, but would have held and peo
pled them, and that with her more andent and
14s

146 FRANCE AND ENGLAND
mature civiUzation she would have dominated
the world? Is it not probable that the national
institutions of France would have graduaUy ac
quired a more particularist or individuaUst form;
and that in England administration would have
become more centraUzed, the family more unffied,
the laws in general less adapted to give free play
to individual initiative? Is it not probable that
the laws of England would have been codffied,
and those of France left a chaos of precedents, of
judicial decisions, of legislative compromises, aU
unrelated and unharmonized by any clear logical
principles or rational system?
Let me state more generally the view to which
aU our evidence seems to point. Each people that
has attained a high level of civiUzation has done
so on the basis of the inteUectual and moral quaU
ties of the races which have entered into its com
position. The combination of quaUties pecuUar
to each race was formed and fixed during long
ages of the prehistoric period, compared with
which the historic period of some 2,500 years is
very brief.
These native quaUties are the capital, as it were,
with which a people sets out on the path of civiUza
tion. They are subject to only slow changes; but
they do change, if factors making for change con-

A NATION'S CAPITAL 147
tinue to operate in the same direction during
many generations. But, Uke aU highly developed
quaUties of animals and plants, the qualities most
necessary for the development and support of
ci\Tlization are more readily subject to decay or
diminution than to further development.
Each people is endowed with quaUties which
incline it to civilization of a particular type, and
which render it capable of supporting a civiUza
tion of a given degree of complexity. Each pro
gressive people thus tends to reach the Umit of
complexity of civiUzation which is prescribed for it
by its innate qualities; when that limit is reached,
it ceases to progress and is very Uable to actual
retrogression or decay. For under civilization its
quaUties tend to deteriorate, rather than to im
prove. Let us now examine this last statement.
The influences which may produce changes of
racial quaUties are of three kinds.
(i) Reversion. This is a doubtful factor. It is;
held by some biologists that any highly developed
race wiU deteriorate, if its quaUties are not main
tained by continued selection. And it is held
that isolation of any race is necessary for the
maintenance of its spedal quaUties; for cross-
breedmg with other races tends to produce rever-

148 CIVILIZATION THE DESTROYER
sion to the lower ancestral type. There is some
reason to fear that the miscegenation which is
going on so widely between human stocks is hav
ing this effect; and not only on theoretical grounds.
There are some faint empirical indications of it;
for example, the northem peoples of Europe are
steadily losing their fair complexion — the average
complexion is darkening; and, as the fair com
plexion is undoubtedly a recent specialization, this
looks like a case of reversion. Possibly, then, re
version of mental qualities is also going on. But
it is possible that this darkening of the complexion
of the mixed populations of northern Europe is an
effect of a selection which favors the darker strains;
for these seem to be more resistant to the unfavor
able influences of town and factory life.
(2) Transmission of acquired qualities, of the
effects of use, is a possibiUty. If it is an actual
factor, what must have been its most general
effect under civUization? Which kind of life is
more suited to develop to the utmost and, by
much exercise, impress more strongly on a popu
lation the more valuable quaUties — inteUigence,
independence, initiative, providence, the parental
and altmistic tendency, curiosity, and tmstworthi
ness (for these seem to be the most valuable of
the fundamental innate quaUties) ? Which mode

PRIMITIVE AND CIVILIZED EDUCATION 149
of Ufe, I ask, is more suited to develop these by
exercise — that of the hunter, herdsman, warrior,
cultivator, Uving in a weU-defined social unit,
such as a viUage community; or the life of a wage-
laborer, a mill-hand, a shop-assistant or smaU
clerk, in one of our highly dviUzed nations?
There can be no doubt, I think, that the advan
tage is with the former more natural mode of Ufe.
We must remember that universal schooling is a''
recent and but partiaUy achieved ideal, and that;
schooling is but an imperfect substitute for the!
education that a boy gets from Uving vividly the!
natural Ufe. This factor, then, probably makes
for deterioration, if it is operative at aU.
(3) Selection. It is of the very essence of civ-*
iUzation that, as it progresses, it aboUshes more!
and more completely the operation of the various
forms of natural selection which in primitive peo4
pies undoubtedly tend to maintain and promotel
the racial quaUties. And, in our modem western
nations, medical science, charitable organization,
and protective legislation have pretty weU achieved
the aboUtion of natural selection.
Sexual selection may have helped to evolve
the higher racial quaUties. Under modem condi
tions, with the prevalence of monogamy and of
the excess of females over males, it can hardly be

ISO FORMS OF SELECTION
operative. And modern feminism is withdrawing
more and more of the best of the women from
marriage and motherhood.'
Instead of natural and sexual selection, we have
operative a number of forms of selection, aU of
which seem to be injurious to the race.
Military selection involves the death of many
of the best and boldest; and it withholds other
well-endowed men from early marriage, leaving
that privilege to the physically and mentaUy de
fective. Selection by the towns. The towns tend to
attract the most vigorous, the most capable and
enterprising of the young people of the country
side; in each generation they stream into the
towns, leaving an inferior residue in the viUages
and farms. In New England, as in Old England,
the phenomenon is so well known that it is need
less to insist on it. But it is not so generally

* I have no space to show the facts and inferences, and
must refer the reader to an essay by Mr. S. H. Halford on
"Dysgenic Tendencies," in the volume on "Population
and Birth-Control," edited by C. and E. Paul, New York,
1917. His conclusion is: "In any case there seems no
other prospect, if the full feminist ideal be realized, than
the entire extinction of British and American intelUgence
within the next two or three generations" (p. 232).

THE VORTEX OF THE CITY 151
appredated that the towns not only withdraw
the best from the countryside, but destroy these
selected strains. For a variety of reasons, the
town population does not maintain itself. The
great towns are vortices which suck in the best of
the population; and, from the racial point of view,
they destroy it, for they destroy its natural fer-
tUity. This destmctive dysgenic influence of the
towns is a part of a wider phenomenon, namely,
the operation of the social ladder which enables;
men to pass easUy up or down the social scale.
In aU civilized societies, except those founded
upon a rigid caste system, the social ladder exists;
and every step forward in democratic organiza
tion, everything that throws the world more com
pletely open to talent, that finds the right man for
the right place and the square peg for the square
hole, educational faciUties, scholarships, person
nel agencies — all such things contribute to the
perfection of the social ladder by which the ascent
of merit and the descent of ineptitude are made
easy. r
Now an effective social ladder in any nation isl
a most important agency for the advancement of;
its dvUization. In its absence, talent wiU not
find due scope; the men who, by reason of superioi*

152 THE SOCIAL LADDER
endowments, are its natural leaders wiU not come
to the front. And that such men should be pro
duced by a people and should achieve a due influ
ence upon and leadership in every form of activity,
in government, in science, in art, in commerce
and industry, is the most essential condition of
national prosperity and national progress.' Hence
the nation vrith the best social ladder, other things
being the same, will for a time progress most
rapidly. The social ladder tends to produce a social
stratification; it tends to a differentiation of
society into superimposed strata of unequal value.
That this has actuaUy occurred is indicated by the
few experimental observations which I put before
you in support of the proposition that degrees of
intelUgence are hereditary. We need many more
such investigations.^ But the fact is shown by
' This position is argued at some length in my "Group
Mind." 2 Mr. A. W. Komhauser has recently provided fresh
evidence in a paper on "The Economic Standing of
Parents and the Intelligence of Their Children" (Journal
of Educational Psychology, vol. IX, 1918). He examined
1,000 chUdren, drawn from five schools of the city of Pitts
burgh. Of these schools A and B were attended chiefly by
the children of the poorer classes, largely unskUled manual
workers; C and D by children of a more prosperous class.

ENGLAND'S CLASSES 153
common observation also; the process has gone
farthest in the country in which tiie social ladder
has been longest in effective operation. Of Euro
pean countries, England is that country; hence we,
find that, as various observers have said, England!
is a land of great contrasts; and the top stratum ic
England, the upper professional and commercia

largely skilled artisans and smaU shopkeepers; E by chil
dren of parents in very comfortable circumstances. He
found that the groups from A and B "show a very large
proportion of Retarded, with an almost negUgible num
ber of Advanced"; C and D groups "have the most
nearly normal distribution of Retarded and Advanced";
the E group "shows the opposite tendency from the first
two schools (A and B), namely, a very smaU proportion
of Retarded, with a comparatively large percentage of
Advanced pupils. These data in themselves give some
indication of the marked association between economic
status and school advancement, and undoubtedly would
be much more striking if the different schools had a sys
tem of uniform grading; for there can be no question that
there is a tendency for the general lower abiUty in the
poor school to be compensated by a general lower stand
ard of grading and vice versa in the wealthier school."
That is to say, if the several schools had the same standard
of grading, the superiority of inteUigence of the chUdren
of school E over the others (and of schools C and D over
A and B) would be revealed even more strikingly. The
same observer obtained a similar result by a different
procedure. Taking the possession of a telephone in the
home as an indicator of good economic status of the

154

ENGLAND'S MASSES

classes, together with the aristocracy, which is
constantiy recmited from them (and from Amer
ica), is probably richer in valuable human quaU
ties than any other large human group now exist
ing — or was so before the war; while the lower
(Strata contain a deplorable proportion of human
' beings of poor quality.!
parents, and dividing aU the chUdren into the three
groups — Retarded, Normal, and Advanced — he found that
the foUowing percentages of these three groups had tele
phones in the home: of the Retarded 19 per cent; of the
Normal 32 per cent; of the Advanced 50 per cent. These
facts afford valuable confirmation of the observations on
the correlation of inteUigence with social status, set out
in the second lecture. For in this case the estimation of
the intelUgence of the chUdren was made by the school
teachers. The terms Retarded and Advanced mean that
the chUd is below or above the school grade in which the
average age is that of the chUd in question. This ques
tion is so important that it seems worth whUe to add the
table showing the percentages of the three classes — Re
tarded, Normal, and Advanced — in the five schools re
spectively.

Retarded

Normal

Advanced

A 

4S-2
36.7 29.4 28.812.7

47.1 SS-9
50-4 Si-7
62.7

7-7 7-4
20.219.624.6

B  ; 

C 

D 

E 

^ See Appendix H.

STERILITY OF SELECTED CLASSES 155
That is to say, the operation of the sodal ladder
tends to concentrate the valuable quaUties of the
whole nation in the upper strata, and to leave the
lowest strata depleted of the finer quaUties.
This provides the leadership and abiUty re
quired for the flourishing of national Ufe in aU its
departments, and in so far is good and benefidal.
But the working of the sodal ladder has further
and less satisfactory results. The upper strata,
which contain in concentration the best quaUties
of the nation, and which are capable of producing
a far larger proportion of men fitted for leadership!
than the lower strata, become relatively infertile.
The causes are varied and complex, and in the;
main psychological: late marriage, ceUbacy, and
restriction of the famUy after marriage are thei
main factors.' This is not a new phenomenon or
peculiar to any one or a few countries. It is
a weU-iugh universal phenomenon. Roughly, it
may be said to be due to the outstripping of in-'
'Herbert Spencer assumed that there was a natural
physiologicaUy grounded inverse correlation between fer-
tiUty and inteUectual development. It may safely be
said that there is Uttle or no ground for this assumption.
The inverse correlation is weU marked, but it is grounded
in psychological rather than physiological factors, and
is therefore subject to rational control and voluntary
choice.

156 THE FATAL PROCESS
stinct by intelUgence in these favored classes; for
instinct cares for the race; intelUgence, save in its
most enUghtened forms, for the individual. | It is
not confined to the topmost stratum. It begms
there and descends through the strata immedi
ately below. In Britain it has reached the skiUed-
artisan class, the pick of the wage-eaming dass,
and is displayed acutely in that class. Mean
whUe the lowest strata continue to breed at a
¦more normal rate; the birth-rate remains highest
among the actual mental defectives.' The residua
]a the viUages continue to be drained more com
pletely of their best elements; the towns sift out
the best-endowed of these immigrants and pass
ithem up the social scale to become steriUzed by
Itheir success. The process tends to accelerate
land accentuate itself as it continues. Thus, the
increasing demands of a civilization of progressing
'The present situation may be roughly described by
saying that the superior half of the population is ceasing
to produce children in sufficient numbers to replace their
parents, while the lower haU continues to multiply itself
freely and is the source of aU increase of population. The
same statement is probably roughly true of America. The
phenomenon is world-wide. As Mr. Halford says (loc.
cit.): "The higher races are using the resources of scien
tific knowledge to reduce the death-rate of the inferior
peoples and the birth-rate of the superior."

DEMAND OUTRUNS SUPPLY 157
complexity are for a time met by the operation of
the sodal ladder. But it is a process which can
not continue indefinitely. There must come a
time when the lower strata, drained of aU their
best strains, can no longer supply recruits who
can effectively fiU the gaps in the upper strata
and serve as effident leaders in aU the arts and
sdences of dviUzation. With increasing demands
and diminishing supply, a point must be reached
at which the supply faUs short. That is the cli-|
max, the culminating point of the parabola of that
people; when a people reaches that point, it stands
at the height of its career, but it stands on the
brink of the downward plunge of the curve. '
It seems to me highly probable that several of
the great nations are approaching or have reached
that point. I beUeve that Great Britain has gone
farther than any other; just because the develop
ment of democratic institutions has proceeded
more unintermptecUy and successfuUy and for a
longer time than in any other people; and also
because her stock has been depleted by emigra
tion of vast numbers of persons of more than
average vigor and quaUty. But British compla
cency refuses to see the signs. In a recent leading
article The Times solemnly repudiated any such
notion, asserting that the nation which tn the

158 GREAT NEEDS AND GREAT MEN
past has thrown up so much abiUty, so many
great men, will not faU to produce the men needed
to meet all future demands.! The fatuous beUef
I in the old (Uctum, that the great occasion or the
j great need always brings forth the great man to
I lead the nation over its difficulties, should have
i been shaken by the Great War. For one of the
I most striking facts of that prolonged struggle was
I the failure of the nations involved to bring forth
' great men adequate to their needs. Did not every
' nation, France alone excepted, fail to produce a
; great commander by land or sea? Did any na
tion produce a great statesman? You may say
that the problems were harder, the times more
difficult, than ever before; that the inadequacy of
men was relative only to the vastness of the needs.
' The London Times, May 19, 1920. After citing from
the report of the registrar-general, which showed clearly
the relative infertiUty of the educated classes, the edi
torial runs: "We are amused rather than dismayed by the
prophets of 'racial suicide' and have complete confidence
in the capacity of the EngUsh stock to respond to aU the
needs of the future." This fatuously complacent utter
ance was presumably written by a man educated at Ox
ford, the university whose leading objects of study are
history and the writings of Plato, the most thorough
going eugenist of aU the social philosophers. And it was
written after the Great War, which has done incalculable
and irreparable injury to the British stock.

THE SOCIAL LADDER AT WORK 159
Perhaps it was so, though I think not. But
granting this, does not the fact remain an iUustra-
tion of the law that the demands of civilization
tend to outrun the qualities of its bearers?
During the years of the Frendi revolution and
the Napoleonic wars, many soldiers rose from the
ranks to become great generals. During the in
dustrial revolution in England many men rose
from the ranks to eminence and high command,
men Uke George Stephenson, and many others of
his stamp.
But the social ladder has been at work for
several generations since these men rose, and
with fatal efficiency. Such rising has become
much rarer in the old countries, in spite of the
increased encouragement offered in the way of
education and rewards.' And is it clear that you
in America are in a better position? It is tme;
that your population is recmited largely by immi-j
gration. But these miUion-a-year immigrants are!
untested material; they are an uncertain quan-|
tity.^ In the old days men and women did not|
'This fact is brought out by Mr. Havelock EUis's
"Study of British Genius."
2 1 remind you that two observers have found the chil
dren of ItaUan immigrants to be decidedly lower in the
scale of inteUectual capacity than those of the older
white population.

i6o ALTERED IMMIGRATION
emigrate to America, unless they were persons of
more than average vigor, initiative, enterprise,
and independence. But the steamship compa
nies, and the spread in this country of civUization
and of immigrants from aU parts of the world,
have altered aU that. And your social ladder
works with great efficiency; whUe the mle of the
infertiUty of the selected classes seems to be
rigidly maintained.'
You in New England cannot maintain the
' And the old stock is dying out. Mr. L. Quessel re
views the evidence of "Race Suicide in the United States"
in an essay in the volume on "Population and Birth-
Control" (edited by C. and E. Paul) and concludes: "All
avaUable data combine to prove that the Anglo-American
population has not merely attained its maximum, but has
already begun to decline." He adds: "It is perfectly
clear that the low birth-rate among the Anglo-American
population is not the result of natural steriUty, but is
due to a deliberate restriction of births."
In this aU-important matter of birth-control the posi
tion of this country is remarkable and uniquely disas
trous. The educated classes seem to cultivate and prac
tise the principles of birth-control more assiduously than
any other class of persons of the civilized world, whUe,
mirabile dictu, they maintain laws which forbid the ex
tension of the knowledge of such principles to the mass
of the people. Doctor M. S. Iseman has drawn a lurid
picture of this state of affairs in his "Race Suicide" (New
York, 1912).

AMERICAN INTELLIGENCE

i6i

fatuous complacency of the editor of the London
Times I For you have first-hand knowledge of old
and formerly valuable populations, now drained
of aU that was best and reduced to stagnation.
You exemplify in the highest degree the rule of
the infertiUty of the selected dasses. You have

per cent.
The curve of distribution of intelligence in the young manhood
of the American people, as revealed by army tests, runs as
in the figure.
first-hand acquaintance with the process of sub
stitution of population of one type by another,
and with the consequent social effects. For you
these things are not vague and fanciful possibiU
ties; they are actual. They should lead you to
concentrate your attention on these demographic
problems. Let me remind you of our curve of distribution
of inteUigence. IntelUgence, as I said, is only
one of many factors; but it is one of considerable
importance.

i62 AMERICAN CIVILIZATION
\ A men are of the grade which "has the abiUty
I to make a superior record in college"; B men are
j j" capable of making an average record in coUege."
jC men are "rarely capable of finishing a high-
•school course." And the main bulk of your pop
ulation is below the C -|- level.!
' That is to say, the results of the army tests indicate
that about 75 per cent of the population has not sufficient
innate capacity for intellectual development to enable it
to complete the usual high-school course. The very ex
tensive testing of school-children carried on by Professor
Terman and his coUeagues leads to closely concordant
results. He divides the children on the basis of his tests
into the foUowing classes (and it should be added that the
school-status of the children and the judgments of theu:
teachers bear out the grading very fuUy): Border-line
cases (scoring 70-80 marks in the testing). These roughly
correspond to the groups D — and E of the army tests, and
are about 8 per cent of the whole number of school-chil
dren. Of these Professor Terman says: "According to
the classical definition of feeble-mindedness, such indi
viduals cannot be considered defectives. Hardly any
one would think of them as institutional cases. Among
laboring men and servant girls there are thousands like
them. They are the world's hewers of wood and drawers
of water. And yet, as far as inteUigence is concerned, the
tests have told the truth. These boys are uneducable
beyond the merest rudiments of training. No amount of
school instruction wiU ever make them intelligent voters
or capable citizens in the true sense of the word. ... It
is interesting to note that [chUdren of this grade] represent

THE COLLEGE-BRED 163
The civilization of America depends on your
continuing to produce A and B men in fair num
bers. And at present the A men are 4 per cent,
the B men 9 per cent; and you are breeding
from the lower part of the curve. The A
tnen and B men, the coUege-bred, do not main-
the level of inteUigence which is very, very common among
Spanish-Indian and Mexican families of the Southwest
and also among Negroes. Their dulness seems to be racial,
or at least inherent in the famUy stocks from which they
come. The fact that one meets this type with such ex
traordinary frequency among Indians, Mexicans, and Ne
groes suggests quite forcibly that the whole question of
racial differences in mental traits wiU have to be taken up
anew, and by experimental methods." Above these comes
the group of " duU normals " (scoring 80-90 marks) . They
constitute about 15 per cent of the whole number and cor
respond roughly to the D group of the army tests — " they
are far enough below the actual average of inteUigence
among races of western European descent that they cannot
make ordinary school progress." The third group is of
"average intelUgence" (scoring 90-110 marks) and com
prises about 60 per cent of the whole number. "The high
school does not fit their grade of intelUgence as well as the
elementary and grammar schools." They correspond
roughly to the groups C — , C, and the lower part of C -f-
of the army tests. Next comes the group of "superior
intelUgence" (scoring 110-120 marks). It comprises
about 15 per cent of the whole, and corresponds to the
upper part of group C + and to groups B and A of the
army tests.

1 64 A VANISHING CLASS
tain their numbers, while the population swells
enormously.! If this goes on for a few generations,
wiU not the A men, and even the B men, become
rare as white elephants, dropping to a mere frac
tion of one per cent? It is only too probable.
The present tendency seems to be for the
whole curve to shift to the right with each suc-
' Harvard graduates, it is said, have less than two chU
dren apiece on the average, and the same is probably true
approximately of the graduates in general. With the
graduates of women's colleges the case seems to be stiU
worse. Professor J. McK. CatteU asserts: "Among the
educated and well-to-do classes the number of chUdren
does not nearly suffice to continue the race. The Harvard
graduate has on the average seven-tenths of a son, the
Vassar graduate one-half of a daughter" (Popidar Science
Monthly, January, 1909). For a full revelation of the
facts in regard to college women, see Popenoe and John
son's "Applied Eugenics," chap. XII. Professor Karl
Pearson has shown that the most proUfic quarter of the
population in Great Britain produces 50 per cent of the
chUdren of each generation. It is in the highest degree
probable that this one-quarter belongs almost wholly to
the right or inferior end of the curve.
In an article in the volume "Heredity and Eugenics"
(Chicago, 1913) Doctor C. B. Davenport, one of the
highest authorities on these matters, gives us the foUow
ing interesting calculation. Writing of the graduates of
Harvard CoUege, he states: "At the present rate [of repro
duction] 1,000 graduates of to-day wiU have only 50
descendants 200 years hence. On the other hand, recent

INTERNAL SUBSTITUTIONS 165
cessive generation.! And this is probably tme of
moral qualities, as weU as of inteUectual stature.
If the time should come when your A and B men
together are no more than one per cent, or a mere
fraction of one per cent, of the population — ^what
wiU become of your dviUzation?
Let me state the case more concretely, in rela-
immigrants and the less effective descendants of the earlier
immigrants stiU continue to have large famiUes, so that
from 1,000 Roumanians to-day in Boston, at the present
rate of breeding, wiU come 100,000" after the same space
of time, namely, 200 years. BUnd optimists, confronted
with the facts of the dying out of the old American stocks,
are apt to remark that the rate of reproduction of the new
immigrants wiU also decline. This is probably true of
those among them who have the moral and inteUectual
capadty to climb the social ladder; but that is not a con
soling reflection. Substitute for the 1,000 Roumanians
of the forgoing calculation 1,000 mental defectives (and
these are only a smaU fraction of the total number in the
Boston area) and you have a more exact picture of the
present tendency of change in the population. For the
mental defectives are, it appears, the most persistentiy
prolific class of the population, so long as they are left at
Uberty to do as they please.
' Since it has been shown that actual mental defectives
are the most prolific part of the population, it is of some
interest to estimate their numbers. Authorities give va
rious estimates; for the class is not yet defined in any
generaUy accepted manner. Most authorities seem to
estimate them as above 2 per cent of the population in

i66 THE MEDICAL PROFESSION
tion to one of the great essential professions of
which I have some inside knowledge, namely the
medical profession. Two hundred or one hun
dred years ago, the knowledge to be acquired by
the medical student, before entering upon the
practice of his profession, was a comparatively
small body of empirical rules. The advance of
civilization has enormously multiplied this knowl
edge; and the very existence of our civilized com
munities depends upon the continued and effec
tive appUcation of this vast body of medical art
and science. The acquiring and the judicious
application of this mass of knowledge make very
much greater demands upon the would-be prac
titioner than did the mastery of the body of mles
of our forefathers. Accordingly, the length of
the curriculum prescribed for our medical stu-
this country. Goddard, the highest authority in the
matter, says: "It is a conservative estimate to declare
that 2 per cent of public-school children are distinctly
feeble-minded; . . . the most extensive study ... of an
entire school system of 2,000 has shown that 2 per cent
of such chUdren are so mentaUy defective as to preclude
any possibiUty of their ever being made normal and able
to take care of themselves as adults." Others have esti
mated the feeble-minded in the schools as high as 4 per
cent. To these have to be added the declared defectives
who are not sent to the public schools.

LIEDICAL EFFICIENCY 167
dents has constantiy been drawn out, till now its
duration is some six years of post-graduate study.
The students who enter upon this long and
severe course of study are already a selected body;
they have passed through high school and coUege
successfuUy. We may fairly assume that the
great majority of them belong to the A or B or
at least the C -1- group in the army scale of in
teUigence.! What proportion of them, do you suppose, prove
capable of assimUating the vast body of medical
knowledge to the point that renders them capable
of applying it inteUigentiy and effectively? If I
may venture to generalize from my own experi
ence, I would say that a very considerable propor
tion, even of those who pass their examinations,
fails to achieve such effective assimUation. The
bulk of modem medical knowledge is too vast for
their capacity of assimilation, its complexity too
great for their power of understanding. Yet
medical science continues to grow in bulk and
complexity, and the dependence of the commu
nity upon it becomes ever more intimate; for the
natural resistance of the population to disease de-
' Or to Professor Terman's groups of superior and very
superior intelUgence.

i68 THE PRESENT SITUATION
dines, in proportion as the population is effectively
protected by medical science from the selective
action of diseases.
In this one profession, then, which makes such
great and increasing demands on both the intel
lectual and the moral qualities of its members, the
demand for A and B men steadily increases; and
the supply in aU probabUity is steadily diminish
ing with each generation.
And what is taking place in this one profession
is, it would seem, taking place in all the great
i professions and higher caUUigs. Our civUization,
' hy reason of its increasing complexity, is making
. constantly increasing demands upon the qualities of
its hearers ; the qualities of those bearers are dimin
ishing or deteriorating, rather than improving.
If we turn now to consider very briefly the his
tory of the great peoples of the past, we find evi
dence which bears out my main thesis, which goes
far to substantiate the explanation of the Parab
ola of Peoples suggested in these lectures.
The most glorious civilization of the past was
that of ancient Greece. We do not know the
ethnic composition of the people which produced
that civilization. It is stiU a matter of dispute.'
' It has been maintained by many that it was predomi
nantiy Nordic. The most probable view seems to be

THE HELLENIC COLLAPSE 169
But we do know that the present population of
Greece is in the main of different stock.! ^j
history shows that the change or substitution of
population took place about the time of the
decay of that dviUzation. The causes of this
disaster were many. There was the psycho
logical infertiUty of the selected dasses, with the
decay of marriage and famUy life. There was
exUe and colonization, both on a great scale; and
there was almost perpetual warfare, largely of
Greek against Greek; all tending strongly to the
elimination of the most fit. There was finally,
and on a great scale, exportation of Greeks by
their Roman conquerors, as slaves to do the derical
and professional work of the Roman Empire. No
wonder that the coUapse of that civilization, borne
by so smaU a population, was sudden and complete.
The grandeur that was Rome endured for a
that, Uke the English, the population of ancient Greece
was, in the main, a mixture and partial blend of the
Nordic and Mediterranean races, enriched by the attrac
tion of many choice individuals from surrounding coun
tries. 'Ripley ("Races of Europe," p. 407) shows that,
whereas the ancient Greeks were (statisticaUy) long
headed, the modem population is predominantly short-
headed, presumably owing to the predominance of Slavic
blood.

170 THE ROMAN DECAY
longer space. For it was founded upon a broader
basis of population. During some centuries the
Roman Empire drew into its service the best
energies and talents of aU the populations of
Europe. Common soldiers from remote prov
inces rose to be emperors or governors; slaves im
ported from afar became secretaries of state and
skiUed administrators. The whole Empire was
one great vortex, sweeping to its centre the best
talents of the civiUzed world. AU roads led toward
Rome. And the rule of the infertiUty of the
selected classes prevafled. Marriage became un
fashionable, children were regarded as a burden.
Pleasure, luxury, and the production of elegant
Latin verse became the leading preoccupations of
the selected classes. The Church, with her advo
cacy of ceUbacy and her doctrine that it is better
to marry than to bum, lent her powerful aid. For
many generations the process went on, the process
of the extermination of the most valuable strains;
in Otto Seeck's expressive phrase, the process of
the "Ausrottung der Besten."! The mistress of
the world reached the climax of her parabola and
rapidly declined; and the chaos of the early mid
dle ages succeeded.
' " Geschichte des Untergangs der Antiken Welt." See
also Professor J. L. Myres, " Changes of Population in the
Classical World," Eugenic Review, 1917.]

SPAIN AND GERMANY 171
The next great empire comparable to Rome's
was that of Spain — a wonderful and brilUant ca
reer, but of short duration. The expulsion of the
Moors and of the Jews, the work of the Inquisi
tion, the ceUbacy of the Church, perpetual war
fare, the drain of a vast colonial empire, and the
luxury and wealth derived from it — all these com
bined to sap away the strains of finest quality;
and the power and glory of Spain rapidly declined.
France and England took up the stmggle and
fought for the mastery of the world.
Germany, coming relatively late under the dev
astating influences of our industrial civilization,
has made her bid for world domination and has
faUed; and, inddentaUy, has left the battie-fields
of Europe and the Near East strewn with the
corpses of the best and bravest of our young men:
brilUant young poets and scientists, inventors and
authors and administrators, by the score and by
the hundred are lying there, without descendants
to perpetuate their talents, leaAong the world
forever poorer and the peoples of Europe dimin
ished in moral and inteUectual stature for aU
time. Westward the march of empire takes its way,
throwing out before it a vanguard of pioneers, of
its best and brightest and most vigorous. Al-

172 THE AMERICAN CURVE
ready the centre of gravity, of power, has passed
by these Eastern States of America. The Middle
West is already claiming predominance; and the
day of the Far West is at hand. And after that—
^what? The process has acquired a frightful rapidity
and momentum. Every feature of your Ameri
can civiUzation seems to conspire for its accelera
tion, for the more rapid attainment of the climax
;of your curve and the subsequent decUne — every
(feature save one only.
What is this factor which alone can secure your
future, and save you as a people from the fatal
decline; which may even secure you a continued
progress in aU that makes the worth of human
Uving?
' It is the increasing knowledge of human nature
and of human society, and of the conditions
that make for or against the flourishing of human
nature and society. But the mere increase of
such knowledge in scientific academies is of no
avail, if that knowledge is not widely diffused
among the people, and if it does not become a
guide to action in public and in private life.
Fortunately, in this country there is widely dif
fused a beUef in the value of science and of its
appUcation to human Ufe. You have many keen

THE NEW FACTOR 173
workers adding to the sum of knowledge, and you
have a wide-spread tendency to be guided by it.
Therein Ues your hope for the future. Such
knowledge is virtuaUy a new factor in history.
And the essential problem before you is — Can
you as a nation so make use of this new factor,
this increasing knowledge of human nature and
human sodety, as to tum the course of history?
Can you by taking thought and action guided by
thought, can you prevent or indefinitely postpone
that decline of your curve of civUization which
seems even now to threaten you? I firmly be
Ueve that you, of aU the existing nations, with the
possible exception of Japan, have the best pros
pect of achieving this mastery of your fate. What
steps you wfll take; what changes of law, of social
organization, of domestic institutions, you wUl,
upon mature consideration, institute, I do not
know and I do not suggest. To make any such
suggestions is no part of my task in this short
study. It is enough, if I have durected your atten
tion to this supremely important problem; if I
have led you to see that every wide measure of
social legislation, every social custom and insti
tution, should be judged and evaluated with ref
erence to its bearing upon this problem— its prob
able effect on the anthropologic constitution of

174 THE CITIZEN'S RESPONSIBILITY
the nation and the sum of its human quaUties.
AU such laws and customs and institutions have
their inevitable effects of this all-important kind.
The laws regulating the sale of alcohol; the immi
gration laws; the laws of marriage and divorce;
the educational system; the relations of labor to
capital; the nature and degree of state-interference
with personal Uberty; the distribution of the
population in town and viUage; the size and type
of your cities — aU these are but a few instances of
influences capable of exerting subtle but profound
effects upon the quality of the population of these
United States of America.
But most important of all is the diffusion of the
sense of individual responsibiUty in this matter;
the dear reaUzation that, in the last resort, the
future wUl be the creation of the present, that the
nation of the future must issue from the individual
choice and action of those who now compose it.

APPENDICES

APPENDIX I

COMMENT.^RV ON THE PROPOSITION TH.\T .VLL MEN .\RE BORN WITH
EQU.\L C-\P.\CITIEj FOR MOR.\L AND INTELLECTIAL
DEVELOP.MENT
PORTRAITS OF THREE MEN ALL OF WHOM IN THEIR
YOUTH WERE DENIED THE ADVANTAGES
OF SCHOOLING AND THE REFINEMENTS
OF CIVILIZATION

This man, by virtue of his qualities of character and intellect,
rose from <i \ery humble station to a position of the highest re
sponsibility and power, lie so filled that position as to gain the
unbounded admiration of all men and of all nations.

ALL MEX ARK CREATED EQUAL 179

This man, my friend Tama Bulan, was the chief of a small village
in the heart of Borneo. He and his people belonged to one of the
tribes which have often been described as degraded savages, stigma
tized as head-hunters, and erroneously stated to be cannibals. By
reason of his high intelligence, his humane feeling, his firmness of
character, and statesmanlike foresight, he acquired a great moral in
fluence not only over the people of his own village and tribe, but
over many of the other tribes throughout a large area. He used
this influence to bring to an end the chronic tribal warfare which
in all that region of the earth had long prevailed. B>- his influence
and example he brought peace, happiness, and prosperity to man\-
thousands of his fellow men. Some account of him and his people
ma\ be found in "The Pagan Tribes of Borneo," by Charles Hose
and Wm. McDougall (London, 1912).

ALL MKX ARE CREATED EOL'AL i8i

:*«£.¦'..-. ..¦.'¦^.-

This man remained unknown to fame, until he was photographed
by the authors of a recently published book' as a representative
specimen of the inferior type of the lla-spcaking people.
We are told nothing of his moral and intellectual qualities; but
the most resolutely optimistic humanitarians will hardly claim him
as a "mute inglorious Milton," or even as a "village Hampden."
Nor is it easy to suppose that they could contemplate with equa
nimity the substitution of the Anglo-American stock by persons of
this type.

¦"The Ila-spcakin'.,' Peo|)lc of Northern Rhodesiii," by Rev. E. A\', Smith and Captain
A .\L Dale, Londoa. 1020. I am indebted to Mr. Smith for the copy of the picture.

ALL MEX ARE CRK.VTED i;oU.VL 1.S3

APPENDIX II
Birth-rate in the Social Strata
In Great Britain Uttie has been done in the way of
anthropometric survey by the methods of mental
measurement. But there has recently been pubUshed
a sur\-e3-, by the method of personal interview and
estimation, of a large sample of the "manual workers"
of SheflSeld ("The Equipment of the Workers," Lon
don, 1919). Shefl&eld is a typical manufacturing
town of some haU-milUon inhabitants, seated in York
shire, near the border of Lancashire; these two coun
ties are noted for the vigor and achievement of many
of their sons and daughters. The investigation dealt
with 866 men and women in equal numbers. They
were divided into three classes: A, the weU-equipped ;
B, the inadequately equipped; C, the mal-equipped.
Class A consists of men and women who, as judged
by personal impression, by their mode of life and
history, seem to be of character (often of fine charac
ter) and abiUties such as enable them to cope with
the problems of life in a satisfactory manner. Their
personalities and life-histories may be contemplated
with satisfaction, entire sympathy, and considerable
admiration. If these were a fair sample of the " man
ual workers" of the whole country, Britain would be,
indeed, a great and happy land. But, unfortunately,
they constitute less than one-fourth of the whole
group (about 22 per cent). 18s

i86 BIRTH-RATE IN THE SOCIAL STRATA
Class C constitutes one-fourteenth of the whole.
They are a bad lot. "In stupidity or in ignorance or
in base cleverness, those in this class Uve for ends of
theh own, in vicious ways that poUute the Uves of
others. From their loins come the inteUectuaUy fee
ble and the morally depraved chUdren that sap aU
the best energies of the school-mistress."
Class B comprises aU who faU between the levels of
classes A and C. "These, in their scores of thousands
in Sheffield, and in their mUlions upon miUions in the
whole country, are the real 'masses,' the real 'poor,'
the real 'people.' . . . They manage to Uve their
own Uves and to keep quite as free as the average
member of the well-to-do classes from vice and crime.
What distinguishes them, or 'indistinguishes' them,
so to speak, is their lack of positive quaUties of any
kind. ... It is our honest beUef that neither the
man, nor — stUl more certainly — the woman, in Class
II (i. e., B) can in any genuine sense of the word be
called 'fit to vote.'" They form 70 per cent of the
"manual workers." Detailed notes on a score of in
dividuals from each of the classes A and B are given,
these being regarded as fair samples of the two classes.
A careful comparison of the detailed descriptions of
these samples from the two classes points, I think,
clearly to the conclusion that the difference between
Classes A and B is in the main one of intrinsic or in
nate quaUty, and cannot be ascribed to differences of
training or educational opportunity. None of Class A
(with one doubtful exception) had attended school be
yond the fourteenth year; several of them are described

BIRTH-RATE IN THE SOCIAL STRATA 187
as iUiterate, or ignorant, or "never reads," or "scarcely
any education." The average of schooling and home
training is not appreciably less in Class B. Yet one
is made to feel that the average "civic worth" of
Class A is vastiy greater than that of Class B. The
authors of the volume imply (probably correctiy) that
the majority of the members of Class B might have
been made into fairly satisfactory citizens, even made
"fit to vote," if the social and educational conditions
under which they grew up had been very much better
than they actuaUy were, if each one had been care
fully trained and fuUy educated in a good school and
home, and shielded from aU degrading influences. But
the striking fact remains that, of the "manual work
ers" of this representative group, nearly one-quarter
grew to be good citizens, in spite of many adverse
circumstances, whUe three-quarters of them faUed so
to grow. Would it not make a vast difference to the
future of Britain, to the welfare and happiness of the
whole population, and to the poUtical stabUity, wis
dom, and beneficent world-iofluence of the country, if
the next generation of "manual workers" could come
whoUy from the loins of Class A. As the writers
point out, the elimination of the relatively small
Class C would bring the country in sight of Utopia.
But other investigators have made it appear only
too probable that Class C is the most prolific, and
Class A the least proUfic, of the three classes. Thus
it has been shown that the birth-rate, among mem
bers of the Hearts of Oak Benefit Society, fell below
15 per 1,000, whUe that of the population at large

1 88 BIRTH-RATE IN THE SOCIAL STRATA
remained a Uttie above 30 per 1,000 (Chappie's "Fer-
tUity of the Unfit"). Now the members of the
Hearts of Oak Society are in the main the pick of the
"manual workers," just such persons as make up
the Class A of the Sheffield "manual workers."
A strong inverse correlation of the birth-rate with
social status seems to be general throughout the
European nations. The proof of it in Great Britain
and in the United States of America is overwhelm
ingly strong. Karl Pearson and his associates have
proved it for London beyond question; especiaUy
David Heron ("On the Relation of FertiUty in Men
to Social Status," London, 1906) and Newsholme
and Stevenson ("The Decline of Human FertUity,"
London, 1906). The last-named authors sum up by
saying: "The figures show in a manner which hardly
admits of any doubt that in London at any rate the
inhabitants of the poorest quarters — over a million
in number — are reproducing themselves at a much
greater rate than the more well-to-do." A similar
state of affairs was shown to obtain before the war
in HoUand, in Berlin, and in Vienna. In America
the evidence is not so complete. But simUar facts
have been demonstrated for Pittsburgh. In that city
"Ward 7 has the lowest birth-rate and the lowest
rate of net increase of any ward in the city. With
this may be contrasted the Sixth Ward. . . . Nearly
3,000 of its 14,817 males of voting age are illiterate.
Its death-rate is the highest in the city. Almost
nine-tenths of its residents are either foreigners or
the chUdren of foreigners. Its birth-rate is three times

BIRTH-RATE IN THE SOCIAL STRATA 189
that oj the Scoenth Ward. Taking into account aU the
wards of the cit}-, it is found that the birth-rate rises
as one considers the wards which are marked by a
large foreign population, UUteracy, poverty, and a
high death-rate. . . . The correlation between iUit-
eracy and net increase is + .731. The net increase
of Pittsburgh's population, therefore, is greatest
where the percentage of foreign-born and of iUiterates
is greatest. . . . Pittsburgh, like probably aU large
cities in civilized countries, breeds from the bottom.
The lower a class is in the scale of intelUgence, the
greater is its reproductive contribution." (P. Popenoe
and R. H. Johnson, "AppUed Eugenics," New York,
1918, p. 138.)
The fact of the greater rate of increase of the poorer
classes (or, more generaUy, the inverse correlation of
fertility with good social status) is abundantiy estab
lished; it cannot be denied by our resolute optimists
and fatuously complacent editors. When these peo
ple condescend to consider this fact, they usually take
the line that "one man is as good as another, and
sometimes a good deal better, too." They deny that
there is any correlation between position in the social
scale and intrinsic or native worth. It may be hoped
that the facts of correlation of inteUigence with social
status, recited in the pages of this book, may lead such
persons to consider the problem more seriously. But
we need more evidence on the point.^ It is much to
' The last resort of those who are unwilling to accept
the evidence of positive correlation between intelligence

I90 BIRTH-RATE IN THE SOCIAL STRATA
be regretted that the Sheffield investigators seem to
have paid no attention to the question of the birth
rate among their three classes. ChUdren are men-
and good social status is to assert that the children of the
better social classes are stimulated to more rapid inteUec
tual development in their earUest years by contact with
their more intellectual parents. This explanation has
been fuUy considered and rejected by the workers who
have obtained the evidence. I wiU merely point out here
how Uttle ground there is for this assumption. The chil
dren of the better social classes, especially perhaps in
England, too often spend most of the waking hours of
their early years shut away in a nursery, with little or no
companionship beyond that of a dull nurse-maid, or sitting
solemnly in a baby-cart which is pushed round and round
some public park. The children of the poor enjoy in the
main far more companionship, both childish and adult,
have more stimulating contacts, are thrown more upon
their own resources, and are much less inhibited and re
pressed. In consequence, they are notoriously precocious
and sharp-witted in their early years; the London gamin is
celebrated in this respect. The Ufe of the street and the
gutter may have many dangers, moral and physical, but
it is at least stimulating. As Mrs. Dewey, a high educa
tional authority, says in a recent article: "Not the least
advantage of being born poor is the opportunity it offers
for getting real experience in childhood" (The Nation,
No. 2913). Perhaps no one but a parent who has Uved
intimately with his children, striving day by day and
night by night to promote their development, can fully
realize how refractory is the natural process of unfolding
to aU our efforts.

BIRTH-RATE IN THE SOCIAL STRATA 191
tioned, but the number is not stated in most cases —
an Ulustration of the blindness to this aU-important
topic of so many earnest social workers.
Some years ago I made a rough census of the
families of such of the resident teachers of Oxford as
were known to me and my coUaborators. This
group included 142 members of this highly inteUec
tual selected dass and may fairly be regarded as a
true sample. I found that each of these 142 men
had on the average 1.8 chUdren; that is to say, 284
adults (142 married couples) had 261 chUdren. A
few of these couples, being stiU comparatively young,
would produce more chUdren; but of the then exist
ing chUdren some would die before becoming adults.
These two unknown quantities are probably not very
imequal. In estimating the reproduction rate of
this highly selected class, we must take into the
account the fact of the very large number of bachelors
within it, who, being weU advanced in years, are not
Ukely to marry. It was easy to count 70 elderly
bachelors, aU men of inteUectual distinction.

APPENDIX in
The New Plan
What is to be done about it? That is the urgent
question in the mind of every serious man or woman
who understands the facts and is not utterly blind to
the teachings of history. Many social phUosophers
from Plato onward have advocated measures for the
preservation or improvement of racial qualities.
Some of these, including Plato's stud-stable method
and the practices of infanticide and abortion, which
were common among the Spartans and other Greeks,
cannot be approved or legally recognized to-day with
out grave danger of deterioration of our common
moraUty, without loss of much of that improvement
of the moral tradition which European civiUzation
has undoubtedly achieved in the last two thousand
years, and which we owe so largely to the teachings
of the Founder of Christianity. Yet much can be
done. Our aim in general must be to favor increase
of the birth-rate among the intrinsically better part
of the population, and its decrease among the inferior
part. The first essentials are the further acquisition
of knowledge of the facts and principles involved, a
wide diffusion of such knowledge, and the buUding
up of a strong public opinion. The second and third
are now more important than the first; for, though
192

THE NEW PLAN 193
more exact knowledge is desirable, we have sufficient
to serve for sure general guidance.*
The firm and sufficient basis of the demand for
eugenic measures is the long-recognized fact that
you may not expect to gather figs from thisties or
grapes from thoms. ISIore expUcitiy it may be stated
as foUows: Human quaUties, both mental and physi
cal, are hereditary'; and any human stock is capable
of being improved by training and education, by good
en\-ironmental influences, very slowly only, if at aU,
and probably not at aU. Human beings, far from
being bom with equal potentiaUties of moral and intel
lectual development, inherit these in very different de
grees. Any population may in principle be regarded
as consisting of two halves; the hah made up of aU in-
di\iduals the sum of whose innate qualities or poten
tiaUties is above the average or mean value, and the
' Messrs. Popenoe and Johnson say: "The basal differ
ences in the mental traits of man (and the physical as
weU, of course) are known to be due to heredity, and Uttle
modified by training. It is therefore possible to raise the
level of the human race — the task of eugenics — by getting
that half of the race which is, on the whole, superior in
the traits that make for human progress and happiness,
to contribute a larger proportion to the next generation
than does the half which is on the whole inferior in that
respect. Eugenics need know nothing more, and the
smoke of controversy over the exact way in which some
trait or other is inherited must not be aUowed for an
instant to obscure the known fact that the level can be
raised." (Op. cit., p. 114.)

194 THE NEW PLAN
other haU made up of individuals the sum of whose
quaUties is below the mean value. If these two halves
have persistentiy imequal birth-rates (and the differ
ence of birth-rates is not compensated by an equal
difference in their death-rates), that population wiU
undergo a change of quaUty; and a small difference of
birth-rate is capable of producing a surprisingly large
change of quaUty in the course of a few generations.
We have overwhelmingly strong grounds for believing
that in this country (and in almost all the countries
of Western civilization) the birth-rate of the inferior
half of the population is very considerably greater
than that of the superior half; and this greater birth
rate is only very partiaUy compensated by a higher
death-rate. The problem of eugenics is to equalize
the birth-rate of the two halves (whUe aU efforts to
reduce to a minimum the death-rate of both halves
are continued), or, if possible, to reverse the prevail
ing tendency and to secure, in the superior half of the
population, a higher birth-rate than that of the in
ferior half. If the present state of affairs shall con
tinue, the civilization of America is doomed to rapid
decay. If equaUzation of the birth-rate of the two
halves can be brought about, the country may face
the future with some hope of continued prosperity.
If the present tendency can be reversed, and the birth
rate of the superior half be maintained at a higher
rate than that of the inferior half, then, even though
the difference be but sUght, the American people may
face the future with a weU-grounded hope that they
are buUding up the greatest nation and the most

THE NEW PLAN 195
glorious civilization that the world has ever seen, a
nation capable of assuming the leadership of the world
and of securing the reign of justice, freedom, and
kindness throughout ever)- land.*
The knowledge we have amply justifies the eugenic
demand; the facts are becoming, and wUl become,
more and more widely appreciated; a strong pubUc
opinion is being created. But given the diffusion of
such knowledge and such pubUc opinion, how shall
they be appUed to secure the desired effects? It is
now generaUy agreed that the reproduction of the
least fit, especiaUy of those persons who are indis
putably feeble-minded, should be prevented. PubUc
opinion is akeady aroused on this matter; some steps
have been taken, and others wiU foUow. There is
good ground for hope that within a few decades all
the United States of America wiU effectively deal with
this most immediately urgent evU, the high birth-rate
of the admittedly and grossly unfit. It is needless to
argue here the relative advantages of sterilization
and institutional segregation. Probably both meth
ods wiU be used.
* I leave out of account in this summary statement the
effects of immigration. PubUc opimon on that matter is
already strongly aroused; the bearing and importance of
the immigration problem are so obvious that it is incredi
ble the American people should remain indifferent and
inert in face of it, and should not take very soon the
strictest measures to prevent the immigration of all but
those persons who are in every way well fitted to become
good American citizens in the fullest sense of the words.

196 THE NEW PLAN
But such measures, though they wUl immediately
obviate a large amount of human suffering and wUl
effect a great pubUc economy, will postpone only a Ut
tle the deterioration of quaUty which threatens the
whole nation with decay. Some writers on this topic
(e, g., Professor Knight Dunlap in his "Personal Beauty
and Race Betterment") have expressed the hope that
the wider diffusion of knowledge of methods of birth-
control (the contra-ceptive methods) wUl have a very
beneficial effect. Up to the present, such knowledge,
diffusing itself downward through the social strata,
seems to have diminished very markedly the repro
duction of that part of the population (amounting
perhaps nearly to one-half of it) which is above the
average (statisticaUy) in native quaUties; so that its
effects hitherto have been gravely dysgenic or racially
detrimental. Further diffusion may partially rectify
this dysgenic influence; but it seems highly improb
able that it can, of itseU, ever completely neutraUze
it; it is stiU more improbable that such knowledge wUl
ever operate as a positively eugenic influence.
Professor Dunlap is optimistic enough to suppose
that the further diffusion of this knowledge wiU solve
the "Negro problem" of America. It is to be feared
that it wiU have, among the colored people, only the
positively dysgenic effects which it already produces
on so great a scale in the white population; that among
both white and colored people it wiU be put into
practice only by the more far-sighted, prudent, and
seU-controUed; whUe the most ignorant, careless, and
improvident wiU continue to behave as they always
have behaved.

THE NEW PLAN 197
Something may be hoped from the influence upon
individual conduct of an enUghtened pubUc opinion
and sentiment. But, again, it seems highly improb
able that this factor alone, or in conjunction with the
one last considered, wUl ever suffice to reverse or even
to arrest the process of deterioration.* There can be
Uttie doubt that the economic factor is of dominant
importance in determining the rate of reproduction
in aU dasses but the very poorest and the very rich
est. The outstanding fact of our present civilization
is that the vast majority of men and women are striv
ing to rise, or to maintain themselves, in the social and
economic scale, and that the addition of each chUd to
a famUy is a very serious handicap, a great additional
wdght, to be borne by the parents who are engaged in
this struggle. The acute realization of this fact is
the prindpal ground of the restriction of the birth
rate in recent times among those who have succeeded
in rising above the lower sodal levels. If this be
admitted, and I do not think it is seriously questioned
by any one who is competent to form an opinion
in the matter, it foUows that we must look to some
readjustment of family incomes as the chief eugenic
measure of the future. It may be remarked that
no general raising of the level of prosperity and of
the standard of Uving is Ukely to have the desired
effect in any appreciable degree. For the demands
* It is notorious that the crusade of President Roosevelt
and of many other eminent men against "race suicide"
seems to have made no appreciable effect.

198 THE NEW PLAN
of men (and of women) for the good things which
money can secure are practically unlimited; and the
demands or desires for such things of any particular
famUy are, in the main, relative to the standard set by
their social equals, by the social circle to which by
occupation and education they belong. This stand
ard of demand at any sodal level is the product of the
interplay of many factors, and, though it undergoes
absolute and relative changes, it is fairly stable. In
the main it corresponds to the purchasing power of
the remuneration commonly received by persons of
the average education and abilities of the class con
cerned; and this remuneration tends in the main to
be such as wiU permit the satisfaction of the standard
demands of a family of three or four persons, that is,
a famUy containing one or two chUdren. Each addi
tion to the family, beyond this minimum number, en-
taUs an inability to attain the satisfaction of the
standard demands of the class to which it belongs,
entaUs the going without some one or more of the
good things of Ufe which other famUies of simUar
social level enjoy — it may be domestic help, a piano,
an automobUe, coUege education for the chUdren,
foreign travel, a coimtry house, etc., etc. Nor would
an absolute equaUty of income for all families and
classes meet the case. If that state of affairs could
be maintained, it is clear, I think, that its effects
would be positively dysgenic in a high degree. It is
equaUy clear that the general indiscriminating State
endowment of motherhood, now caUed for in so many
quarters, would have directly dysgenic effects; and

THE NEW PLAN 199
it would be disastrous, in that it would go very
far to destroy the famUy as an institution of any
nation which should adopt this plan. AU such
schemes should be condemned on the general and
suffident ground that the national welfare and social
justice demand that each worker should be remu
nerated in proportion to the value of the services that
he renders to the community. For only in this way
are men effectively stimulated to put forth their best
efforts, and to prepare themselves and their children
to render the more valuable and more arduous and
(what is in the main the same thing) the more inteUec
tual forms of service.
What is required to counteract the very powerful
dysgenic influence of the economic consideration, or
pmdence, is that every famUy which has risen above
the mean sodal level (or, better stUI perhaps, every
famUy which has any good claim to belong to what
may be caUed "the selected classes") should know
that the addition of each chUd should automaticaUy
bring with it an increase of income sufficient to
meet the expenses normaUy incurred in the bringing
up of that chUd. It is clear that, in order to meet
this requirement, the amount of increase of income
would have to bear some given proportion to the in
come already enjoyed or earned. This increase of
income should, I suggest, be not less than one-tenth
of the earned income, and might well be rather more.
A famfly earning an income of $2,000 a year would
then receive, for each living chUd under the age of
say twenty years, an additional income of $200 a

200 THE NEW PLAN
year. If such increase of income, proportional to
the earnings and to the number of chUdren, could be
secured to each famUy of the selected classes, the
eugenic effect would, I submit, be very great, far sur
passing in this direction the effect of any other eugenic
measure that has been proposed; whUe it would do
nothing to diminish the natural and proper incentives
to effort, and would not in any way tend to dimin
ish the sense of parental responsibiUty or to weaken
famUy ties.
The question arises, then — Is there any way in
which we may hope to see such an adjustment of in
comes brought about? In a paper pubUshed many
years ago,* I suggested that the State and the munici-
paUties, which employ a large and constantly increas
ing number of selected servants, should introduce re
muneration on this plan into aU their services. I urged
that, if this were done, pubUc opinion would be quick
to recognize the essential justice, as well as the social
and eugenic expediency, of the plan, and would bring
such pressure to bear on all large employers of skiUed
labor, that they might be led to foUow suit. It is
interesting to note that, since my suggestion was made,
some smaU steps have been made in this direction;
though it is clear that these steps were due to recogni
tion of their essential justice, rather than to considera
tion of their eugenic effects; for statesmen remain
* "A Practicable Eugenic Suggestion," a paper read
before the British Sociological Society and pubUshed in
Sociological Papers, vol. II, London, 1909.

THE NEW PLAN 201
absolutely bUnd and ignorant in face of the eugenic
problem. I refer more espedaUy (i) to the small
remissions of income tax made by the British Govern
ment on account of chUdren of persons of small in
comes; (2) to the separation aUowances paid to sol
diers by the British and other governments during
the war. In the British army these aUowances were
made larger in proportion to the number of children
and in proportion to the rank and pay of the soldier;
so that a sergeant-major, for example, with a large
famfly received a very much larger pay than an un
married private. This was essentiaUy just, and was
generaUy approved; and it was also eugenic. But
that the eugenic consideration played no part in de
termining this scale seems dear from the fact that
(untU near the end of the war, when some sUght
change was made) the plan was not appUed to the
commissioned officers. The British Government thus
let sUp an opportunity to put in practice a eugenic
measure of tremendous power, which would have
been universaUy welcomed and approved, and which
would have done something to compensate for the
terrible losses of human quaUties which the country
suffered in the war. For there, in the commissioned
ranks, were practicaUy all the most capable and
healthy young men of the British Empire, aU the
most desirable fathers, selected from aU the manhood
of the Empire by the stringent tests of achievement
in the field and success in the officers' training-schools.
The ignorance and foUy of a government which let
pass this opportunity, whUe recognizing in its treat-

202 THE NEW PLAN
ment of the non-commissioned ranks the essential
justice of this plan of remuneration, is deplorable,
both on account of the grave injustice done to so
many brave men and on account of the many fine
chUdren they might have fathered under the plan,
but who were never conceived.* Yet, in spite of the
loss of this great opportunity and of the official ignor
ing of the eugemc effects of remuneration on the new
plan, the fact that it was appUed throughout the
non-commissioned ranks is very encouraging; for it
constituted offidal recognition of the justice of this
plan and familiarized the pubUc with the prindple.
I can see no reason why, in this and in every dvi
Uzed coimtry, this new plan of remuneration should
not be appUed forthwith to every State and munidpal
service, with great eugenic effects. But I recognize
difficulties in the way of supposing that the same
plan might be universally or widely adopted by pri
vate firms or by pubUc and semi-public corporations
and institutions not supported by taxation. Let us
consider the case of the teachers in those educational
institutions which are not wholly supported by pub
Uc funds. To make the problem more concrete, let
us take the case of the teachers in an endowed univer
sity, such as Harvard or Yale, institutions which, next
to the States and the municipaUties, might be expected
to be most readUy moved by enUghtened regard for
* There were non-commissioned officers with famiUes
who refused to accept commissions because they could
not afford to do so.

THE NEW PLAN 203
eugenic prindples. The president has at his disposal
a certain amount of income for pajonent of salaries.
He rightiy desires to indude in the faculty the largest
possible number of men of high abiUty and achieve
ment. Two candidates for a post appear to be equally
weU qualified ; but one of them is a bachelor, or has a smaU
famUy; the other, though of the same age, already
has a large famUy. Which wiU the president appoint,
if the "new plan" has been adopted? SimUar diffi
culties in the working of the plan would arise in — and
would be even more serious in — any corporation whose
primary aim was the making of profits. It is perhaps
hardly to be hoped that — even U the "new plan" were
enforced by legislation in the pubUc services, the
army, the nav}-, the civU service, the munidpal ser
vices, and so forth — example and the force of pubUc
opinion could secure its effective adoption in the
remuneration of aU selected classes of workers. What
possibiUties of its general adoption remain? I can
think of two only, or rather two varieties of one
scheme; namely, the setting apart of a national fund
for the supplementing of salaries of selected workers
according to the "new plan." This national fund
might be provided by taxation; or it might be created,
and increased from time to time, by the pubUc spirit
and beneficence of rich men. We have already seen
the late Andrew Carnegie provide a pensions fund for
selected university professors. May we not hope for
the realization of this more far-reaching scheme,
which, from the points of view of both social justice
and national weUare, would be so admirable. I can

204 THE NEW PLAN
think of no other purpose to which the rich man who
wishes to promote the welfare of his kind, both in the
present and for aU time, could so confidently devote
his wealth, without risk of pauperizing any individual,
or of doing any social injury that might offset the bene
fits he aimed to confer on his fellow men. In order
to make the "new plan" as wide in its operation as is
desirable, a very large sum would be required ; but in
the first instance it might be applied to some one
highly selected class, such as the teachers in colleges
and universities. For not only are such teachers in
the main a very highly selected class, embodying
much of the best human qualities of the whole coun
try; they are also notoriously a class which is restricted
in reproduction by the narrowness of its means; and
they are a class whose remuneration is in the hands of
responsible governing bodies, which might be trusted
to administer with discretion and fairness any moneys
derived from "the national fund for the new plan."
In view of the difficulty of moving legislatures to
action directed to the good of posterity, it seems prob
able that the best hope of instituting the new plan
Ues in the possibiUty of raising the required national
fund by appeal to private beneficence. It might be
hoped that, if in this way a beginning were once made,
the State legislatures or, better stiU, the federal gov
ernment, might later be led to appreciate the value
of the new plan, to adopt it in the payment of aU
pubUc servants, and to create the large national fund
necessary for its general appUcation on the widest
possible scale.

THE NEW PLAN 205
If the new plan were adopted in Great Britain, it
might save some remnants of the old professional
class which, the product of a long process of selection,
has been the repository of a very large proportion of
the best quaUties of the British stock and the source of
most of the leaders in aU departments of the national
Ufe. This dass, on which the burdens of the war fell
more heavfly than on any other, is now being rapidly
taxed out of existence.

APPENDIX IV
Registration of Family Histories
Although I regard the "new plan" sketched in
Appendix III as the most important eugenic measure
that can be advocated with any hope of success, I
recognize that we cannot afford to neglect any other
measure of eugenic tendency; and I propose here
another such reform which, as public opinion becomes
enUghtened, might be of great value, and might be
put into operation without great cost and without any
interference with the Uberty of the individual. I sug
gest that every State should institute a voluntary
registration of famUy histories, and should keep, in
dear and easUy consulted form, a record of aU famUy
histories thus registered.
It is one of the gravest evUs of the present time,
and a source of terrible hardship to many persons,
that, in choosing a wife or husband, the choice has so
often to be made in almost complete ignorance of
important facts in the famUy history of the individual
concerned. Many a man (and woman) has found
himseU united to a partner whose famUy history
betrays a strong tendency to iasanity, tuberculosis,
or alcohol, or some other grave defect.
If such voluntary registration were instituted, ana
if the State made every effort, by the aid of properly
equipped officials, to verify and check the accuracy of
2o6

FAMILY HISTORIES 207
the recorded information, it would, I thuik, soon
become the custom, for aU or most of the more edu
cated part of the community, to register each chUd
in its proper place in the genealogical tables, and to
consult these tables (at a smaU fee, perhaps) when
engagement or marriage was contemplated. Even if
the young people concerned were slow, in many cases,
to take advantage of the information thus rendered
avaUable, their parents might be trusted to pay more
attention to it, and, in the Ught of it, to give wise
advice, which, when so well founded, would not faU
to carry weight. When the system had been in
operation for some Uttie time, the mere absence of
any famfly record in the official tables would afford
a strong presumption of the existence of some grave
defect in the famfly concerned, and would be a
ground for caution and further inquiry. That very
many persons are not averse from such recording
of their famUy histories, and even their pubUcation at
large, is shown by the columns devoted to genealo
gies of dtizens m some of the leading newspapers of
America.

t ¦.

lki.X-

4 K. ^Kf^^^'''^'>'i
Some of the most prominent advocates of eugenic measures ha\'e been bachelors or childless men, and in
some cases the\- ha\e been persons whose lamily relations h.ive in olher wa\'s tleparterl from the normal and
gcneralK- desirable t\pe. It thus happens that the eugenists have been laid open to the retort — Whv don't you
practise what \-ou preach? In order to defend m\'self in advance from any such reproach, I publish a little
picture of my children as they appeared in the year 11)14. I indulge at the same time a form of pride of which
no man need feel ashamed. In the pages of this book I may seem to have said some hard things about the
American nation. Let me here point out that, in bringing my children to dwell in this country, I have paid to
its people the highest ami sincerest compliment that any man could offer.

oI— I

APPENDIX VI
I add a short list of the books which seem to me
best suited to give the general reader further informa
tion concerning the main topic cUscussed in the fore-
gomg pages:
"AppUed Eugenics," by Paul Popenoe (editor of
the Journal oj Heredity) and R. H. Johnson.
New York: The MacmUlan Co., 1918.
This is, I think, the best general discussion of
eugenic problems and principles for the general
reader. "The Racial Prospect," by S. K. Humphrey.
New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1920, and
" Mankind," by the same author and pubUsher,
1917.
These two books are exceUent discussions of human
quaUties, with special reference to the future in
America. "The Old World m the New," by E. A. Ross (Pro
fessor of Sodology in the University of Wis-
consm). New York: The Century Co., 1914.
A discussion of "The Significance of Past and
Present Immigration to the American People." The
author cites many facts of observation and many

212 APPENDIX
weighty opinions which Ulustrate the reaUty of radal
pecuUarities and their persistence and influence under
changed environment. The careful reader wiU see
that these, in the main, agree dosely with the evidence
and findings of my pages; compare, e. g., what is said
on pages 113 et seq. on the low level of inteUigence
and the character traits of the immigrants from
Southern Italy. It is much to be desired that every
American dtizen should read this book with an open
mind. Says this high authority: "Not until the
twenty-first century wUl the phUosophic historian be
able to declare with sdentific certitude that the cause
of the mysterious decline that came upon the Ameri
can people early in the twentieth century was the
deterioration of popular inteUigence by the admis
sion of great numbers of backward immigrants."
"The Du-ection of Human Evolution," by E. G.
Conklin (Professor of Biology in Princeton
University). New York: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1921.
An exceUent popular discussion of human and
radal quaUties from the eugenic and poUtical point
of view by a distinguished biologist.
"Population and Burth Control," edited by E.
and C. Paul. New York: The Critic and
Guide Company, 191 7.
Written by a dozen writers of widely dissimUar
views, this book contains a very thorough and weU-
balanced discussion of that aU-important topic,

APPENDIX 213
birth control, its eugenic and dysgenic tendencies
and possibiUties.
"The Revolutions of CivUization," by Professor
Flinders Petrie. New York: Harper Bros.,
1919.
An impressive picture of the rise and faU of dviliza-
tions by this eminent archaeologist and Egyptologist.
This is only a smaU selection from a large and
rapidly increasing Uterature. I wish to point out to
readers that they are not to regard this selection as one
sided and biassed. The most striking fact about the
present situation is that, whUe popular and journalistic
opinion refuses in the main to face the radal problem
and to take seriously the propaganda of the eugenists,
aU the facts, aU authority, and aU instructed and
weighty opinion converge to show the supreme im
portance of this problem and of this propaganda.

( J I
I -?7

I

7^-

INDEX

/Acquired quaUties, 139, 148
Adaptation of culture, 104
Alpine race, the, 89
America, responsibility of, 1-4;
resources of, 2; social strata
in, 64
American intelligence, 161
Amusements, 13
Anthropole^c theory, the, 7-
12, 17
Anthropology, difficulties of , 18
Anti-Semitism, 27
Archetypes, 125
Arlitt, Miss A. H., 63
Art and morals, 72
Aryan myth, the, 19
Birth-rate, 155, 185-191
Bismarck, 113
Blending of races, 9
Boutmy, 75
British, muddle, 112, 116;
folly, 201
Buckle, T. H., 25, 108
Burt, Cyril, 63
Cattell, J. McK., 164
Chamberlain, H. S., 26, 31
Chinese, 68
Civilization, advantage of mod
ern, 4; curve of, 6; complex
ity of, 12, 13, 17, 168
Civilizations, rise and fall of, 5
Civilized man and warfare, 3
Classic art, 73
Climate and art, 75
Climax, 157, 172
Collective unconscious, the,
125

Complexity of civilization, 12,
13, 17, 168
Confirmation of tests, 49
Conklin, E. G., 212
Constitutional types, 86
Cross-breeds, 132
Culture, adaptation of, 104
Curiosity, 78
Curve of civilization, 6
Curves of distribution, 36, 37,
161
Darwinism, 128
Davenport, C. B., 164
De Lapouge, 28
Defectives, mental, 40, 165
Desmolin, E., 108
Deterioration, 147
Drunkenness, 88
Dunlap, Knight, 196
Economic interpretation, 7
Education, power of, 16, 22, 52
Egypt, 8
Ellis, Havelock, 159
England, 93, 153
English, H. B., 61
Equality, 23, 178-183
European races, 72
Exchange of qualities, 34
Extroverts, 85
Family histories, registration
of, 206
Feminism, 150
Ferguson, 56
Finot, J., 29
France, 89

215

2x6

INDEX

French, the, qualities of, 105,
III; components of, 109;
and British, 145
Freud, S., 127, 129
^ Galton, F., 59
Gamett, Maxwell, 69
Garth, R., 56
Gehring, A., 73, 77
Genius, 40
German docility, 1 13
Gobineau, Count, 25
Goddard, H. H., 43, 166
Grant, Madison, 28
Great Britain, 157
Great War and knowledge, 3
Greece, 168
Gregarious instinct, 82
Halford, S. H., 150, 156
Harvard graduates, 164
Heron, D., 188
Hertz, F., 27
Hindus, 68
Hirsch, N. D., 44
Homicide, 97
Human reservoirs, 3
Humphrey, S. K., 211
Hunter, R., 56
Huot, 119
Idiots, 40
Illiterates, 45
Immigration, 160, 195
Impairment of qualities, 16
Inadequacy of qualities, 12
Inbreeding, 10
Indians, 56
Instincts of man, 76
InteUectual energy, 51
Intellectual forms, 137
Intelligence, inborn, 47, 52, 59
Intelligence of children, 50, 57,
61,65
Intelligence and morals, 135

Intelligence and social status,
63
Intercourse of peoples, 14
Introverts, 85
Iseman, M. S., 160
Italians, 64, 65
James, William, 69, 76
Jews, 28, 33, 127
Johnson, R. H., 189, 2 II
Jung, C. G., 85, 124
Knowledge, effects of new, 2;
and wisdom, 11
Kornhauser, A. W., 152
Langfeld, H. S., 73
Leisure, 13
Literates and illiterates, 45
Manual workers, 185
Medical profession, the, 166
Mental defect hereditary, 42
Mental defectives, 40, 165
Mental tests, 43
Mesopotamia, 8
Mill, J. S., 20
Moral chaos, 15
Moral qualities, 67, 135
Moral sentiments, 130
Morals, and art, 72; and intel
ligence, 135
MorseUi, E., 92, 96
Muddle, British, 112, 116
Mulatto intelligence, 55
Musical talent, 124
Mutiny, Indian, 71
National character, 33
National fund, 204
National institutions, 146
Negro, the, intelligence of, 54,
57; moral qualities of, 117
Neo-Darwinism, 128 ¦'
Nervous troubles, 87

INDEX

217

New factor, 172
New knowledge, effects of, 2
New plan, 192-205
Newsholme, 188
Nordic race, the, 29; curiosity
of, 80; self-assertion of, 115
Normans, 114
Oakesmith, J., 29, 31
Old age of nations, 9
Oxford experiment, 61
Parabola of peoples, 6, 157
Pater, Walter, 77
Paul, E. and C, 213
Pearson, K., 60, 164, 188
Persistence of qualities, 143
Personal relations, 13
Petrie, Flinders, 5, 9, 213
Physical energies, control of, 1 1
Pittsburgh, 188
Plato, 192
Popenoe, P., 164, 189, 193. 2"
Portuguese, the, 65
Pressey, S. L., 57, 65
Professional classes, 204, 205
Protestants, 102, 116
Providence, 120
Psychoanalysts, 129
Quessel, L., 160
Race, H. V., 136
Race blending, 9
Race-dogmatists, 26
Race hatred, 27
Race and inteUigence, 53
Race problem, 19
Race-slumpers, 30
Race suicide, 160, 197
Races, European, 72
Ralston, R., 65
Red men, 117
Registration of family his
tories, 206

Reid, ArchdaU, 88
Religion and race, lOO
ResponsibUity, 174
Reversion, 147
Ripley, Z., 37, 90, 92
Robertson, J. M., 29
Roman Empire, 8
Romans, 79
Romantic art, 74
Rome, 170
Ross, E. A., 211
Seeck, Otto, 79, 170
Selection, 149 '*
Shaler, N. S., 55, 56, 58, 120,
132
Sheffield, 185
Slavery, 13
Sociability, 81
Social ladder, 152, 155, 159
Social status and inteUigence,
62,152
Social strata in America, 64
Spain, 171
Spaniards, the, 65
Spencer, H., 155 •-
Standard demands, 198
State register, 206
Statistical statements, 35
Stature, distribution of, 37
Stevenson, 188
Suicide, 91
Terman, S. M., 49, 64, 135, 162
Tests, mental, 43
Teter, G. F., 57
Times, the London, no, 157
TourviUe, H. de, 81
Transmission of acquired qual
ities, 148
Trustworthiness, 134
Voivenel, 119
Volney, 106

2l8

INDEX

War, the Great, and knowl-
Warfare, ancient and modern, Woodworth, R. S., 55
4
Waugh, K. T., 68
Western civilization at climax,
II
Will-power, 69 ZoUshan, I., 28

Wonder, 78
Woodruff, C, 28

Yerkes, R. M., 49
Yoakum, P. S., 49

YALE UNIVERSITY

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