When we pass from the United States to Mexico we cross the boundary line
which separates the two most immense experiments in human breeding the
world has ever seen. North of this experimental Rubicon, as we have just
seen, the basal stock, which is north-west European or Nordic in origin,
has been ruled by a sense of race-caste and has consequently maintained
its racial characters. But south of our Rubicon the result of racial
contact has been absolutely different. The south-west European or
Iberian stock broke down the natural barrier which Nature had set up
between them and the natives of Mexico and South America and solved
their racial antagonisms by the fusion of blood. The results of these
two experiments, carried out on such an immense scale, we can see
to-day. The northern experiment, which is now three centuries old, has
given the world two of her most virile peoples destined to hold their
place whether humanity becomes planted out on a vast, peaceful, and
uniform cabbage-patch or still remains, as now, broken up into national
and racial factions. These northern peoples are as effective, so far at
least as concerns their chances of survival, as the original Nordic
stock. The southern experiment, which began four centuries ago, has
given the world a jangling series of small peoples, not any one of which
is equal, either in body or in mind, to the pioneer Iberian stock. From
the anthropologist's point of view the northern experiment is the
successful one.
We have been glancing at the national and racial problems of the
American continent and we ought now to pass on to note the form in which
they are presented to us by Australasia. Before passing on, however,
there is one very important aspect of the southern or Iberian experiment
which we must consider now because it throws light on the path along
which I want to lead you. Why did the racial barrier between Iberian and
Indian break down? Was it because the Iberian did not possess--was not
influenced by--a sense of race-caste such as we have seen to dominate
the Nordic colonist? I believe that race-caste or race-prejudice is and
has been a more potent force in the Nordic than in the Iberian stock.
The Iberian people are near neighbours of the African races; in physique
they are differentiated from the African stocks in a somewhat less
degree than the Nordic stocks which represent the utmost point in the
physical specialization of all European peoples. If the Iberian pioneer
carried with him to America a lesser degree of race-caste, the process
of hybridization would begin the more easily. The great north and south
experiments differed, however, in another important circumstance. The
Nordic encountered a scattered, nomadic, proud race; the Iberian a
settled people living in dense communities. The Iberian was thus exposed
to conditions in which a racial barrier was harder to maintain.