I MAY now be allowed to pass once more briefly over the whole ground
that we have covered. First of all, we tried to understand the reasons
for our belief in the existence of gifted races and of others less
favorably endowed, and found that it was based essentially on the
assumption that higher achievement is necessarily associated with higher
mental faculty, and that therefore the features of those races that in
our judgment have accomplished most are characteristics of mental
superiority. We subjected these assumptions to a critical study, and
discovered little evidence to support them. So many other causes were
found to influence the progress of civilization, accelerating or
retarding it, and similar processes were active in so many different
races, that, on the whole, hereditary traits, more particularly
hereditary higher gifts, were at best a possible, but not a necessary,
element determining the degree of advancement of a race.
The second part of the fundamental assumption seemed even less likely.
Hardly any evidence could be adduced to show that the anatomical
characteristics of the races possessing the highest civilization were
phylogenetically more advanced than those on lower grades of culture.
The various races differ in this respect; the specifically human
characteristics being most highly developed, some in one race, some in
another. Furthermore, it appeared that a direct relation between
physical habitus and mental endowment does not exist.
After thus clearing away the racial prejudice, the most formidable
obstacle to a clear understanding of our problem, we turned to an
investigation of the question whether human types are stable, more
particularly whether environment may change the anatomical structure of
man, and thus of his mental make-up, and to the correlated question,
what man owes to heredity. In treating the general question of the
stability of human types, we described some rudimentary organs and some
peculiar anatomical traits which prove a phylogenetic development of
man, traces of which were found in all races. The influence of
environment was demonstrated in all those cases in which changes in the
rate of growth affected the final form of the body; and we saw
particularly that early arrest of development does not necessarily mean
unfavorable development, because in many cases the rapidity and short
period of development seemed favorable elements. We saw that other
changes in human types may be brought about by selection, and that
environment itself seems to have a direct effect upon bodily form, as
was proved by the changes of type due to the transfer from a rural
environment to city life, and to the immigration of various
nationalities from Europe to America. We saw, however, that there is no
evidence at present to prove that these changes exceed certain definite
limits. Special attention was directed to those features of the bodily
form that characterize man as a domesticated animal, and which are due
to the peculiarities of human nutrition, and which facilitate crossing
of distinct types. The mentality of man appeared also to be influenced
by the degree of his domestication.
Turning to the influence of heredity, we recognized that by it are
determined all the most fundamental features of each race and type of
man, and that often the individual reverts to the traits of the one or
the other of his parents, or of his remote ancestors, in such manner
that one trait may belong to one ancestor, another to another. This
tendency seemed to explain the development of local types, and we
recognized the importance of the breaking of old fines of heredity, in
cases of intermarriages of branches of the same race that had long been
separated. By analogy we concluded that possibly, or probably, similar
tendencies may exist in the mental life of man.
After we had thus gained an insight into the physical characteristics of
the races and social groups of man, we took up a consideration of his
mental life. The mental traits common to all mankind are those which
appear by contrasting man with animals; and we pointed out briefly that
articulate language, the use of implements, and the power of reasoning,
belong to all members of the human species as opposed to the higher
animals. Before we entered into the comparison of the mental life of
primitive man and of civilized man, we had to clear away a number of
misconceptions caused by the current descriptions of the life of
primitive man. We saw that the oft-repeated claim that he has no power
to inhibit impulses, no power of attention, no originality of thought,
no power of clear reasoning, could not be maintained; and that all these
faculties are common to primitive man and to civilized man, although
they are excited on different occasions. This led us to a brief
consideration of the question whether the hereditary mental faculty was
improved by civilization, an opinion that did not seem plausible to us.
The study of the problem of the relation of racial descent to cultural
advancement required a determination of the question in how far these
are correlated. We endeavored to gain an insight into this problem by
following out the relations between human types, languages, and
cultures. A general lack of correlation appeared, which led us to infer
that the present types of man are older than the present linguistic
families, and that each type developed a number of languages. Since
these must be considered the product of the mental activities of each
type, uninfluenced or almost uninfluenced by other types, we tried to
discover whether one language could be shown to be superior to others,
and whether some languages made higher forms of thought impossible. The
results of this inquiry were quite analogous to those obtained in our
inquiry into the physical characteristics of man, and showed similar
traits in all languages, and also that languages were moulded by
thought, not thought by languages.
There still seemed to be a possibility of proving the backwardness of
certain tribes, if it could be shown that members of certain races were
all on early levels of culture, while those of other races had
independently reached later stages of development. This would presuppose
that the general course of cultural development is the same everywhere,
and that types of culture can be ascribed to definite stages of
development. The theory of such general parallelism of the history of
human culture is based on the similarity of cultural traits in all parts
of the world. Our analysis showed that the similarities were more
apparent than real, that they often developed by convergent development
from distinct sources, and that not all stages have been present in all
types of cultures. Thus all attempts to correlate racial types and
cultural stages failed us, and we concluded that cultural stage is
essentially a phenomenon dependent upon historical causes, regardless of
race.
Finally we attempted to describe the mental characteristics of primitive
man, regardless of his racial affiliations. We pointed out the
differences in principles of classification of experience found on
different social stages, and the differences in logical conclusions
reached by primitive and civilized man owing to the difference in the
character of knowledge accumulated by preceding generations. We then
followed out the emotional associations of habitual activities, and the
tendency to invent for them rationalistic explanations. We found them
quite common in primitive life, and noticed the great variety of ideas
and activities that were thus brought into contact so as to produce a
number of peculiar concepts and activities. Other peculiar associations
are not due to strong emotional causes, but to all of them is common the
tendency of taking on rationalistic explanations of varied character.
The change from primitive to civilized society includes a lessening of
the number of the emotional associations, and an improvement of the
traditional material that enters into our habitual mental operations.
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