relations between race and civilization we may fruitfully employ the method of variation. Making the racial factor a constant, we may inquire whether culture, too, is thereby made a constant, and whether a change in racial propinquity is correlated with a proportionate change of culture. On the other hand, we may start with culture as a constant and inquire whether each form or grade of culture is the concomitant of definite racial characteristics and whether a change in culture is accompanied by a corresponding change of race.

To begin with the latter method, which may be briefly disposed of: Taking our own type of culture, as represented in western Europe and North America, we find that it is shared by at least one people of quite distinct stock, the Japanese, who have already made important contributions to the general civilization of the world in such lines as biology and scientific medicine. An obvious objection is that the Japanese are not the originators of our cultural foundation but have borrowed it ready-made (as they once borrowed that of China), and merely added a few additional stones to the superstructure. This fact cannot, of course, be questioned, but as soon as we investigate historically the origin of our own modern civilization we find that it, too, is largely the product of numerous cultural streams, some of which may be definitely traced to distinct races or sub-races. Our immediate indebtedness to Rome and Greece has been drilled into us with such fulsomely exaggerated emphasis in our schooldays that the less said about it the better for a fair estimate of general culture history. That the Greeks were merely the continuators and inheritors of an earlier Oriental culture, must be considered an established fact. Our economic life, based as it is on the agricultural employment of certain cereals with the aid of certain domesticated animals, is derived from Asia; so is the technologically invaluable wheel.[3-ii] The domestication of the horse certainly originated in inner Asia; modern astronomy rests on that of the Babylonians, Hindu, and Egyptians; the invention of glass is an Egyptian contribution; spectacles come from India;[4-ii] paper, to mention only one other significant element of our civilization, was borrowed from China. What is right for the goose, is right for the gander; and if the Japanese deserve no credit for having appropriated our culture, we must also carefully eliminate from that culture all elements not demonstrably due to the creative genius of our race before laying claim to the residue as our distinctive product. As Thorndike, among others, has pointed out,[5-ii] the races have not remained in splendid isolation, but any particular one has obtained most of its civilization from without, and “of ten equally gifted races in perfect intercourse each will originate only one-tenth of what it gets.” This, to be sure, represents an ideal condition, and we have no right to assume gratuitously that the peoples in contact are all equally gifted; but it is worth noting that momentous ideas may be conceived by what we are used to regard as inferior races. Thus, the Maya of Central America conceived the notion of the zero figure, which remained unknown to Europeans until they borrowed it from India; and eminent ethnologists suggest that the discovery of the iron technique is due to the Negroes.

In short, the possessors of a culture are not necessarily its originators; often they are demonstrably borrowers of specific elements of the greatest significance. The same culture may thus become the property of distinct races, as is rapidly becoming the case in modern times. Owing to the very extensive occurrence of diffusion the question what a particular people or race has originated becomes extremely complicated; while it is an established fact that important additions to human civilization have been made by diverse stocks.

It may not be out of place to point out that not only the more tangible elements of culture, but very much subtler ingredients than those hitherto mentioned are shared by distinct groups of mankind. Thus, common to ourselves and the Chinese, though strikingly lacking among the Hindu, who, nevertheless, are racially nearer to us, is a marked sense for historical perspective. Common to the ancient Romans, the modern Germans, and the modern Japanese, is the talent for rationalistic organization of administrative affairs. We cannot assume under the circumstances that the Japanese are organically nearer to the Germans than to other Asiatics. These instances seem the more valuable because here borrowing is excluded. The racial factor may in some way be involved; it is conceivable that only with a certain minimum of organic equipment could a particular cultural trait be developed or even assimilated. But obviously the same cultural traits may be coupled with different racial characteristics.

But what results from making race a constant? That no essential organic change has taken place in the human race during the historic period is universally admitted without question by biologists, physical anthropologists, and brain specialists. Accordingly, when we concentrate our attention on a definite people and follow their fortunes during historic times, we are dealing with a genuine constant from the racial point of view. It requires no very great acquaintance with history to note startling cultural diversity correlated with this stability of organic endowment.

The culture of the Mongol proper about the beginning of the thirteenth century was that of an essentially primitive people, sharing the shamanistic beliefs of their general habitat and ignorant of writing. Suddenly we find them attaining an extraordinary political importance, dominating Asia and menacing Europe, conversant successively with several forms of script, practising the art of printing, and becoming ardent exponents of Buddhism. Today they appear fallen from their high estate, devoid of political power, and with their semi-sedentary nomad life again give the impression of primitiveness, though tempered with evidences of a higher civilization.[6-ii] These changes are not only manifestly independent of the racial factor, but can in part be directly traced to other causes. Buddhism, of course, was derived ultimately from India. Under Jenghis Khan both Chinese characters and an alphabet derived from the Syrian, which had been spread through central Asia by Nestorian missionaries, came into use; while another system of writing was based on that of Tibet, and the art of printing was learned from the Chinese.[7-ii] The political predominance of the Mongols was due to a few powerful personalities; and economic factors seem to have been at least potent agents in the degenerative process of Mongol civilization. In short, we have a group of determinants that are not even remotely connected with hereditary racial traits.

Somewhat similar results appear from a consideration of Manchu history. The Manchu were originally an insignificant and rude tribe of the