Tungusic family in eastern Siberia. Through contact with the Mongols they became a literary people. They subjected China in 1644, and adopted the Chinese speech and mode of thinking to such an extent that their language is no longer spoken and almost every vestige of their former lore is irretrievably lost.[8-ii]

An equally striking illustration is furnished by the Arabs. Here, too, we have a people of crude civilization suddenly emerging from an unimportant position in the world’s affairs to blossom forth not only as a military and political, but a cultural power as well, deriving from Persia and Babylonia the impulse to philological and historical studies, from Byzantium the technique of naval warfare, the art of paper-manufacture from the Chinese, Euclid from the Syrian outposts of Greek culture, and from India the decimal notation.[9-ii] We find further that they were not passive assimilators, but original elaborators and active transmitters of the received elements, to whom European science is under a lasting debt of gratitude and whose art constitutes at least a highly creditable and individual achievement.

The conclusion suggested by these examples is very strongly corroborated by an examination of our own race. We need not enter into the subtleties of sub-racial classifications for the present purpose, but will simply regard the European race in relation to European culture generally. It is clear that all those startling technological advantages that most sharply divide us from other peoples are a mushroom growth little over a century old. In the first half of the nineteenth century matches were unknown and the processes of fire-making were not superior to those of many primitive tribes. The steam-engine and the industrial revolution are of very little greater antiquity, not to speak of electrical contrivances and applied chemistry. The difference between ourselves and our forefathers is at first blush so tremendous that a priori it would seem to be explainable only by very great mental differences, yet nothing is more certain than that their innate mentality was exactly the same. The cultural difference becomes more and more glaring as we proceed backwards, say, to the period antedating the art of printing. A portion of our Middle Ages compares rather unfavorably with contemporaneous Arabian or Chinese civilization. “If we go back to the fifteenth century,” says Professor Giles, “we shall find that the standard of civilization, as the term is usually understood, was still much higher in China than in Europe; while Marco Polo, the famous Venetian traveler of the thirteenth century, who actually lived twenty-four years in China, and served as an official under Kublai Khan, has left it on record that the magnificence of Chinese cities, and the splendor of the Chinese court, outrivaled anything he had ever seen or heard of.”[10-ii]

Certainly the racial factor, which is a constant, cannot account for the amazing changes in culture which we encounter in passing from one period of our era to another. If we are interested in explaining these cultural phenomena, we must cast about for some other determinants.

In a subject that is constantly confused by partisanship it is important to make no greater claims for an argument than the facts absolutely warrant. Accordingly, I hasten to explain what has really been shown and what I have failed to show hitherto. It is, I think, fair to say that culture cannot be adequately explained by race, and that the same race varies extraordinarily in culture even within a very narrow space of time. But we have not furnished proof that, say, the Central African Pygmies, the Tasmanians, or the aborigines of Australia would have been capable of attaining unaided to the level of our civilization. What we can say, however, is this: The Chinese and some of our American Indians, such as the ancient Central Americans and Peruvians, did attain a very high level, which may be equated with that of Europe at a relatively recent period. The difference between European culture then and now cannot be due to hereditary causes, and it would, therefore, be unjustifiable to allege that such causes account for the difference between Europe of today and China or ancient Central America. Quite generally it is true that the so-called primitive tribes are anything but primitive in the strict sense of the term. Ingenious contrivances, such as the boomerang, occur among the Australians, usually regarded as one of the lowliest of races, and here we also find a remarkable complexity of social organization. The Negroes of Africa are not only conversant with the art of metallurgy, which is possibly their own invention, but are conspicuous for their ability to form large and powerful political states and have shown at least the ability of assimilating the culture of Islam. If we contrast Negro culture on the average not with the highest products of Dutch, Danish, or Swiss culture, but with the status of the illiterate peasant communities in not a few regions of Europe, the difference will hardly be so great as to suggest any far-reaching hereditary causes. As the highly civilized Manchu of today have for their next racial kin very crude Siberian populations, so the white race, even today, embraces very primitive as well as highly advanced constituent groups. We cannot wholly isolate the racial factor from others, and we cannot give an ocular demonstration of what the several inferior races, so-called, are capable of achieving under the most favorable conditions. But with great confidence we can say that since the same race at different times or in different subdivisions at the same time represents vastly different cultural stages, there is obviously no direct proportional relation between culture and race. And if great changes of culture can occur without any change of race whatsoever, we are justified in considering it probable that a relatively minute change of hereditary ability might produce enormous differences. An analogy may render the matter clearer. Suppose that it is of vital importance to lift a heavy weight, say 400 pounds, to which only a single individual has access at the same time. Then a very slight difference in muscular power will either accomplish or fail in producing the desired effect, and the ultimate effect (say in repelling an attack on a fortress under relatively primitive conditions) will be entirely incommensurate with the additional strength required to produce it. So we may readily understand how a slightly greater mechanical aptitude might render one race able to launch a remarkable series of inventions for which another, by barely missing the required degree of development, would be forever debarred. This is only a special form of the Darwinian doctrine of the survival value of small variations, applied not to the question of the struggle for existence (with which, nevertheless, it may be most intimately related), but to the creation of new cultural values.

This aspect of the subject naturally leads to another that is closely connected with it and is essential to an understanding of the entire question. Mental endowment is a variable phenomenon within any particular people or tribe. However democratic may be our ideals, the doctrine that all individuals are born equal in point of ability can no longer be seriously maintained. Every race must, therefore, be regarded not as representing a