2
498 personal observation and inquiry, appeared in articles con- tributed to the Bzblioth’eyce Universelle of Geneva, in which, inter alia, he anticipated by nearly 40 years the Unionist policy towards Ireland. His skill, his energy, his command of men, were shown in the statecraft which made France and Great Britain his auxiliaries in the expulsion of Austria from Lombardy, thus setting the revolutionary ball rolling which GARIBALDI urged on to the liberation of the Two Sicilies and their absorption ‘. into the Italian kingdom-matters which are, in the day now passing, familiar to the world in the vivid narrative of Mr. GEORGE MACAULAY TREVELYAN. Having achieved his country’s independence, he reverted to the nature-study and the biological sciences which had fascinated his youth, and, among many strokes of academic policy, he may be credited with the revival of physiological teaching in Italy by bringing the distinguished Dutch chemist and biologist JACOB MOLESCHOTT to Turin, a step which has re-invigorated the study in every Italian medical school, where more than one of the professors have been MOLE- SCHOTT’S pupils. Indeed, there is no calculating the good he might have wrought in Italy had not "his sun gone down while it was yet day." After his death his repositories were found to be full of designs for developing the agricultural resources of the mainland and the islands, one of these being a plan for converting Sicily into a great tobacco-growing plantation. His work, as his compatriots sadly admit, was but half done when he died at Turin in his fifty-first year, a martyr to over-exertion and high- pressure activity, intellectual and moral-a work which he himself acknowledged to be so far short of completion that (in the famous speech of his friend and fellow statesman, MASSIMO D’AZEGLIO), "having made Italy, he had yet to make Italians." The Future of the Negro Race. ANTHROPOLOGISTS are naturally recruited from the ranks of medical men ; a study of human anatomy, physiology, and psychology must always form the basal part of the education of those who make a comparative study of human races. In the many wordy warfares which have been waged round the status of the negro race medical men have taken an active part. It was SHARP, a London surgeon, who elicited the famous verdict from Lord Chief Justice MANSFIELD in 1772, that a slave was free when he stepped on British soil. The crusade for the abolition of slavery, which was commenced then and prolonged far into the nineteenth century, directed the attention of medical men to the racial position of the negro. Was he structurally a different species and therefore unfit for an equal place with the European ? At the end of the eighteenth century no man was so well qualified as JOHN HUNTER to answer the first part of the question. He answers it, but in an indirect manner. When REYNOLDS painted his portrait HUNTER opened the sketch book shown in the background of that famous picture at the page which illus- trates the evolution of the human skull. The negro skull is figured as an intermediate stage; in HUNTER’S opinion the negro cranium was a lower stage than the European. "The darkest species," he wrote, "should be reckoned nearest the original." HUNTER regarded fertility as a test of species ; the mulatto was well known to him, and it is therefore clear that he regarded the African and European as one species. A contemporary of HUNTER, CHARLES WHITE, the Manchester physician, also regarded the negro as a stage in the evolution of the human race ; he was the first to show that the forearm of the negro, like that of the chimpanzee, was proportionately very long. JAMES COWLES PRICHARD, the Bristol physician, the first and one of the greatest of British anthropologists, gave an analysis of the negro characters and concluded that there were no grounds for excluding the negro from the species in which the European is included. In his famous lectures on the Natural History of Man at the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1818, Sir WILLIAM LAWRENCE, while admitting the specific equality of the negro, said that " every fact in the past history and present condition of the African proves their inferiority of faculties," but added that such inferiority con. stituted a reason for special treatment of the race and did not justify the " revolting and antichristian " traffic in human flesh. We may pass lightly over the change of view which followed the advent of Darwinism-the work of HUXLEY and of FLOWER, both by training medical men- and see how the matter stands to-day. The authority we are to quote is not a medical man, but one closely in touch and sympathy with the work and aspirations of modern medicine, Sir HARRY H. JOHNSTON. No one is better qualified to speak of the African races than he. For 25 years he has been exploring, investigating, recording, administering, and governing various parts of tropical Africa. The latest work, "The Negro in the New World," is the twelfth of a series of great works devoted to a study of the negro’s mind culture and body. In the first chapter of his latest work he gives a brief but admirable summary of the struc. tural position of the negro. There is no question of a higher and lower race ; the negro represents not a stage in the evolution of those human races which are usually accounted higher ; the European, the Asiatic, the African represent terminal branches of the human stock ; each has its own specialisations. If pigmentation of the negro is an old character of the primal human stock, his woolly hair and full lips are novel specialisations the features of his skull- his straight and rather bulging forehead, the usual absence of supraorbital ridges-are less primitive than those of the European ; he is prognathous because he has a healthily developed dentition and palate. The negro brain carries on it no mark by which it can be recognised with certainty, but we must at the same time admit that we cannot assign a mental status to any man from a mere examination of the brain. We must judge a race, not by the appear- ance of the brain after death, but by the manner in which that organ reacts to the demands of civilisation. Sir HARRY JOHNSTON’S study of the racial problems of the United States leads him to anticipate a successful future for the negro there. He is not blind to the defects and 1 The Negro in the New World By Sir Harry H. Johnston, G.C.M.G., K.C.B., D.Sc., with one illustration in colour by the author, and 390 black and white illustrations by the author and others. Maps by Mr. J. W. Addison (Royal Geographical Society). London: Methuen and Co., Limited. 1910. Pp. 499.

The Future of the Negro Race

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personal observation and inquiry, appeared in articles con- tributed to the Bzblioth’eyce Universelle of Geneva, in

which, inter alia, he anticipated by nearly 40 years the

Unionist policy towards Ireland. His skill, his energy, hiscommand of men, were shown in the statecraft which made

France and Great Britain his auxiliaries in the expulsionof Austria from Lombardy, thus setting the revolutionaryball rolling which GARIBALDI urged on to the liberation ofthe Two Sicilies and their absorption ‘. into the Italian

kingdom-matters which are, in the day now passing,familiar to the world in the vivid narrative of Mr. GEORGE

MACAULAY TREVELYAN.

Having achieved his country’s independence, he revertedto the nature-study and the biological sciences which hadfascinated his youth, and, among many strokes of academic

policy, he may be credited with the revival of physiologicalteaching in Italy by bringing the distinguished Dutch chemistand biologist JACOB MOLESCHOTT to Turin, a step whichhas re-invigorated the study in every Italian medical school,where more than one of the professors have been MOLE-SCHOTT’S pupils. Indeed, there is no calculating the goodhe might have wrought in Italy had not "his sun

gone down while it was yet day." After his death

his repositories were found to be full of designs for developingthe agricultural resources of the mainland and the islands,one of these being a plan for converting Sicily into a greattobacco-growing plantation. His work, as his compatriotssadly admit, was but half done when he died at Turin inhis fifty-first year, a martyr to over-exertion and high-pressure activity, intellectual and moral-a work which hehimself acknowledged to be so far short of completion that

(in the famous speech of his friend and fellow statesman,MASSIMO D’AZEGLIO), "having made Italy, he had yet tomake Italians."

The Future of the Negro Race.ANTHROPOLOGISTS are naturally recruited from the ranks

of medical men ; a study of human anatomy, physiology,and psychology must always form the basal part of the

education of those who make a comparative study of humanraces. In the many wordy warfares which have been wagedround the status of the negro race medical men have taken an

active part. It was SHARP, a London surgeon, who elicitedthe famous verdict from Lord Chief Justice MANSFIELD in

1772, that a slave was free when he stepped on British soil. Thecrusade for the abolition of slavery, which was commencedthen and prolonged far into the nineteenth century, directedthe attention of medical men to the racial position of the

negro. Was he structurally a different species and thereforeunfit for an equal place with the European ? At the end of

the eighteenth century no man was so well qualified as JOHNHUNTER to answer the first part of the question. He answersit, but in an indirect manner. When REYNOLDS painted his

portrait HUNTER opened the sketch book shown in the

background of that famous picture at the page which illus-trates the evolution of the human skull. The negro skull

is figured as an intermediate stage; in HUNTER’S opinionthe negro cranium was a lower stage than the European."The darkest species," he wrote, "should be reckoned

nearest the original." HUNTER regarded fertility as a

test of species ; the mulatto was well known to him, and it istherefore clear that he regarded the African and European asone species. A contemporary of HUNTER, CHARLES WHITE,the Manchester physician, also regarded the negro as a stagein the evolution of the human race ; he was the first to show

that the forearm of the negro, like that of the chimpanzee,was proportionately very long. JAMES COWLES PRICHARD,the Bristol physician, the first and one of the greatest ofBritish anthropologists, gave an analysis of the negrocharacters and concluded that there were no grounds forexcluding the negro from the species in which the Europeanis included. In his famous lectures on the Natural Historyof Man at the Royal College of Surgeons of England in

1818, Sir WILLIAM LAWRENCE, while admitting the specificequality of the negro, said that " every fact in the pasthistory and present condition of the African proves their

inferiority of faculties," but added that such inferiority con.stituted a reason for special treatment of the race and didnot justify the " revolting and antichristian " traffic in

human flesh.

We may pass lightly over the change of view

which followed the advent of Darwinism-the work of

HUXLEY and of FLOWER, both by training medical men-and see how the matter stands to-day. The authority weare to quote is not a medical man, but one closely in touchand sympathy with the work and aspirations of modern

medicine, Sir HARRY H. JOHNSTON. No one is better qualifiedto speak of the African races than he. For 25 years he has

been exploring, investigating, recording, administering, and

governing various parts of tropical Africa. The latest work,"The Negro in the New World," is the twelfth of a

series of great works devoted to a study of the negro’smind culture and body. In the first chapter of his latest

work he gives a brief but admirable summary of the struc.

tural position of the negro. There is no question of a

higher and lower race ; the negro represents not a stage in

the evolution of those human races which are usuallyaccounted higher ; the European, the Asiatic, the African

represent terminal branches of the human stock ; each has

its own specialisations. If pigmentation of the negro is anold character of the primal human stock, his woolly hair andfull lips are novel specialisations the features of his skull-his straight and rather bulging forehead, the usual absenceof supraorbital ridges-are less primitive than those of the

European ; he is prognathous because he has a healthilydeveloped dentition and palate. The negro brain carries on

it no mark by which it can be recognised with certainty,but we must at the same time admit that we cannot assigna mental status to any man from a mere examination

of the brain. We must judge a race, not by the appear-ance of the brain after death, but by the manner in

which that organ reacts to the demands of civilisation.

Sir HARRY JOHNSTON’S study of the racial problems of

the United States leads him to anticipate a successful futurefor the negro there. He is not blind to the defects and

1 The Negro in the New World By Sir Harry H. Johnston,G.C.M.G., K.C.B., D.Sc., with one illustration in colour by the author,and 390 black and white illustrations by the author and others. Maps byMr. J. W. Addison (Royal Geographical Society). London: Methuenand Co., Limited. 1910. Pp. 499.

Page 2: The Future of the Negro Race

499

delinquencies of the African races ; in his opinion the

negro is the victim of his past ; his faults are the result of

long ages spent in the darkness of the African continent andunder the lash and discipline of the slave master. In Sir

HARRY JOHNSTON’S opinion education will raise the negro

to take a just place in the scheme of civilisation. He pinshis faith to that type of practical educational propagandawhich is being directed by Dr. BOOKER WASHINGTON fromthe Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. If all the members of

the coloured race could be raised by education to the

level of Dr. BOOKER WASHINGTON, then the negro problemwould indeed be solved-all but for one obstacle. Many ofour readers will remember the storm of indignation that wasroused in the United States when President ROOSEVELT

received Dr. BOOKER WASHINGTON and sat down to table

with him. This, in Sir HARRY JOHNSTON’S opinion, was amanifestation of race pre,judice-. nonsense which has gotto be uprooted if the United States is logically to extend itsbeneficent governing influence beyond its actual geographicalfrontiers." Thus, in Sir HARRY JOHNSTON’S opinion,the solution of what is known as the "negro problem" "

is the eradication from the white man’s mind of "race

prejudice." He wishes to see the American receive the

African in his midst " as a brother, but not as a brother-in-law." He pictures a future when the descendants of the

10,000,000 negroes and negroids now in the States will live

harmoniously side by side with the whites and share equallyall the privileges of the predominant race.

This view of a terribly important situation will not findfavour in the United States, even, we think, among

philosophers, and in our opinion Sir HARRY JOHNSTON

under-estimates the strength and the nature of that

remarkable trait of the Anglo-Saxon which he regardsas race prejudice. The trait is one which ROBERT KNOX,the Edinburgh anatomist, recognised nearly a century agoas the predominating feature of the Anglo-Saxon. Politicians

and anthropologists cannot blink its strength. Our home

circumstances leave this quality latent, but we see that it

quickly becomes alive when the Saxon passes oversea. Under

its influence we see the Australians legislate to secure pre-dominance and purity of race ; we see, whether we agreeor not, the new federation of South Africa leaves the

native races outside the pale of its franchise ; we see

the Southern States elbow the coloured population quietlybut effectively from the ballot-boxes, and the Northern

States, which went to war for negro freedom, look coldlyon. A survey of the history of colonisation shows that

the Portuguese and Spaniards had a less degree of ’’ race

prejudice," with the result that their virile blood in the

course of generations became lost in the veins of native

races. Race prejudice, or race instinct as we prefer to callit, has preserved the Saxon blood amongst alien races ; its

very strength now makes the problem of our modern

civilisation more difficult ; there must be a constant warbetween the Saxon sense of justice and the Saxon sense ofrace purity. Hence it is that the prejudice becomes thedominant feeling in those living side by side with alienraces ; the sense of justice is dominant in those at a distance.We may not like the fact, but we cannot solve our difficulties

by overlooking it. Those who have searched into the factors

which have dominated the dispersion and differentiation ofthe human stock into the various forms we see to-day on theearth find in this irrational race-feeling a main driving force.The race survives as a race in so far as this instinct is

implanted in it. Race instinct is as old as the human

stock itself ; it is not a late or petty mental acquisition thatcan be brushed lightly off or eradicated by education. It is

a basal trait which anthropologists and politicians cannotafford to leave out of their calculations.

Annotations.

NATURE AND NURTURE.

"Ne quid nimis."

Professor Karl Pearson recently said-or said somethingvery like it-that education and environment play onlya small part in the formation of the individual. He spokeas president at a debate of an extremely polemical kind,held at University College, London, and this deliveranceseemed to be directed to a doctrinaire gallery. But nowthat we have read his truly luminous pamphlet entitled"Nature and Nurture" we breathe freely, for in its

pages he "makes good," as George Borrow would have

said, an otherwise dubious utterance. "Nature and

Nurture, the Problem of the Future" is the outcomeof researches conducted at the Galton Laboratory forNational Eugenics in University College, Gower-street,by Professor Pearson and his accomplished staff. "I I

believe," says Professor Pearson, speaking of the fact thatour popular politics are mainly the result of sentimental

generalisations and doctrinaire assertions, " that the day foracting merely on a consensus of opinion based on rhetoricalor emotional appeal of a political or philanthropic characteris passing by." This is our own belief also. In future states-

men and reformers will more and more base their views on

careful inductions derived from scientific data, laboriouslyacquired and registered. The more data the better. Theaim of the Galton Laboratory is to multiply them till theirmere weight must necessarily convince the candid and thescientific-minded. "Nature and Nurture," which has

already been a good deal discussed, deals with the old

question as to the relative influence upon the individual

of heredity and environment. There is a school whichbelieves and declares that in three generations the descend-ants of any sort of parents can be made into anything-into persons of the highest culture or the most approvedconventionality. These pseudo-thinkers forget in liminethat inherited ill-health or disease, which has much to

do with individuality, cannot be eliminated at will.

"Dissipants," as the Americans now call them, will givebirth to a progeny of vicious tendencies ; insanity dies veryhard, if it does not increase. Such a serious condition asdeaf-mutism may become intensified. Cataract and epilepsyin some forms progress cumulatively. Nothing could be moreluridly instructive than the pedigrees published in ProfessorPearson’s book. One such shows how a single blind manoriginated in four generations 15 blind descendants. In

another-we purposely do not quote the extreme cases-wenote "twenty abnormals in four generations, the product oftwo degenerates whose right to reproduce their kind shouldhave been challenged by man from the start, as it would

have been refused a priori by Nature." It is the business of

the biometrician to attempt to establish laws with regard tothese matters, or at any rate to supply matter for intelligentanticipation. Nature, of course, is, in the opinion of some, the