If culture is a complex of socially acquired traits, it might appear that race could not possibly have any influence on culture, since by racial characteristics we understand those which are innate by virtue of ancestry. This, however, by no means follows. In order that certain traits be acquired, a certain type of organic basis is an absolute prerequisite; a chimpanzee or a bat is not able to acquire human culture through social environment. From an evolutionary point of view it appears, therefore, very plausible at first blush that within the human species, likewise, differences in organization should be correlated with the observed cultural manifestations of varying degree and complexity. There was, undoubtedly, some stage in human evolution where the organic basis for culture had not yet been acquired. Can the several races be regarded as transitional forms, each possessed of certain capabilities determining and limiting its cultural achievement? This question can be viewed in two ways. Comparative psychology may give us direct information as to qualitative and quantitative racial differences that would affect cultural activity. Or, we may infer such differences as the only possible causes for the observed cultural differences. Both modes of approach are helpful for a comprehension of the problem.

Until recent years the psychological evaluation of primitive tribes rested largely on the offhand judgments of travelers and missionaries. With the advent of more exact psychological laboratory methods, these have been, in some measure, applied by competent investigators to aboriginal populations. Unfortunately, the results hitherto secured are somewhat meager. There are technical difficulties, among them the necessity of examining fairly large numbers of individuals in order to get a good sample of the population. Worse still, laboratory methods are most effective in regard to what may be called the lower mental operations, which partake almost more of a physiological than of a strictly psychological character. Clearly enough, what we should be most desirous of knowing is how primitive compares with civilized man in logical thought and imagination. But these are precisely the things not readily tested, and here the additional technical difficulty comes in that they can hardly be examined at all without a far more intimate knowledge of the native languages than the investigator is likely to command. Nevertheless, something has been done and I will attempt to present as briefly as possible the essential results, following Thorndike’s convenient summary.[1-ii]

Although some observers have attributed unusual acuity of sense perception to the more primitive peoples of the globe, the investigations of Rivers, Woodworth, and others in the main establish the psychic unity of mankind in this regard. For example, though the Kalmuk are renowned for their vision, only one or two of the individuals tested exceeded the European record, and while Bruner found Indians and Filipino inferior in hearing a watch tick or a click transmitted by telephone, the fairness of these tests for natives unused to such stimuli has been reasonably challenged. In their reaction-time tests, widely different groups were very similar. In the tapping test, measuring the rate at which the brain can at will discharge a series of impulses to the same muscle, marked differences were also lacking; but when accuracy as well as rapidity were examined, the Filipino seemed decidedly superior to the whites. Optical illusions were shared by all races tested, which indicates, as Woodworth points out, that simple sorts of judgments as well as sensory processes are common to the generality of mankind. Woodworth subjected his subjects to an intelligence test, demanding that blocks of different shapes be fitted into a board with holes to match the blocks. In speed the average differences between whites, Indians, Eskimo, Ainu, Filipino, and Singhalese are small and there is considerable overlapping. On the other hand, the Igorrote and Philippine Negrito, as well as a group of supposed Pygmies from the Congo, proved remarkably deficient. “This crumb,” concludes our investigator, “is about all the testing psychologist has yet to offer on the question of racial differences in intelligence.”

It may well be, as Thorndike suggests, that if higher functions were studied, more striking differences would be revealed. But up to date we can simply say that experimental psychological methods have revealed no far-reaching differences in the mental processes of the several races. Even the Igorrote and Negrito deficiency may be due, Woodworth suggests, to their habits of life rather than to their native endowment.

Since exact methods tell us nothing of those higher operations we are most eager to know about, it might be deemed advisable to fall back on general estimates by the most competent observers. Unfortunately, the personal equation enters here to an extent that completely nullifies the value of individual judgments. Travelers in foreign lands are likely to make quite unusual demands on the capacities of the natives with whose aid they are working, and in this way too frequently arrive at an unfair conclusion as to their mental characteristics. In a corresponding test Europeans might do little better. It is, at all events, remarkable that unbiased observers who are fairly sympathetic and remain in long contact with a primitive people usually entertain a rather favorable opinion of their powers. Thus, Prince Maximilian of Wied-Neuwied, expresses the view that, whether other varieties of mankind differ or not, the American aborigines are not inferior to the whites,[2-ii] and corresponding estimates have been made of other races. Still, these are merely personal opinions and we must turn to our second method for possibly more objective, if indirect, evidence on the subject. Are, then, cultural differences necessarily the result of racial differences?

In thus investigating the 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 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 single point of mental development, but as a continuum of mental values with a certain range of variation. In comparing the different races we must, accordingly, apply the canons used by statisticians in comparing series of variable measurements. Here a matter of vital importance challenges our attention. Two series may have the same average value and yet differ considerably in range. Now it is obvious that, where the number of individuals considered is small, excessive values are less likely to occur than in a larger series. In a gathering of a hundred men, we are not likely to find a man above 6 feet 6 inches in height; the average stature of all New Yorkers will probably not be any greater than that of one hundred men selected at random, yet in the entire city we shall find a number of individuals of gigantic stature. When we apply this fact to our special problem we see at once that extraordinary deviations from the norm cannot be expected to occur in a tribe of 500 or even 5,000, while among the vast populations of India, China or the Caucasian countries of America and Europe such favorable variants are likely to occur with considerable absolute frequency. These variations, as has already been suggested, need not even be excessive to produce significant cultural results. Again, we may urge the principle of minimal variations. A little greater energy or administrative talent may be just sufficient to found a powerful state; a slightly greater amount of logical consistency may lead to the foundation of geometrical reasoning or of a philosophical system; a somewhat keener interest, above the purely utilitarian one, in surrounding nature may give a remarkable impetus to the development of science.

Now this puts an entirely different construction on the facts. Assume that racial differences are at the bottom of some of the observed cultural differences. This fact would not necessarily mean, then, that the average ability of the inferior races is less, but only that extreme variations of an advantageous character occur less frequently among them. This, for example, is the view taken by Professor Eugen Fischer, the physical anthropologist, a very firm believer in racial differences, but as regards variability rather than in point of average intellectual equipment. It is also essentially, if I understand him, the point made by Professor Thorndike. But precisely because the population of the several races differs so enormously, we are for many of them without a fair standard of comparison. Statistically, any actual number of measurements is only a small sample of an infinite series; but we have no means of ascertaining empirically what the extreme variations of which Veddas or Australians are organically capable, would be like. This, necessarily, leaves the ultimate problem of racial differences unsolved. Nevertheless, our considerations have not been in vain. They show, for one thing, how many factors have to be weighed in arriving at a fair estimate of racial capabilities, factors which are naively ignored in most popular discussions of the subject. We can, farther, say positively that whatever differences may exist have been grossly exaggerated. In the simpler mental operations, comparative psychological studies indicate a specific unity of mankind. Differences in culture are certainly not proportionate to mental differences, i.e., relatively slight differences in native ability may well have produced tremendous cultural effects. Since, finally, cultural differences of enormous range occur within the same race, and even within very much smaller subdivisions, the ethnologist cannot solve his cultural problems by means of the race factor. Even if an ultimate investigation should definitely fix the cultural limits to which a given race is hereditarily subject, such information could not solve the far more specific problem why the same people a few hundred years earlier were a horde of barbarians and a few hundred years later formed a highly civilized community. The supposed explanation by racial potentialities would be far too general to interpret the actual happenings. Racial psychology, no less than general psychology, thus fails to solve the problems of culture.