THE STUDY OF RACE Race means breed. It stands for all that we are by heredity as contrasted with experience. Thus it amounts to no more than an abstraction, because we can at best separate only in thought what a man owes to his parentage from what he owes to his acquired habits. More especially does it become difficult when habit is no longer the result mainly of individual experience, as with the other animals—when it is more likely to reflect the native bent—but is the result of culture, that is, conforms to the accu mulated experience of all and sundry. Yet in a rough-and-ready way we are all accustomed to distinguish between a man's natural aptitudes and the education that he has received. Science aspires to do this in more exact fashion, but cannot be said to have dis covered very trustworthy tests so far.
The mental characters would appear to have the greater survival value. Size and strength, for instance, count for less in the struggle for existence as waged to-day than once they did when life was more an affair of tooth and claw. It may be added that never, apart from the aid of a superior intelligence, could man have outfaced the more for midable of his animal competitors. A gorilla, indeed, is a power ful beast, but there is no reason to suppose that man's direct ancestor inclined so far as the gorilla from a line that led on the whole towards mind rather than muscle. Certainly, a Neander thal man could no more have stood up to a gorilla bare-handed than an Australian native to the Neanderthal man whom he re sembles rather in feature than in frame. On the other hand, among inheritable physical traits immunity from disease un doubtedly continues to be a race-making influence of great impor tance. Nevertheless, mental capacity is the birthright on which a man may reckon most.
Unfortunately, this is just the side of the subject on which the study of race is least illuminating at present. Thus physical anthropology can classify skulls with reference to their brain-capacity, and by taking an endo-cranial cast can even attempt to take shape as well as size into consideration when the brain is no longer there ; or, if it be available for inspection, the arrangement of the cerebral processes can by physiological methods be studied comparatively. Yet, to discriminate the born genius from the born fool by such means has hitherto proved impossible ; and it is highly doubtful whether the average intelligence could be calculated in the case of a group of similar skulls or brains known to be related by pedigree. Experimental psychology, again, has not invented very satisfac tory tests of natural ability, and little has been done to apply such tests to the world's very various stocks, so as to compare them on that basis.
Race-making Period.—In the meantime the study of the race-factor has produced more tangible results on the side con cerned with the external features of the body ; and, although these may be of less practical account as civilization develops, their interest from the scientific standpoint is considerable as enabling the major movements of early history to be traced. Walter Bagehot's hypothesis of a "race-making period" of human de velopment should be borne in mind. He assumes that, so long as culture remained backward, the stress of natural selection was bound to fall mainly on the body. If the slightest physical advan tage was of help in the struggle between ethnic types—a dark colour or a thick skull, let us say, as a protection against the sun —then its happy possessor would forge ahead.
Certain physical characters, then, we may be sure, were deeply impressed on the competing stocks of the early world, and the question is how to recognize them. Though theoretically the anthropologist should take note of all characters constituting the hereditary element, he is compelled, by the vastness of the statistical field to be covered, to work with a few, and naturally seeks among possible race-marks for the most constant and enduring. No biological trait, however, is in a strict sense invariable. The plasticity of organic life pervades all its parts. Yet some human characters undergo alternative modi fications that, once acquired, are reproduced with a high degree of regularity. Head-form, hair-texture and skin-colour are in stances in point, not to mention many minor features of great persistency such as eye-colour, or the shape, and especially the breadth, of the nose. None of the rest, however, can compete in utility with head-form, seeing that, apart from the high degree of invariability that it manifests—one, probably, at least as high as that displayed by any other single trait—it can be applied, unlike the tests of hair and colour, to the skeleton no less than to the living man; and is thus in particular the archaeologist's chief stand-by. It is therefore incumbent on physical anthro pology to provide adequate standards by which differences in head-form can be compared; and all that need be said on the subject here is that the usual test of the cranial index, giving the ratio of extreme breadth to extreme length, is, although conveni ent, exceedingly rough. It is perhaps fairly safe to trust to it so long as the other criteria of race are in fair agreement. If, how ever, the head-measurements of two existing types are alike, but one is black and the other white, or one is woolly-haired and the other straight-haired, the racial connection is more open to doubt.
Not to go further into tech nical questions more suitable for a special article, it only remains to add that it would be especially interesting if head-form, as being by far the most carefully registered of the physical traits of man, could be correlated with intelligence. If it could be shown that a long head could not accommodate the most developed type of brain as effectively as a round one, we should be on the way to a much needed method of comparing ethnic types in terms of body and mind taken together. At present, however, all the methods in use to determine race are precarious, and their pro visional findings must be accepted with the utmost caution. At most it may be said that the signs of the times point to a great development of such studies in view of the urgency of what are known to the politician as race problems.
