Part 17 (1/2)

[Footnote 2: _Ibid_. p. 108.]

But if differences in racial attainments are due to differences in environment, it might be said that this itself is testimony to the superiority of the race that has the more complex and exacting environment. This is not by any means clearly the case. The ”culture” or civilization which a race exhibits is a very uncertain index of its gifts or its capacities. The culture found in a race is, it may be said without exaggeration, largely a matter of accident or circ.u.mstance rather than of heredity.

Some of the environmental causes for differences in culture may he explicitly noted. Any modern culture is the result of interminglings of many different cross-streams and cross-borrowings.

Races that have long been isolated as, for example the African negroes, have no possibility of picking up all the acquisitions to which races that intermingle have access. Progress in the developments of arts, sciences, and inst.i.tutions depends on fortunate individual variations. The smaller the race the less the number of variations possible, including those on the side of what we call genius. Again fortunate variations depend not so much on the general average intellectual capacities of the race as on its variability.

So one race may possess a relative superiority of achievement because of its high variability, just as, as we have already pointed out, the greater preeminence of the male s.e.x with regard to intellectual accomplishment is due to the greater number of variations both above and below the norm which it displays. The reasons for variability are again, according to Professor Boas, largely environmental. ”We have seen, when a people is descended from a small uniform group, that then its variability will decrease; while on the other hand, when a group has a much-varied origin or when the ancestors belong to entirely distinct types the variability may be considerably increased.”[1]

[Footnote 1: Boas; _loc. cit._, p. 93.]

Again a race may be placed in such geographical conditions that a fortuitous variation on the part of one individual may prove of enormous value in the development of its civilization.

Or fortunate geographical conditions may stimulate types of activity that lie dormant, although possible, among other races. Thus by some investigators the flexibility and emanc.i.p.ation of the Greek genius were attributed to their access to the sea and their constant intermingling with other cultures, especially the Egyptian.

On the subject of the fundamental equality of races despite their seeming disparity, as that at present, let us say, between whites and negroes, Professor Boas writes:

Much has been said of the hereditary characteristics of the Jews, of the Gypsies, of the French and Irish, but I do not see that the external and social causes which have moulded the character of members of these people have ever been eliminated satisfactorily; and, moreover, I do not see how this can be accomplished. A number of external factors that influence body and mind may easily be named--climate, nutrition, occupation--but as soon as we enter into a consideration of social factors and mental conditions we are unable to tell definitely what is cause and what is effect.

The conclusions reached are therefore, on the whole, negative. We are not inclined to consider the mental organization of different races of man as differing in fundamental points. Although, therefore, the distribution of faculty among the races of man is far from being known, we can say this much: the average faculty of the white race is found to the same degree in a large proportion of individuals of all other races, and although it is probable that some of these races may not produce as large a proportion of great men as our own race, there is no reason to suppose that they are unable to reach the level of civilization represented by the bulk of our own people.[1]

[Footnote 1: Boas; _loc. cit._, pp. 116, 123.]

In contrast must be cited the opinions of a large cla.s.s of psychologists and anthropologists who are inclined to regard racial differences as intrinsic and original. Of such, for example, is Francis Galton, who claims in his _Hereditary Genius_, that taking negroes on their own ground they still are inferior to Europeans by about one eighth the difference, say, between Aristotle and the lowest idiot. Recent psychological experiments in the army reveal, again, certain fundamental intellectual inferiorities of negroes, though whether this is environmental or to be traced to hereditary causes is open to question.

The fact remains that there are, despite the lack of evidence for hereditary mental differences, practical differences in the mental activity of different races that are of social importance.

These differences, which seem so fundamental, have been explained primarily by the powerful control exercised over the individual by the habits which he acquires even before the age of five years. These, though unconscious, may be, as the Freudian psychologists maintain, all the more important for that reason. This would appear to be the only explanation of significant racial differences. Cultural differences cannot, biologists are generally agreed, be transmitted in the germs that pa.s.s from generation to generation. One may say, in effect, that an individual is differentiated in his mental traits by early a.s.sociation with a certain race, and by his immediate ancestry or family, rather than by the fact of belonging physically to a certain race.

THE INFLUENCE OF IMMEDIATE ANCESTRY OR FAMILY. A factor that is, on experimental evidence, rated to be of high importance in the determination of the differences of the mental make-up of human beings, is ”immediate ancestry” or family.

Stated in the most simple and general terms this means that children of the same parents tend to display marked likenesses in mental traits, and to exhibit less variation among themselves than is exhibited in the same number of individuals chosen at random. A great number of experiments have been conducted to determine how far resemblances in mental traits are due to common parentage. The correlation between members.h.i.+p in the same family and resemblances of social traits has been found to be uniformly high.

The inference was made that children of the same family would show great resemblances in mental traits, when accurate experiments showed marked similarity in physical traits under the same conditions. The coefficient of correlation between brothers in the color of the eye, is, according to the results obtained by Karl Pearson, .52.[1] The coefficient of fraternal correlation in the case of the cephalic index (ratio of width to length of head) is .40. The correlation of hair color is found to be .55. The fact of high correlation between resemblance of physical traits and members.h.i.+p in the same family is of crucial importance, because these traits are clearly due to ancestry, and not to environmental differences. If physical traits show such a correlation, it is likely that mental traits will also, mental traits being ultimately dependent on the brain and the nervous system, which are both affected by ancestry.

[Footnote 1: These facts are based on the reports of Karl Pearson in his _On the Laws of Inheritance in Man_. What is meant by coefficient of correlation may be explained as follows: If the coefficient of correlation between father and son is .3 and the coefficient of correlation between brother and brother is .5 we may say: a son on the average deviates from the general trend of the population by .3 of the amount of his father's deviation, a brother by .5 of the amount of his brother.]

Measurements of measurable traits and observations of less objectively measurable ones, have revealed that immediate ancestry is in itself an influential factor in producing likenesses and differences among men with respect to mental traits.

One interesting case, interesting because it was a test of a capacity that might be expected to be largely environmental in its origins, was that of the spelling abilities of children in the St. Xavier School in New York. Thorndike thus reports the test:

As the children of this school commonly enter at a very early age, and as the staff and the methods of teaching remain very constant, we have in the case of the 180 brothers and sisters included in the 600 children closely similar school training. Mr. Earle measured the ability of any individual by his deviation from the average for his grade and s.e.x, and found the co-efficient of correlation between children of the same family to be .50. That is, any individual is on the average fifty per cent as much above or below the average for his age and s.e.x as his brother or sister.

Similarities in home training might theoretically account for this, but any one experienced in teaching will hesitate to attribute much efficacy to such similarities. Bad spellers remain bad spellers though their teachers change. Moreover, Dr. J. M. Rice in his exhaustive study of spelling ability found little or no relations.h.i.+p between good spelling and any one of the popular methods, and little or none between poor spelling and foreign parentage. Yet the training of a home where parents do not read or spell the language well must be a home of relatively poor training for spelling. Cornman's more careful study of spelling supports the view that ability to spell is little influenced by such differences in school or home training as commonly exist.[1]

[Footnote 1: Thorndike: _loc. cit._, p. 78.]

In general the influence of heredity may be said far to outweigh the influence of home training. In all the cases reported, the resemblances were about the same in traits subject to training, and in those not subject to training. Thus industry and conscientiousness and public spirit, which are clearly affected by environment, show no greater resemblance than such practically unmodifiable traits as memory, original sensitiveness to colors, sounds, and distances.

The influence of parentage, it must be added, consists in the transmission of specific traits, not of a certain ”nature” as a whole. There are in the germ and the ovum which const.i.tute the inheritance of each individual, certain determinant elements.

The elements that determine the original traits with which each individual will be born vary, of course, in the germs produced by a single parent less than among individuals chosen at random, but they vary none the less. In this variation of the determining elements in the germs of the same individual is to be found the cause of the variation in the physical and mental traits among children of the same parents.

Since the determining elements, the unit characters that appear in the sperm or ovum of each individual, do not appear uniformly even in children of the same parents, brother and sister may resemble each other in certain mental traits, and differ in others. ”A pair of twins may be indistinguishable in eye color and stature, but be notably different in hair color and tests of intellect.”

Mental inheritance, as well as physical, is, then, organized in detail. It is not the inheritance of gross total natures, but of particular ”mental traits.” If we had sufficient data, we should be able to a.n.a.lyze out the unit characters of an individual's mental equipment, so as to be able to predict with some accuracy the mental inheritance of the children of any two parents. In the case of physical inheritance, the laws of the hereditary transmission of any given traits are known in considerable detail. The detailed quant.i.tative investigations of inheritance, following the general lines set by Mendel, have given striking results.