IX. SUMMARY
I maynow be allowed to pass once more briefly over the whole ground that we have covered. First of all, we tried to understand the reasons for our belief in the existence of gifted races and of others less favorably endowed, and found that it was based essentially on the assumption that higher achievement is necessarily associated with higher mental faculty, and that therefore the features of those races that in our judgment have accomplished most are characteristics of mental superiority. We subjected these assumptions to a critical study, and discovered little evidence to support them. So many other causes were found to influence the progress of civilization, accelerating or retarding it, and similar processes were active in so many different races, that, on the whole, hereditary traits, more particularly hereditary higher gifts, were at best a possible, but not a necessary, element determining the degree of advancement of a race.
The second part of the fundamental assumption seemed even less likely. Hardly any evidence could be adducedto show that the anatomical characteristics of the races possessing the highest civilization were phylogenetically more advanced than those on lower grades of culture. The various races differ in this respect; the specifically human characteristics being most highly developed, some in one race, some in another. Furthermore, it appeared that a direct relation between physical habitus and mental endowment does not exist.
After thus clearing away the racial prejudice, the most formidable obstacle to a clear understanding of our problem, we turned to an investigation of the question whether human types are stable, more particularly whether environment may change the anatomical structure of man, and thus of his mental make-up, and to the correlated question, what man owes to heredity. In treating the general question of the stability of human types, we described some rudimentary organs and some peculiar anatomical traits which prove a phylogenetic development of man, traces of which were found in all races. The influence of environment was demonstrated in all those cases in which changes in the rate of growth affected the final form of the body; and we saw particularly that early arrest of development does not necessarily mean unfavorable development, because in manycases the rapidity and short period of development seemed favorable elements. We saw that other changes in human types may be brought about by selection, and that environment itself seems to have a direct effect upon bodily form, as was proved by the changes of type due to the transfer from a rural environment to city life, and to the immigration of various nationalities from Europe to America. We saw, however, that there is no evidence at present to prove that these changes exceed certain definite limits. Special attention was directed to those features of the bodily form that characterize man as a domesticated animal, and which are due to the peculiarities of human nutrition, and which facilitate crossing of distinct types. The mentality of man appeared also to be influenced by the degree of his domestication.
Turning to the influence of heredity, we recognized that by it are determined all the most fundamental features of each race and type of man, and that often the individual reverts to the traits of the one or the other of his parents, or of his remote ancestors, in such manner that one trait may belong to one ancestor, another to another. This tendency seemed to explain the development of local types, and we recognized the importance of the breaking of old fines of heredity, in cases of intermarriagesof branches of the same race that had long been separated. By analogy we concluded that possibly, or probably, similar tendencies may exist in the mental life of man.
After we had thus gained an insight into the physical characteristics of the races and social groups of man, we took up a consideration of his mental life. The mental traits common to all mankind are those which appear by contrasting man with animals; and we pointed out briefly that articulate language, the use of implements, and the power of reasoning, belong to all members of the human species as opposed to the higher animals. Before we entered into the comparison of the mental life of primitive man and of civilized man, we had to clear away a number of misconceptions caused by the current descriptions of the life of primitive man. We saw that the oft-repeated claim that he has no power to inhibit impulses, no power of attention, no originality of thought, no power of clear reasoning, could not be maintained; and that all these faculties are common to primitive man and to civilized man, although they are excited on different occasions. This led us to a brief consideration of the question whether the hereditary mental faculty was improved by civilization, an opinion that did not seem plausible to us.
The study of the problem of the relation of racial descent to cultural advancement required a determination of the question in how far these are correlated. We endeavored to gain an insight into this problem by following out the relations between human types, languages, and cultures. A general lack of correlation appeared, which led us to infer that the present types of man are older than the present linguistic families, and that each type developed a number of languages. Since these must be considered the product of the mental activities of each type, uninfluenced or almost uninfluenced by other types, we tried to discover whether one language could be shown to be superior to others, and whether some languages made higher forms of thought impossible. The results of this inquiry were quite analogous to those obtained in our inquiry into the physical characteristics of man, and showed similar traits in all languages, and also that languages were moulded by thought, not thought by languages.
There still seemed to be a possibility of proving the backwardness of certain tribes, if it could be shown that members of certain races were all on early levels of culture, while those of other races had independently reached later stages of development. This would presupposethat the general course of cultural development is the same everywhere, and that types of culture can be ascribed to definite stages of development. The theory of such general parallelism of the history of human culture is based on the similarity of cultural traits in all parts of the world. Our analysis showed that the similarities were more apparent than real, that they often developed by convergent development from distinct sources, and that not all stages have been present in all types of cultures. Thus all attempts to correlate racial types and cultural stages failed us, and we concluded that cultural stage is essentially a phenomenon dependent upon historical causes, regardless of race.
Finally we attempted to describe the mental characteristics of primitive man, regardless of his racial affiliations. We pointed out the differences in principles of classification of experience found on different social stages, and the differences in logical conclusions reached by primitive and civilized man owing to the difference in the character of knowledge accumulated by preceding generations. We then followed out the emotional associations of habitual activities, and the tendency to invent for them rationalistic explanations. We found them quite common in primitive life, and noticed thegreat variety of ideas and activities that were thus brought into contact so as to produce a number of peculiar concepts and activities. Other peculiar associations are not due to strong emotional causes, but to all of them is common the tendency of taking on rationalistic explanations of varied character. The change from primitive to civilized society includes a lessening of the number of the emotional associations, and an improvement of the traditional material that enters into our habitual mental operations.