PROBLEMS OF COLONIAL ADMINISTRATION 415 



position, being looked down upon and suspected by both of the races 

 from whom they have descended, and becoming the easy prey to vice 

 and to general decadence. At the present time the tendency toward 

 race mixture is less strong than ever before. Races are becoming 

 mutually exclusive, and especially those which consider themselves 

 higher show a strong desire of keeping their blood pure. It is there- 

 fore not to be expected that the psychological differences which 

 separate white and colored mankind will be modified 'by racial 

 mixture. 



The side from which the intellectual nature of the non-European 

 races will, perhaps, prove most accessible is that which is connected 

 with the mastery of nature. The people of both Asia and Africa 

 have lived under the overpowering influence of resistless phenomena 

 of nature. The primeval forest world of Africa, the typhoons and 

 floods of the East Indian islands, the famine and pestilence of India, 

 her vast mountains, and the ferocious rivers of China, which bring 

 destruction to millions every few decades, - - these are phenomena 

 the like of which the Western world does not know. With us nature 

 is more docile and of greater amenity. It is consequently not a 

 matter of surprise that the forces of nature should have been under- 

 stood and mastered first by the Western mind. It is through this 

 mastery that the Western peoples can impress other nations most 

 successfully with a sense of their superiority. By relieving the 

 tyranny which nature now ^xercises in the primitive forests of Africa 

 and in plague-stricken India, Western civilization may become the 

 Prometheus of the nations that are yet in bondage. The mastery 

 of the resources and forces of nature has given us a new conception of 

 life, it has relieved us from the fear of the capricious powers by which 

 primitive man sees himself threatened on all sides. When we look 

 back at the medieval man, whose belief in miracles, amulets, and 

 incantations do not put him at a very great distance from modern 

 barbarians, we feel that our command over natural forces makes a 

 return to the medieval point of view hardly conceivable. As we 

 prepare the more backward races to share in this mastery over 

 nature, they will also have a better understanding of our intellectual 

 life and of our beliefs. The haughtiest Brahman even stops to 

 wonder as he sees the processes of electrical industry and notes the 

 sure grasp with which the forces of nature are made subject to the 

 human will. 



" From the ground up " should be the motto of an intelligent 

 colonial policy. Not to attempt to bestow upon the backward races 

 the blessings of a civilization which they cannot understand and 

 which may be a deadly poison in the form in which they are offered, 

 but to work in alliance with the universal forces of social evolution, 

 to battle against the exploitative tendencies which would carry us 



