THE RACIAL GEOGRAPHY OF EUROPE. 465 



Modern political boundaries will, therefore, avail us but little ; 

 tbey are entirely a superficial product ; for, as we insist, nation- 

 ality bears no constant or necessary relation whatever to race. It 

 is an artificial result of political causes to a great extent. From 

 the moment an individual is born into the world, he finds himself 

 exposed to a series of concentric influences which swing in upon 

 him with overwhelming force. The ties of family lie nearest: 

 the bonds and prejudices of caste follow close upon ; then comes 

 the circle of party affiliations and of religious denomination. 

 Language encompasses all these about. The element of nation- 

 ality lying outside of them all is as largely the result of historical 

 and social causes as any of the others, with the sole exception of 

 family perhaps. Race may conceivably cut across all these lines 

 at right angles. It underlies them all. It is, so to speak, the raw 

 material from which each of these social patterns is made up. It 

 may become an agent to determine their intensity and motive, 

 as the nature of the fiber determines the desigil woven in the 

 stuff. It may proceed in utter independence. Race harmonizes, 

 at all events, less with the bounds of nationality than with any 

 other certainly less so than with those either of social caste or 

 religious affiliation. That nearly a half of France, while peopled 

 by ardent patriots, is as purely Teutonic racially as the half of 

 Germany itself is a sufficient example of the truth of our asser- 

 tion. The best illustration of the greater force of religious preju- 

 dices to give rise to a distinct physical type is afforded by the 

 Jews. Social ostracism, based upon differences of belief in great 

 measure, has sufficed to keep them truer to a single racial stand- 

 ard, perhaps, than any other people of Europe. Another example 

 of religious isolation, re-enforced by geograj)hical seclusion, may 

 be seen among the followers of the mediaeval reformer, Juan Val- 

 d^s. Persecuted for generations, driven high up into the Alps of 

 northwestern Italy, these people show to- day a notable difference 

 in physical type from all their neighbors.* 



Political geography is, for all these reasons, entirely distinct 

 from racial and social geography, as well in its princiiDles as in its 

 results. Many years ago a course was delivered before this Lowell 

 Institute by M. Guyot, the great geographer, subsequently pub- 

 lished under the cai)tion The Earth and Man. It created a pro- 

 found sensation at the time, as it pointed out the intimate rela- 

 tion which exists between geography and history ; but it was of 

 necessity extremely vague, and its results were in the main unsat- 

 isfactory. Its value lay mainly in its novel point of view. Since 

 this time a completely new science dealing with man has arisen, 



* Archivio per I'Antropologia, xx, pp. 61 ei seq. ; also R. Livi, Anthropometria militaire. 

 p. 135. 



VOL. L, 35 



