TEE MULATTO 577 



Above the primitive races axe found the inferior races, represented more 

 especially by the negroes. They are capable of attaining to the rudiments of 

 civilization, but to the rudiments only. They have never been able to get 

 beyond quite barbarian forms of civilization, even where chance has made them 

 the heirs, as in Saint Domingo, of superior civilization. . . . The inferior races 

 further display but an infinitesimal power of attention and reflection; they 

 possess the spirit of imitation in a high degree, the habit of drawing inaccurate 

 general conditions from particular eases, a feeble capacity for observation and 

 for deriving useful results from their observations, an extreme mobility of 

 character, and a very notable lack of foresight. The instinct of the moment is 

 their only guide (pp. 27-30). 



The common European estimate of the negro, according to Olivier, 

 is that 



he is brutish, benighted and unprogressive, . . . "half -devil and half -child" 

 ("White Capital and Coloured Labour," London, 1910, p. 2). 



My own experience compels me to accept Le Bon's estimate as 

 applicable to our American pure negro in perhaps slightly less extreme 

 form, and with occasional exception ; but " devil " is no more applicable 

 to him than to white "brutes." Le Bon's description would seem to 

 describe fairly accurately the racial characteristics of the negroes. The 

 opinion of many men with whom I have discussed this matter confirms 

 me in this judgment. The average of the Caucasian race is by impli- 

 cation characterized by the opposite traits of the typical negro. 



The negro differs from the Caucasian in several well-marked ana- 

 tomical characteristics. Any one who has associated with negroes 

 detects even more striking mental or temperamental differences. These 

 are quite obvious to teachers of mixed schools, fairly common in certain 

 northern states. Where negro, mulatto and white are jointly concerned 

 the teachers are unequivocal in their opinion that mental alertness and 

 the development of the higher psychical activities corresponds in 

 degree quite uniformly with the amount of " white " blood as judged 

 by color of the skin. Le Bon also is quite emphatic on this point : 



Each race possesses a mental constitution as unvarying as its anatomical 

 constitution (p. 6). 

 and 



The mental abyss that separates them (negro and white) is evident (p. 28). 



This " mental constitution " is the source of a race's " sentiments, 

 thoughts, institutions, beliefs and arts," its " soul." 



Where does the mulatto stand with respect to negroes and whites? 

 In general, as a race, approximately midway. But it includes types 

 combining the best as well as the worst of both races. The former 

 almost certainly predominate at the present time. 



In Jamaica, according to Governor Olivier, 



In practise it is the fact that the pure negro does not show the business 

 capacity and ambition of the man of mixed race, and there are few, if any, 



