THE RACIAL GEOGRAPHY OF EUROPE. 469 



THE RACIAL GEOGRAPHY OF EUROPE. 



A SOCIOLOGICAL STUDY. 



(Lowell Institute Lectures, 1896.) 

 By WILLIAM Z. EIPLEY, Ph. D., 



ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF 80CIOLOGT, MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY ; LECTURER IN 

 ANTHROPO-GEOGRAPHY AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY. 



XIIL— MODERN SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 



HAS the intricate racial composition of the population of Europe,, 

 which we have been at so much pains to analyze, any signifi- 

 cance for the student of social problems? Is there any reason why 

 those who would rightly interpret sociological phenomena should 

 first thoroughly acquaint themselves with the nature of the human 

 stuff of which populations are compounded? Or have our con- 

 clusions, thus far, value merely as branches of investigation in pure 

 science, a matter of academic interest alone ? Such are the questions 

 awaiting resolution at our hands in this paper of our series. 



Let us begin by distinguishing between two equally competent 

 and yet radically opposite explanations for any human phenomenon. 

 One ascribes its origin to heredity, an internal factor; the other 

 makes it a product of outward conditions — that is to say, of environ- 

 ment, social it may be, or physical. Thus the tall stature or blond- 

 ness of an individual, a social class, or a people, may conceivably be 

 due either to an inherited tendency from preceding generations, or 

 else to the modifying influence of outer circumstances operative dur- 

 ing a single lifetime.* Considering a single individual alone, a 

 third factor — viz., chance variation — must needs be taken into ac- 

 count; but viewing men by wholesale, in large masses, this matter 

 takes care of itself. Thus an odd drunkard, social reject, or crim- 

 inal here and there in a community may be nothing more than an 

 aberrant type; but if we discover a goodly proportion of such bad 

 men, we are led to suspect a more fundamental cause. Chance does 

 not work thus by wholesale, steadily in any given direction. Quete- 

 let discovered this fact years ago. Confronted by any such phe- 

 nomenon existing in appreciable proportions in any society, as re- 

 vealed by statistical examination, we are therefore at once called 

 upon to decide between our two original explanations. One runs 

 it to earth, on the environmental theory; the other trees it in gene- 

 alogical hypothesis. In plain English, it becomes a question of out- 

 ward circumstances or else of inherited proclivities. On the first 



* In the Political Science Quarterly, New York, x, 1895, pp. 642 et seq., we have dis- 

 cussed this more fully. 



