PROFESSOR RIDGEWAY AND RACIAL ORIGINS 277 



ments, or such-like be, on any right conception of the facts, 

 the heritage or result of any climate or locality. There were 

 parliaments in Rome when human sacrifices lit up the banks 

 of the Thames ; subsequently free parliaments were held in 

 London what time the Italians groaned under the most 

 grievous of tyrannies. And so with every other institution 

 that crystallises momentarily in the shifting magma of intel- 

 lectual progress. The thoughts and ideas of mankind wheel 

 and soar in a sphere wholly different from that where work 

 the slow forces which evolved his somatic cells. Give a man 

 or woman education in the modern sense of the term, freeing 

 his mind from the gyves to freedom of thought imposed by 

 dogma and tradition, and within certain broad limits he will 

 think and reason much the same all the world over. On 

 this point the case of Japan is decisive. True, modern ideas 

 often shape ill and awry at first introduction to half-civilised 

 peoples. But the causes of such misfits are usually not far 

 to seek. One fundamental defect, one cause of the failures 

 which lead so many ardent reformers to despair, lies, it 

 would often seem, in the omission to educate and enlighten 

 the feminine portion of a race. It does not suffice to open 

 the doors of intellectual progress to the manhood of a nation; 

 unless the women equally tread the path of progress and 

 enlightenment, it follows of necessity that, owing to the 

 latter's influence over childhood and the home, progress will 

 be hindered, warped, and restricted. 



By way of conclusion Prof. Ridgeway, after a playful 

 reference to alcohol and flesh-food as necessities imposed by 

 a cold or temperate climate, indulges in some diatribes on 

 the folly of preserving the " lower " class, ending with the 

 customary prophecy of race degeneration. Here is no place 

 for a discussion either of temperance or of vegetarianism. 

 But such temperate races as the American Indians and 

 Esquimaux (before the advent of Europeans), and the Japanese, 

 constitute awkward facts against climatic alcoholism ; whilst 

 the supposed need for flesh-food has not hindered the Russian 

 and Japanese peasantry, and the Highlanders and Irish (until 

 recent years), from enjoying on a vegetarian diet remarkably 

 robust health. This, however, by the way. The real question 

 is, are the bulk of the lower classes truly inferior by heredity 

 to those above them in the social scale? And with all deference 



