576 



The Earth 



cultural groups with races. Religion has 

 nothing to do with the physical traits of 

 man. It is true that most people who fol- 

 low Buddha, for example, have yellow 

 skins; they are Mongoloids. But people 

 of the Nordic race have been known to 

 become Buddhist; changing religion does 

 not cause a change in physical traits. In 

 the same way when we speak of Jewish 

 people ^ve are not talking about race. 



And there is no "Aryan race." To the 

 student of languages, Aryan refers to the 

 group of languages to which, among 

 others, the German and English lan- 

 guages belong. All German- and English- 

 speaking people, therefore, are Aryans. 

 They may have the physical traits of 

 Nordics or Negroes. If English is their 

 native tongue, they are Aryans. They 

 may profess the faith of a Christian or of 

 a Jew or of a Mohammedan, but if they 

 belong to a group that speaks English or 

 German they are Aryans. 



How race prejudices arise. Most of us 

 like to associate with people like our- 

 selves. We feel more at ease with those 

 who not only speak our language, but 

 who have the same customs and reli- 

 gion and who share our political beliefs. 

 Since we feel more comfortable with 

 people of our own kind we may begin to 

 look with suspicion at those who differ 

 from us. The less we have in common 

 with them, the less close do we feel to 

 them. It is then that we begin to draw 

 comparisons between them and our- 

 selves. Now in making comparisons we 

 unconsciously attach importance to the 

 points in which \vq feci ourselves to be 

 superior; we think less about the traits 

 in which we feci inferior, and we tend 

 to forget these as we compare ourselves 



and Its Inhabitajits Change unit x 



with other persons. So, in our compari- 

 sons, the other persons or the other 

 groups usually do not show^ up wtW. 

 Thus, gradually, from the feeling that 

 we are different we slide into a feeling 

 of superiority. In the meantime, our 

 friends or associates have also, many of 

 them, arrived at the same feeling of su- 

 periority. We bolster each other up and 

 gradually the feeling becomes stronger 

 and stronger in all of us. In this way 

 many of us feel first a difference, then a 

 certain superiority, and soon a distrust, 

 even a dislike. When these feelings have 

 grown to be a part of us we do not stop 

 to check them with the facts. In most of 

 us, unfortunately, "feeling" and "know- 

 ing" amount to the same thing. The 

 stronger our feelings, the surer we are of 

 what we think we know. This feeling of 

 superiority, unsupported and unrea- 

 soned, is what we call "prejudice." 



What are the facts? Is any one stock 

 superior to another or, worded differ- 

 ently, is one stock less primitive in its 

 physical traits and further removed 

 from our early ancestors? Let us assume 

 that you and I are Caucasoids. Can we 

 show that our Caucasoid stock is less 

 primitive? Anthropologists say we can- 

 not. In hairiness of body and face — a 

 trait characteristic of lower mammals — 

 the Negroid and Mongoloid stocks are 

 far more advanced than the Caucasoids. 

 The Caucasoids are the most primitive. 

 On the other hand, protruding jaws and 

 low forehead can also be considered 

 primitive since these were the charac- 

 teristics of prehistoric man. In this re- 

 spect the Caucasoid is most advanced. 



Now M'hen we consider round-head- 

 edness, which the anthropologist says 



