"PROFESSOR RIDGEWAY AND RACIAL ORIGINS" 139 



It has been in the past a maxim of British politicians that in 

 the English constitution and in English law there is a panacea 

 for every political and social difficulty in any race under the 

 sun. Only let us give, it is urged, this or that state a repre- 

 sentative parliamentary system and trial by jury, and all will go 

 well. The fundamental error in this doctrine is the assumption 

 that a political and legal system evolved during many centuries 

 amongst a people of North-western Europe, largely Teutonic, and 

 that, too, living not on the mainland but on an island, can be 

 applied, cut and dried, to a people evolved during countless 

 generations in tropical or sub-tropical regions, with social 

 institutions and religious ideas widely different from those of 

 even South Europeans and still more so from those of Northern 

 Europe. We might just as well ask the Ethiopian to change 

 his skin as to change radically his social and religious ideas. 

 It has been shown by experience that Christianity can make 

 but little headway amongst many people in Africa or Asia, 

 where on the other hand Muhammadanism has made, and is 

 steadily making, progress and acting distinctly for good, as in 

 Africa, by putting down human sacrifice and replacing fetish 

 worship by a lofty monotheism." I offered as a suggestion to 

 account for this fact that Muhammadanism is a religion evolved 

 amongst a Semitic people who live in latitudes bordering on 

 the aboriginal races of Africa and Asia, and that it is far more 

 akin in its social ideas to those of the Negro or the Malay than 

 are those of Christianity, more especially of that form of Christi- 

 anity evolved during the last twelve centuries by the Teutonic 

 peoples of upper Europe, who are of all races furthest in physical 

 characteristics, in religious ideas, and social institutions from the 

 dark races of Africa and Asia. " This great gulf is due not 

 merely to shallow prejudice against other people's notions ; it 

 is as deep-seated as is the physical antipathy felt by the Teutons 

 for the Negro, which is itself due to the very different climatic 

 conditions under which both races have been evolved." 



Mr. Houghton is very irate with these doctrines, but he does 

 not challenge the main facts. He simply states that "Christi- 

 anity is equally a Semitic religion as is Muhammadanism." 

 But, as I pointed out, the Christianity brought into Africa, 

 especially by the various Protestant denominations, is not 

 Semitic Christianity, but a Semitic religion long adapted and 

 improved in upper Europe amongst non-Semitic peoples. He 



