386 MARTIN P. NILSSON 

of its dispositions is able to create something to which its dispositions 
predispose it. If these dispositions are of such a kind as to enable 
the race to achieve a higher culture or to organize a state, as was 
the case among the Greeks and Romans, the result will be a certain 
form of culture and of state, moulded according to fixed laws and 
customs of life. The result of the bastardizing will be a motley blend 
of the different hereditary dispositions of the races which are crossed. 
Mere chance brings different dispositions: of different races together 
in almost infinitely varying fashions. But this does not suffice. Dis- 
positions which were formerly concealed, lying latent in one or the 
other of the crossed races, will appear on the surface and make 
the product of the crossing yet more motley and incalculable. The 
unity and harmony of the race and the individual will be destroyed, 
the personality loses its balance. The individuals which are born 
out of this crossing fail to achieve a firm and fixed type. Psychically 
they lack a definite direction and vacillate indecisively between con- 
flicting and unconnected hereditary dispositions. They may often 
possess great intelligence, but the moral strength is wanting. This 
state of affairs is due to biological factors but gets still worse if — 
as was the case in the Roman Empire — the fixed form of the mental 
life at the same time breaks down and is transformed. 
Bastard races have a bad reputation. If Levantines, Eurasians, 
Mestizes etc. are mentioned everyone feels how deep-rooted is the 
objection against them. People are wont to say that this bad reputa- 
tion and the moral weakness of the bastards are due to the unfavour- 
able conditions in which they are born and bred, usually as illegiti- 
mate and neglected children, disowned by the kinsfolk of both father 
and mother. But this is not the full explanation, it is only superficial; 
at the root lies the destroying effect of the bastardizing on the per- 
sonality. The Roman Empire became more and more filled by 
bastards. The bastardizing was strongest in the ruling country, 
Italy, whither people from all the borders of the Empire flowed 
together, and was stronger in the upper civilized classes than in the 
lower, which did not move about with the same frequency *. But 
the army, the trade, and the general intercourse carried the bastardi- 
zing into every corner of the Empire. The swiftness of the process 
is not to be wondered at. Contrary to the slow development of a 
race, the bastardizing shows its effects even in the first generation, 
but is of course increased by the crossing of the bastards. Whether 
it is to set its stamp on the people will depend solely on the extent 
nn. 
