TEADITION AND HEREDITY 447 



writing materials. In China writing, owing to the cumbersome 

 form which it has taken, has never been of more than a very 

 restricted usefulness. It has been suggested that the differences 

 between the clarity of Greek thought and the vagueness of Indian 

 speculation are in part due to the greater use made of writing in 

 the former country. ^ 



9. Thus in general if we survey the outstanding facts we find 

 that explanations based on the influence of the environment in 

 stimulating progress in skill suggest themselves. Racial differ- 

 ences do exist and play a part. We may gain some idea what this 

 part is if we now turn to consider the nature of these differences, 

 and we may first pay attention to the larger differences such as 

 those which distinguish the negro from the European. These 

 differences, it must be emphasized, are only large relative to the 

 differences which exist between European races. Relative to 

 the difference between the ancestor in the intermediate stage and 

 modern man they are almost negligible. 



Some analysis has been made of the differences between negroes 

 and white men and with regard to these differences we may observe 

 two things. In the first place they can only in part account for 

 the differences in performance. Before coming into contact with 

 Europeans, negroes had not passed beyond the stage of primitive 

 thought ; but it is evident that they are not innately incapable 

 of so doing. The results of educating the negro have been to 

 narrow the conception of the gap which separates him from the 

 white man. Just as D'Alembert and Diderot would not believe 

 that the Russians could be civilized up to the European standard, 

 so a later generation believed that the negroes could not be so 

 civilized ; but ' negroes are now indisputably the equals of white 

 men in categories in which one hundred years ago their masters 

 would have confidently argued that they were naturally incapable 

 of attaining equality '.2 Nevertheless there are differences ; the 

 negro is intellectually on the average somewhat inferior, and 

 certainly possesses somewhat different emotional and tempera- 

 mental characteristics. 



In the second place from the end of the first period to the 

 present day the evolution of mental characters shows little 

 correspondence to the evolution of skill. Whereas progress in 



1 Rhys Davids, Buddhism, p. 40. ^ Olivier, White Capital and Coloured 



Labour, p. 57. 



