TKADITION AND HEREDITY 449 



no little influence but an influence which is contributory — 

 supplementing for a time the process which continued when 

 germinal change had largely ceased. So far as we find this 

 conclusion to be supported by further inquiry, so far it is correct 

 to say that races with the innate mentality of the negroes would 

 not by themselves have reached the position attained by the 

 white races, though it is not true that the white races progressed 

 directly because of their superior innate mental endowment. 



10. We may now inquire into the importance of the lesser 

 racial differences. There are usually recognized in Europe three 

 chief racial types — Nordic, Mediterranean, and Alpine. If innate 

 mental differences exist, we should expect to find associated with 

 each type certain peculiar traditional features ; for, as we have seen, 

 innate racial peculiarities tend to set the current of tradition 

 flowing in certain directions, and the association of different 

 institutions and behefs with particular racial types would suggest 

 that innate mental differences are making themselves felt, though, 

 before this conclusion can be accepted, it must be shown that 

 the play of environmental factors upon tradition has been fairly 

 uniform for all these types. A considerable amount of evidence 

 can be accumulated to show that such association exists. Thus 

 the Nordic peoples are mostly Protestant and the Alpine and 

 Mediterranean peoples mostly Catholic or Greek Church. The 

 fact that during the Reformation a choice was set before most 

 European nations as to what religion should be adopted — the 

 issue hanging in the balance for some time in many places — seems 

 to indicate that the conditions were more or less equalized and 

 that the adoption of the Protestant rehgion by the Nordic type 

 was influenced by certain innate characters attaching to this 

 type — self-assertiveness and love of independence, for instance.^ 

 The South Germans, who are of the Alpine race, remained 

 Catholic, while in the Netherlands the Nordic Dutchmen became 

 Protestant. Similarly there is a certain correspondence in Europe 

 between the distribution of types of political institutions and that 

 of racial types, and much other relevant evidence could be 

 brought forward. We have seen how sharply negroes are distin- 

 guished from Europeans in emotional disposition ; similar 

 differences, though on a much smaller scale, are visible as between 

 European races. It can hardly be doubted that the Irish and the 



» McDougall, Group Mind, p. 112. 

 2498 F f 



