38 



DISCOVERY 



sight " and the like. The student will reflect that 

 these and other items of mental equipment might 

 really be or become channels to fuller apprehension of 

 truth, though conditions of life, especially in indus- 

 trial areas, seem to have almost destroyed them. 



Contrasted in almost every way with the dark 

 longhead is the tall, long-headed blond, though here 

 again we must remember that there are marked 

 variations under different circumstances. In the 

 English countryside these characters are found among 

 the few remaining landed families of the pre- industrial 

 age ; they are noteworthy in certain clans, among the 

 gamekeepers and poachers of the wilder parts of the 

 country, and in certain fishing populations. The}- 

 are numerous among the lower ranks of army officers. 

 Their antipathy to slum life is notorious, and mass- 

 production, by easing communication, has given them 

 an escape to the new lands, where they find room and 

 adventure, though it is not yet certain that they 

 can go on reproducing their kind in some of these 

 lands. That initiative and restless energy are a 

 feature of mental equipment associated with these 

 physical characters seems clear enough. Blood- 

 thirstiness also has been ascribed to the " blond 

 beast " by many a writer, but the Scandinavian blond 

 has been peaceful enough for longish periods, and the 

 tendencies to war fever may often be encouraged by 

 inhibitions of that energetic initiative in a complex 

 social order little understood by simple outdoor minds. 



The British population shows in certain families 

 and a few districts a group of very marked physical 

 characters — the head is broad and the forehead large 

 and receding from mighty brows, the face is often 

 strongly marked, the colouring inclines to the fair 

 side, and the stature is tall, even at times very tall. 

 These characters, so far as they can be judged from 

 skulls, and others too detailed to mention, are also 

 found in the remains of certain invaders of Britain 

 who reached its eastern shores about the end of the 

 Stone Age, after having spread westward into Europe 

 along the belts of loess and related deposits (compara- 

 tively forest-free) north of the Alps. Whether our 

 modern representatives descend from those who 

 arrived so long ago or from other possessors of like 

 characters who have come since we have no means of 

 telling, but we do know that these characters are 

 handed down very clearly in certain families. WTiat 

 of the mental characteristics possibly associated with 

 them ? These physical characters will be found fairly 

 commonly in such gatherings as a congress of sur- 

 geons, or a meeting of serious administrators, or 

 among office-holders with important synthetic tasks. 

 One frequently notes among the possessors of these 

 physical features the power to gather up many 

 threads of evidence and to weave them together with 



imaginative skill. The energy to carry out a scheme 

 thus made may or may not be present, and the moral 

 courage to do battle for it may not always be found. 

 But the men with these features are often gifted with 

 much political sense, and the John Bull of British 

 caricature belongs here just as decisively as the 

 Englishman lampooned in Continental cartoons is 

 attributable to the taller variety of the dark, bony 

 longhead discussed in an earlier paragraph. 



Certain coastal- patches of West Britain show a 

 proportion of dark-haired people with broad, squarish 

 features of head and face and very strong build. 

 They lack the strong brows of the people previously 

 discussed, and they are more variable in stature, 

 though they are also often very tall. Similar 

 characters are found among the people of coastal 

 patches here and therein Spain, Brittany, the Hebrides, 

 etc. In nearly every case these districts are interested 

 in merchant shipping or in long-distance commercial 

 fisheries. These physical characters are also often 

 found among business men and financiers, notably in 

 maritime marts of the Mediterranean Sea. 



It would be interesting to discuss the red-haired 

 strains, the admixtures of Jewish blood, and so on, 

 but the above must suffice as examples. In each of 

 the cases quoted there is thus prima facie evidence 

 of the association of grouped physical characteristics 

 on the one hand with certain mental activities 

 on the other. That is as far as it is possible to go 

 with any profit at this early stage. It should be 

 noted that there is no intention to argue from any one 

 physical character to any one mental character, or 

 vice versa. Nor is there an}' wish to argue that the 

 mental characters are in a sense ' ' caused by ' ' the 

 physical ones with which they seem linked. A group 

 of physical characters taken together, it is suggested, 

 is at times linked up with certain manifestations of 

 mental activity, though, in all probability, the linkage 

 is by no means invariable, and at least allows of 

 considerable variation as regards energy and exactitude. 

 The particular manifestations of mentality from which 

 we argue may be bound up with social circumstance, 

 but behind them are probably real dynamic factors 

 which we as yet barely apprehend. 



This short article may be too compressed to do 

 more than suggest an outlook upon a region still 

 uncharted by science, but it may nevertheless have 

 served some more directly useful purpose if it has 

 drawn attention to the folly of treating of the 

 mental characters, be it of Germans, Frenchmen, or 

 Britons, in the mass. In each national group are 

 many racial mosaics, and similar groups of characters 

 occur in all. There are differences of social ex- 

 pression and lack of expression connected with social 

 and historical facts, and these are apt to vary from 



