HEREDITARY CHARACTERISTICS 183 



one of many in the areas which they inhabit, and 

 are subjected to no special influences of environ- 

 ment. Their physical peculiarities can hardly 

 be due to their culture, and, if these are innate, 

 their peculiarities of disposition may justly be 

 held to be innate also. The Armenians, the Jews, 

 the Basques of Northern Spain, the Parsees of 

 India, and the gipsies, all appear to possess traits 

 of character that are peculiar to them, and have 

 resisted for many generations a change of environ- 

 ment. In the case of the gipsies they have also 

 resisted a complete change of culture. The 

 negroes of the United States, of the Caribbean 

 Islands, and Brazil have for more than six 

 generations been living in a changed environ- 

 ment and under a changed culture. They have 

 been Christianized. But missionaries who have 

 spent a lifetime amongst them will admit that, 

 if the influence of white men was withdrawn, 

 they would rapidly deteriorate. The persistence 

 of racial character is illustrated even more 

 strikingly by the Moplahs of the Indian Malabar 

 coast. These men are the descendants of Arabs 

 who settled in the country over twenty-five 

 generations ago. In a moist enervating climate 

 they have preserved the fierceness of their 

 ancestors, and from time to time have risen in 

 disturbances which it has required the use of 

 regular troops, and much bloodshed, to quell. 

 They are Mohammedans amidst a population of 

 Hindus, and their character, it may be urged, 

 is the result of their religious culture and tradi- 

 tions. But the other Mohammedans of India are 

 not endowed with this peculiarity of disposition. 

 In truth, however, we hardly need these illustra- 

 tions to be convinced that racial character exists 

 as a thing in itself, quite apart from the influences 

 of culture and environment, and that for some 



