RACIAL TRAITS : NORTH AND SOUTH 185 



groups of peoples that respectively show their 

 typical features most strongly on the shores of the 

 Baltic and Mediterranean seas. 



What are the traits which stand out most clearly 

 if we compare, say, an Italian with a Dane ? We 

 notice, in the first place, that the former is much 

 the more impulsive of the two that is to say, is 

 swayed more powerfully by the instinct of self- 

 abandonment than by that of self-control. He is 

 accordingly the more aesthetic, but the less 

 ethical ; he excels in artistic sensibility, but is 

 deficient in the sense of moral discipline from which 

 arose the puritanism of the north. 



We may, further, observe a difference Jin the 

 relative strength of the individualistic and the 

 social instincts. The bent of the southerner 

 is strongly social : he cleaves to his family with 

 superstitious reverence ; he is happiest in a 

 crowd ; he possesses in a marked degree the 

 virtues of warm-heartedness, generosity, and 

 loyalty which cement mankind into a cheerful 

 society : he is also disposed to accept the arbitrary 

 management of the leaders of his community, 

 and to regard disobedience to their authority 

 as justly punishable with great severity. The 

 northman, on the contrary, has been distinguished 

 since the days of Tacitus by his individuality, 

 his independance ; he readily abandons his 

 family surroundings in search of profit or adven- 

 ture, and is not harassed in his exile by thoughts 

 of his motherland : his ideal of private life is not 

 a crowd, but a home : he will not readily suffer 

 a government or a religion in which his individual 

 existence is submerged. 



Southerners are not troubled by the self-con- 

 sciousness which causes hesitation or awkwardness 

 of address : they are, consequently, expansive in 

 their manners and often very eloquent in their 



