i86 RACE 



speech, are not checked by themselves from naive 

 expressions of vanity, nor, it should be added, 

 safeguarded from the inconsistencies between 

 language and conduct which are detected by 

 an introspective mind. Nor are they sensitive in 

 regard to appearances indeed they are surpri- 

 singly unconscious of grotesqueness or untidiness 

 in dress and they accordingly are not steadied 

 by one of the surest foundations upon which 

 " respectability " can establish itself. 



We may, also, notice amongst them a lack of 

 originality in will-power. All men are more 

 inclined to adopt opinions that are current than 

 to form them for themselves. But the Mediter- 

 ranean peoples seem to be peculiarly susceptible 

 to the catchwords of the day. The extraordinary 

 infatuation shown by the French over the Dreyfus 

 case is a striking illustration of this tendency. 



It seems, moreover, that the impulse to change 

 is less forcible in the Mediterranean than further 

 north. The bonds of habit are stronger. If we 

 look below the surface of modern Italian and 

 Spanish l civilization we shall discover a surprising 

 continuity of ideas from the days of the Romans. 

 The style of domestic architecture has remained in 

 some measure unchanged : even so far afield as in 

 Buenos Ayres the houses of the Italian immigrants, 

 in their construction and decoration, offer more 

 than fanciful resemblances to those of Pompeii. 

 Christianity has become the religion of the 

 people ; but in its Mediterranean form it betrays 

 many connections with the cults of pagan times. 

 Pausanias the Baedeker of Greece eighteen 

 centuries ago was interested to notice black 

 statues of Artemis : there are black Madonnas 

 at the present day, and the cult of the Virgin 



1 Marius, Sulla, or Catiline would feel quite at home in 

 present-day Mexico. 



