248 CULTURE 



much that is fundamental quite unaltered. But 

 he would be blind who could not see amongst the 

 negroes of the Carribbean, and the native races 

 of South America that Christian culture has 

 created new ideals, has ameliorated manners and 

 raised the standard of comfort, quite apart from 

 its spiritual effects. The same remark may be 

 made of the converts whom Christian missions 

 have gathered in other parts of the world. Those 

 who become Christians develop a new set of 

 sympathies : they become affiliated to the pro- 

 gressive societies of Europe, and are impelled 

 to imitate them, whereas the adherents of other 

 cults are opposed to Christian manners and cus- 

 toms by not unnatural feelings of loyalty to their 

 creed. In Eastern Europe the progressiveness 

 of Christian, and the stagnation of Mohammedan 

 peoples convincingly illustrates the effects of these 

 feelings. The Bulgarians are racially akin to the 

 Turks. They have profited very remarkably by 

 their inclusion within the pale of Christian fellow- 

 ship, although we may conclude from the incidents 

 of the late Balkan war that, when culture is 

 dissolved in the heat of conflict, there is little to 

 choose in malignant ferocity between the followers 

 of Mohammed and those of Christ. 







From the physical point of view, culture is 

 working momentous changes in the conditions of 

 human society. By subordinating the interests 

 of reproduction to those of intelligent activity 

 it is reducing the procreation of children, and 

 actually threatens with extinction the most 

 cultured classes of mankind. Amongst the poorest 

 classes children are still born as plentifully as in 

 Russia or India ; but as the social scale rises, 

 the birth-rate diminishes, until, in the uppermost 



