August 3, igi 1] 



NATURE 



i59 



iried peoples with similar or analogous aims, were all 

 to the good, and will have permanent beneficial results. 



The main work of the congress consisted of speeches and 

 resolutions, as well as of the papers which were published 

 befor. tin- meeting in a volume of nearly five hundred 

 pages entitled " Inter-racial Problems " (P. S. King and 

 These wire taken as read, but many of the writers 

 had a further opportunity of stating their views. The 

 official meetings of the congress were held on July 26—29 

 in the large hall of the University of London, a room 

 which, unfortunately, has bad acoustic properties. As a 

 very large number of persons were invited or volunteered 

 to speak, the time given to each was necessarily limited, 

 and in consequence most of them spoke very rapidly, and 

 often not distinctly ; various languages were employed, and 

 the oppressively sultry weather made it difficult to con- 

 centrate attention. The conditions were not favourable to 

 a real discussion, and the proceedings were necessaril) 

 more oi the nature of orations, sometimes perfervid, on a 

 multiplicity of topics. On the previous Tuesday, however, 

 hi attempt was made to organise discussions on "The 

 of miscegenation on intelligence and character," and 

 " The influence of environment in forming and changing 

 racial characteristics." TIipsp two problems and " the 

 1 1 problems of the conditions of progress " were also 

 discussed on the Wednesday morning. 



Prof. F. von Luschan in his printed paper states that 

 As long as man is not born with wings, like the angels, 

 he will remain subject to the eternal laws of Nature, and 

 therefore he will always have to struggle for life and 

 existence. . . . Nations will come and go, but racial and 

 national antagonism will remain ; and this is well, for man- 

 kind would become like a herd of sheep if we were to lose 

 our national ambition and cease to look with pride and 

 delight, not only on our industries and science, but also on 

 our splendid soldiers and our glorious ironclads." In his 

 speech he humorously admitted that he was swimming 

 st the stream of the congress, which was certainly the 

 Dr. lladdon maintained that Dr. von Luschan had 

 only partially stated the case; he assumed that it was 

 largely on account of his weakness and social habits that 

 man diverged from the other anthropoids ; the least 

 advanced peoples are, if anything, over-socialised, and all 

 through human history progress depends upon the balance 

 between individualism and collectivism, between self-help 

 and mutual aid. Mr. John Gray, in opposition to the senti- 

 ments of many present, frankly stated that all men were 

 not equal and never would be, nor was it desirable that 

 they should be; but, on the other hand, equal opportunities 

 should be given to all, so that the more capable should not 

 be stifled. Drs. von Luschan and Haddon agreed that 

 there were practically no pure races still existing, and that 

 a discussion of races was not suitable for a congress such 

 as this, as it was mainly of academic interest ; the former 

 went so far as to state that the old Indo-European, the 

 African, and the east Asiatic all branched off from the 

 same primitive stock, perhaps hundreds of thousands of 

 years ago. " but all three forming a complete unity, inter- 

 marrying in all directions without the slighest decrease of 

 fertility." This does not, however, mean, as some would 

 have liked to believe, that there is no racial difference 

 between men. 



Prof. Lyde printed an informing paper on the climatic 

 control of skin-colour. Most anthropologists admit this 

 control, which, however, has not yet been sufficiently 

 studied, nor are the very numerous exceptions vet 

 accounted for. Colour has long been recognised as but a 

 very secondary factor in race discrimination, and it was 

 distinctly pointed out that the question of race was a purelv 

 zoological problem, and must be solved by zoological 

 methods. Nearly every sneaker confounded peoples with 

 hut perhaps this is inevitable among those who have 

 not had a biological training ; this confusion of terms is 

 manifest in the first printed paper on the meaning of race. 

 tribe, nation, by Dr. Brajendranath Seal, who speaks of 

 .7 ''national race" of complex elements. He also savs 

 " We may arrange the tvpes of physical rare . . . (1) . . , 

 by a modified genealogical tree (with devices for inter- 

 crossing and retrogression), or by symbols and formulae 

 analogous to those of organic chemistry (as in arranging 

 isomers, polymers, 8tc.) ... (2) ... in space (or more 



NO. 2179, VOL. 87] 



simply on a plane surface) the distance along different 

 directions marking the degree of affinity as estimated by 

 three (or two) groups of correlated characters. ... A third 

 way would be to conceive an ideal type as the goal towards 

 which the normal development of the organism is tending, 

 and to place the actual types round this as a centre, at 

 distances corresponding, more or less, to their approxima- 

 tion to the ideal." Anyone who has tried to make an 

 arrangement of human types on a plane surface will 

 appreciate how impossible it is to do so in anything like 

 a satisfactory manner; but who is to decide what is "the 

 ideal type " (or does he mean " ideal types "?) " to which 

 the normal development of the organism is tending"? He 

 adds : — " Though the third method is not quite feasible, an 

 occasional application of this test of normal or standard 

 development is a useful corrective." 



It is scarcely to be expected that this suggestion, if it 

 were carried out, would lead to much precision, as we 

 cannot be sure of what we are going to develop into. A 

 classification of existing types must necessarily be static, a 

 phylogeny (assuming that the requisite data are available 1 

 is dynamic, an ideal type is mainly a matter of sentiment, 

 a goal is prophecy which belongs more to the domain of 

 philosophy than to that of science. Later he says " No 

 view of civilisation is sound or adequate which considers 

 Race and Racial types statically, and not dynamically as 

 growing, developing progressive entities " ; however this 

 may be, ethnologists will not entirely agree with Principal 

 Seal when he says " There are other phenomena which are 

 abnormal, pathological, implying degenerative transforma- 

 tion of structure or function. Cannibalism, promiscuity, 

 Morgan's consanguineous marriage, group marriage, 

 infanticide, black magic, &c, are of this class. In th»r 

 first place they are far outside the line from the ape to 

 the civilised man . . . and secondly, natural selection 

 would ruthlessly weed out stocks in which such impulses 

 would be normal. It follows, therefore, that, when such 

 phenomena appear, as they undoubtedly do, among savages 

 or primitive folk, they are not part and parcel of their 

 normal physico-psycho-social type, but are phenomena of 

 degeneration or retrogression in those peoples." 



There are one or two other papers dealing with anthro- 

 pological subjects, among which may be noted a valuable 

 essaj by Dr. C. S. Myers on the permanence of racial 

 mental differences. Prof. Earl Finch writes on the 1 

 of racial miscegenation, and he presents " some fai is tend- 

 ing to prove that race blending, especially in the rare 

 instances when it occurs under favourable circumstances, 

 produces a type superior in fertility, vitality, and cultural 

 worth to one or both of the parent stocks." This view was 

 maintained, on the whole, in the preliminary discussion on 

 the Tuesday, the manifest exceptions to the statement being 

 explicable mainly by the unsatisfactory social conditions of 

 half-breeds — in other words, the problems of miscegenation 

 are sociological rather than physiological. In a paper on 

 the instability of human types Prof. Franz Boas summarises 

 his observations on European immigrants into New York, 

 to which the attention of readers of Natvre has already 

 been directed. He makes the very remarkable statement 

 that " the child born in America, even if born only a few- 

 months after the arrival of the parents, has the head-form 

 of the American born." The investigations of Prof. Boas 

 were referred to by others as demonstrating the uncertain 

 character of physical traits in racial problems and the 

 rapid effect of the environment ; a tendency, however, is 

 observable for others to go bevond the conclusions arrived 

 at by Prof. Boas. It was pointed out that so far Prof. 

 Boas has not given us his methods, nor has he stated what 

 precautions he has taken to control the personal equation 

 of his numerous assistants ; a further possibility of error 

 lies in the working up of the statistics. Doubtless this 

 information will be given in his final report. 



The ethnologist will find various interesting facts and 

 conclusions in some of the other papers, more especially 

 those dealing with the negro in Africa and America. A 

 lantern demonstration on the methods of racial discrimina- 

 tion and classification was given by Dr. lladdon on Thurs- 

 day evening. There was also organised in connection with 

 the congress an exhibition of nearly two thousand photo- 

 graphs, &c., representing a large number of peoples, and 

 including a series of coloured drawings of types painted 



