MlESIDENTlAL ADDRESS. 843 



zoological laws in studying the evolution of the various races of man. In the 

 time that is still left I propose to touch briefly on tlie vast importance of such natural 

 laws -when dealing with the native races of our great dependencies and colonies, 

 and in our own social legislation. I venture to think that the gravest mistakes 

 which at present are being made in our administration and legislation are due to the 

 total disregard of the natural laws, which not only modify and ditlerentiate one 

 race from another, but also are constantly producing variations within our own 

 community. As physical characteristics are in the main the result of environment, 

 social institutions and religious ideas are no less the product of that environment. 

 Several of our most distinguished Indian and Colonial administrators have pointed 

 out that most of the mistakes made by British officials are due to their ignorance 

 of the habits and customs of the natives. It has been in the past an axiom of 

 British politicians that in the English Constitution and in English law there is 

 a panacea for every political and social difficulty in any race under the sun. Only 

 let us give, it is urged, this or that State a representative parliamentary system 

 and trial by jury and all will go well. The fundamental error in this doctrine is 

 the assumption that a political and legal system evolved during many centuries 

 amongst a people of North- Western Europe, largely Teutonic, and that too living 

 not on the mainland but on an island, can be applied cut and dried to a people 

 evolved during countless generations in tropical or subtropical regions, with social 

 institutions and religious ideas widely different from those of even South Europeans, 

 and still more so from those of Northern Europe. We might just as well ask 

 the Ethiopian to change his skin as to change radically his social and religious 

 ideas. It has been shown by experience that Christianity can make but little 

 headway amongst many peoples in Africa or Asia, where on the other hand 

 Muharamadanism has made and is steadily making progress, acting distinctly 

 for good, as in Africa, by putting down human sacrifice and replacing fetish 

 ■worship by a lofty monotheism. This is probably due to the fact that 

 Muhammadanism is a religion evolved amongst a Semitic people who live in 

 latitudes bordering on the aboriginal races of Africa and Asia, and that it is far 

 more akin in its social ideas to those of the Negro or Malay than are those of 

 Christianity, more especially of that form of Christianity evolved during the last 

 twelve centuries by the Teutonic peoples of Upper Europe, who are of all races 

 furthest in physical characteristics, in religious ideals and social institutions, from 

 the dark races of Africa and Asia. This great gulf is due not merely to shallow 

 prejudice against other people's notions, it is as deep-seated as is the physical 

 antipathy felt by the Teuton for the Negro, which is itself due to the very 

 different climatic conditions under which both races have been evolved. The 

 Teuton does not freely blend with the black, and even when he does intermarry 

 he treats his own half-bred progeny with contempt, or at most with toleration. 

 On the other hand, some South Europeans, for example the Portuguese, are said 

 to have little objection to intermarrying with dark races and allowing the mixed 

 progeny an equal social status, whilst the Arab through the ages has freely taken 

 to wife the African, and has never hesitated to treat the hybrid ofi'spring as equals. 

 There is thus a wide breach between the physique and the social and religious 

 ideas of the African and our own ; but, as political and legal institutions are 

 indissolubly bound up with social and religious, it follows inevitably that the 

 political and legal institutions of a race cradled in Northern Europe are exceed- 

 ingly ill adapted for the children of the equator. Accordiugly in any wise 

 administration of these regions it must be a primary object to study the native 

 institutions, to modify and elevate them whenever it may be possible, but never 

 to seek to eradicate and supplant them. Any attempt to do so will be but vain, 

 for these institutions are as much part of the land as are its climate, its 

 soil, its fauna, and its flora. 'Naturam expellas furca, tanien usque recurret.' 

 Let us hope for a successful issue for the effort now being made by the Royal 

 Anthropological Institute to establish an Imperial Bureau of Anthropology whose 

 function will be not only to carry out systematically the scientific study of 

 man, but also to aid the administrator and the legislator, the merchant and the 

 missionary. 



