TKANSACTIONS OF SECTION H. 817 



and all humanity was partitioned oif into well-defined divisions. But when the 

 long ages of man's history and the incessant mixtures that have taken place during 

 the brief end of it that is recorded come to be realised, the meaning of ' race ' 

 must be wholly revised. And this revision has not yet taken effect on the modes 

 of thought, though it may have demanded the assent of the judgment. The only 

 meaning tJiat a ' race ' can have is a group of persons whose type has become 

 unified by their rate of assimilation and affection by their conditions exceeding 

 the rate of change produced by foreign elements. If the rate of mixture exceeds 

 that of assimilation, then the people are a mixed race, or a mere agglomeration, 

 like the population of the United States. The greatest problems awaiting 

 solution are the conditions and rate of assimilation of races — namely, what period 

 and kind of life is needed for climatic and other causes to have effect on the 

 constitution and structure, what are the causes of permanence of type, and what 

 relative powers of absorption one race has over another. Until these problems are 

 reduced to something that can be reasonably estimated we shall only grope in the 

 dark as to all racial questions. 



How, then, can these essential problems be attacked ? Not by any study of 

 the lower races, but rather by means of those whose history is best recorded. The 

 great mode of isolation on which we can work is religious difference, and 

 oppressed religious minorities are the finest anthropological material. The first 

 question is — given a mixture of various races in approximately known pro- 

 portions, isolated, and kept under uniform conditions, how soon does uniformity of 

 type prevail ? or what proportions of diversity will be found after a given number 

 of generations ? A perfect case of this awaits study in the Copts, who have by 

 monogamy and the fanaticism of a hostile majority been rigorously isolated during 

 1,200 years from any appreciable admixture, and who before this settling time 

 were compounded of eight or ten different races, whose nature and extent of 

 combination can be tolerably appraised. A thorough study of the present people 

 and their forefathers, whose tombs of every age provide abundant material for 

 examination, promises to clear up one of the greatest questions — the effect of 

 climate and conditions on assimilating mixed peoples. The other great probleok 

 is, How far can a type resist changes of conditions ; provided it be not mixed in 

 blood, so as to disturb its equilibrium of constitution? This is to be answered by 

 the Jews and the Parsis. As with the Copts, an oppressed religious minority has 

 no chance of mixture, as all mixed marriages are abhorrent to its exclusiveness, 

 and are at once swept into the hostile majority. The study is, however, far more 

 difiicult owing to the absence of such good conditions of the preservation of 

 material. But nothing could throw so much light on this as an excavation of 

 some Jew'ish cemeteries of a thousand years or so ago in various European- 

 countries, and comparison of the skeletons with the proportions of the Jews now 

 living. The countries least afl'ected by the various proscriptions and emigrations 

 of the race would be the proper ground for inquiry. When these studies have 

 been made we shall begin to understand what the constants of a race really are. 



We will now look at another word which is incessantly used — ' civilisation.' 

 Many definitions of this have been made, from that of the Turk drinking 

 champagne, who remarked about it that ' after all, civilisation is very nice,' up to 

 the most elaborate combinations of art and science. It is no doubt very comfort- 

 able to have a word which only implies a tendency, and to which everyone can 

 assign his own value ; but the day of reckoning comes, when it is brought into 

 arguments as a term. Civilisation really means simply the art of living in a 

 community, or the checks and counterchecks, the division of labour, and the 

 conveniences that arise from common action when a group of men live in close 

 relation to each other. This will perhaps be objected to as including all— or 

 nearly all — mankind in its scope. Quite true ; all "civilisation is relative and not 

 absolute. 



We shall avoid much confusion if we distinguish high and low types of civili- 

 sation, and also perfect and imperfect civilisation. Like organisms we may have 

 a low type of civilisation very perfect in its structure, capable of endless continu- 

 ance, and of great shocks without much injury. Such are some of the civilisations 



1895. 3 G 



