Asia, The Cradle of Humanity 



283 



unaccustomed to dealing with chaotic 

 assemblages — indeed, it is his business 

 to classify facts by their relations, to re- 

 duce these to principles, and thus to 

 bring order out of chaos. Now in seek- 

 ing to classify so vast an array of facts 

 as that presented by human Asia, it 

 W'Cre well to profit by the widest possi- 

 ble range of experience, by the wisdom 

 of the ages as well as by the methods of 

 modern science ; and this is made fairly 

 easy and safe by the nearly uniform 

 ways in which the minds (and the 

 tongues) of men respond to the stimu- 

 lus of the unknown— for every language 

 has its spontaneous interrogatives aris- 

 ing in natural order, whereby child and 

 sage alike seek ever to enlarge their store 

 of knowledge. 



What (or who)? Where? How? 

 Whence (and whither) ? Why? These 

 are the normal interrogatives of our vig- 

 orous language ; they may be translated 

 into other tongues so widel}' as to prove 

 that they express spontaneous impulses 

 of inquiring minds — indeed, they are 

 thought - mates to demonstratives of 

 voice or gesture shared by all higher 

 animals ; and their order is fairly uni- 

 form from prattling childhood to old age, 

 and from savagery to enlightenment. 

 Science finds guidance and strength in 

 the unreckoned experience embodied in 

 these nature-questions, yet reciprocates 

 in full measure bj' defining the questions 

 more clearly and fixing their order on a 

 rational basis ; and it is through this 

 wedlock between common sense and 

 practical science that the chaos of Asian 

 facts may perhaps become understand- 

 able. 



THE RACES OF ASIA 



What are the peoples of Asia ? Time 

 was when this inquiry would have been 

 met by a list of the races occupjdng the 

 great continent, defined bj' the stand- 

 ards of the day ; and the enumeration 

 might have ranged from two to a score 

 or more, according to the definitions of 



the particular doctor thus opening the 

 door to disagreement. Of late less at- 

 tention is given to racial distinctions : 

 The European in Asia (whether as ad- 

 venturing cyclist or pomp-girt viceroy) 

 is far less concerned with the racial affin- 

 ities of the villagers than with their 

 laws of hospitality or exclusion, their 

 customs of eating and lodging; Dr. Tal- 

 cott Williams touches race questions but 

 lightly on his way to the far weightier 

 questions of intertribal traffic and inter- 

 national commerce ; Mr. Barrett passes 

 easily from the practically immaterial 

 race-bonds of the Far East to the vital 

 relations arising in industries, and the 

 potent influences founded on faith; Pro- 

 fessor Morse Stephens properly points 

 to the racial bases of rank and caste in 

 Indian society, but justly insists on the 

 dominant importance of the economic 

 factor by which the social lines have 

 been maintained for centuries or millen- 

 niums ; and Professor Grosvenor sum- 

 marizes Siberian history as a series of in- 

 dustrial and political stages each deeper 

 and broader than the last, and all rising 

 successively higher and higher above 

 the bonds and barriers of racial afiinity. 

 These instances are merely straws indi- 

 cating the drift of thought ; they might 

 be multiplied indefinitely ; and all point 

 toward the growing mass of current 

 opinion that there are other factors of 

 humanity of an importance transcend- 

 ing ethnic features and affinities. Yet 

 the Continent of continents cannot be 

 comprehended in its fulness without 

 some note of the indigenous races; and 

 with a single exception the races of Asia 

 are practically those of the world. 



Passing over the multitude of minor 

 details of fact and opinion, the peoples 

 of the world may be assigned to five 

 groups or divisions, conveniently termed 

 races. These may be recapitulated as 

 (i) the Caucasian or white race, indig- 

 enous in western Asia, transplanted to all 

 parts of Europe, and now replanted in 

 every land ; (2) the Malayan or brown 



