284 The National Geographic. Magazine 



race, pertaining chiefly to southern 

 Asia ; (3) the Mongolian or yellow race, 

 of eastern and northern Asia ; (4) the 

 African or black race, pertaining chiefly 

 to central and southern Africa, but rep- 

 resented by the Negrito of southeastern 

 Asia, the Blackfellow of Australia, etc. ; 

 and (5) the Amerind or red race, indig- 

 enous to the western hemisphere, but 

 represented in northeastern Asia by 

 immigrant Eskimo from across Bering 

 Strait. It is not to be supposed that 

 these groups are so trenchantly defined 

 as to permit the confident assignment of 

 every people to one or another of them ; 

 neither is it to be supposed that they in- 

 dicate in any adequate way the origin 

 and distribution of mankind over the 

 earth ; primarily they stand merely for 

 a series of types x)r ideals about which 

 peoples may be arranged conveniently, 

 with more or less uncertainty concern- 

 ing those of intermediate characters. 

 At the same time the classification has 

 the merit of expressing, albeit vaguely, 

 an obscure and unmeasured attribute of 

 humanity, which may be designated 

 race-sense and defined as that instinct- 

 ive sentiment holding unlike peoples 

 apart and drawing like peoples into ever 

 closer unity of character and purpose. 

 Apparently the time has gone by for 

 far-reaching classifications of mankind 

 by so-called race-characters ; the fact 

 that the doctors disagree so widely is in 

 itself an indication that there is some- 

 thing radically wrong with the system ; 

 yet the race-sense of primitive folk, with 

 its feebler vestiges among even the most 

 altruistic and philanthropic of mankind, 

 is a factor with which the student must 

 reckon, a trustworthy pointer toward 

 some natural law. 



CULTURE-STAGES OF ASIA 



In view of the overwhelming and ever- 

 growing opinion that there are weightier 

 factors of humanity than racial affinities, 

 it behooves the student of human Asia 



to find some better way of classifying 

 and describing the vast and variegated 

 population of the great continent. For- 

 tunately, such a way is at hand ; it was 

 developed through researches among the 

 aborigines of America, mainly by Powell, 

 and forms the basis of what has been 

 called the New Ethnology — a science 

 differing from its prototype in that it 

 deals with men as human beings rather 

 than animals, defining them by what 

 they do rather than by what they merely 

 are. The classification is based on cul- 

 ture, using this term in a sense so broad 

 as to include all that mankind know, 

 all that mankind do. 



Now when the multifarious facts of 

 knowing and doing are first assembled 

 and then assorted by similarity, certain 

 kinds of knowledge and actions (or of 

 activities, if a single term be used to 

 denote both knowing and doing) are 

 recognized, namely, (i) knowledge and 

 actions pertaining to the arts, or esthetic 

 activities ; (2) knowledge and actions 

 pertaining to industries ; (3) knowledge 

 and conduct connected with convention 

 or law, and collectively constituting the 

 social activities ; (4) knowledge and 

 practices involved in speech and writ- 

 ing ; and (5) opinions and observances 

 connected with faith and philosophy, 

 or sophic activities. So, in brief, all that 

 men know and do (and hence what in act- 

 ive sense they are in the visible economy 

 of the cosmos) may be' summed as per- 

 taining respectively to arts, industries, 

 laws, languages, and systems of faith 

 or opinion. Furthermore, when the 

 numberless facts pertaining to each 

 great activity are assorted by similarity, 

 they are found to reveal phases which 

 are fairly consistent among the several 

 activities of each people, yet more or 

 less diverse among different peoples ; 

 and by these phases of culture the peo- 

 ples of any continent, or of all, may be 

 classified more usefully than by racial 

 affinities — for the culture-phase is the 

 real index to what the people think and 



