312 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. LIV. No. 1397 



intellectual, and moral losses whieh eacli lias 

 sustained. In the Scandinavian countries, 

 which kept out of the conflict, and to a large 

 extent in the United States, the case is differ- 

 ent. In Scandinavia, which I have recently 

 visited, it is largely through the active efforts 

 of leaders like Mj0en and Lundborg that 

 there is a new appreciation of the spiritual, 

 intellectual, moral, and physical value of the 

 Nordic race, and that a warning is being 

 given that it must not be too severely de- 

 pleted by emigration. ISTearly half that race 

 is now in the United States. 



In the United States we are slowly waking 

 to the consciousness that education and en- 

 vironment do not fundamentally alter racial 

 values. We are engaged in a serious struggle 

 to maintain our historic republican institu- 

 tions through barring the entrance of those 

 Tvho are unfit to share the duties and responsi- 

 "bilities of our well-founded government. 

 The true spirit of American democracy that 

 all men are horn with equal rights and duties 

 has been confused with the political sophistry 

 that all men are horn with equal character 

 and ability to govern themselves and others, 

 and with the educational sophistry that edu- 

 cation and environment will offset the handi- 

 cap of heredity. South America is examining 

 into the relative value of the pure Spanish 

 and Portuguese and of various degrees of 

 racial mixture of Indian and Ifegroid blood 

 in relation to the preservation of their re- 

 publican institutions. 



In my recent tour through Belgium and 

 all parts of France, I was deeply impressed 

 with the very slight convergence produced by 

 12,000 years of similar environment and a 

 thousand years of similar education upon the 

 three divergent races of which France is com- 

 posed, — the Mediterranean, the Alpine, and 

 the Nordic. 



The constructive spirit of this Congress is 

 to discover the virtues and the values of each 

 of these minor divisions of the human species, 

 as well as the needs of the major divisions, 

 known as the Caucasian, the Mongolian, and 

 the Negroid. The reason that these races are 

 so stable and maintain their original charac- 



ter so stoutly is that the most stable form of 

 matter which has thus far been discovered 

 is the germ plasm on which heredity depends. 

 This outstanding fact of heredity will be 

 brought out in the First Section of the Con- 

 gress. As a palaeontologist and geologist, as 

 well as something of a biologist, I find no 

 form of matter so stable in nature as that 

 on which heredity depends — consequently the 

 selection, preservation, and multiplication of 

 the best heredity is a patriotic duty of first 

 importance. In the selection of the best we 

 should know no prejudice. If we extenuate 

 nothing, we write down nothing in malice. 

 The 500,000 years of human evolution, under 

 widely different environmental conditions, have 

 impressed certain distinctive virtues as well 

 as faults on each race. In the matter of 

 racial virtues, my opinion is that from biolo- 

 gical principles there is little promise in the 

 " melting pot " theory. Put three races to- 

 gether, you are as likely to unite the vices of 

 all three as the virtues. This opinion, how- 

 ever, awaits the experimental proof or dis- 

 proof which will be presented by researches 

 such as those of Doctor Sullivan in the 

 Hawaiian Islands. For the world's work, give 

 me a pure-blooded Negro, a pure-blooded 

 Mongol, a pure-blooded Slav, a pure-blooded 

 Nordic, and ascertain through observation 

 and experiment what each race is best fitted 

 to accomplish in the world's economy. If the 

 Negro fails in government, he may become 

 a fine agriculturist or a fine mechanic. The 

 Chinese and the Japanese have demonstrated 

 in the history of their respective countries 

 a range of ability in art, literature, and in- 

 dustry quite equal to our own in certain 

 arts, and greatly superior to our ovm in 

 other arts, like ceramics. Let each race con- 

 sider its own problems and demonstrate its 

 own fitness. 



Our Fourth Section is devoted to the state. 

 The right of the state to safeguard the charac- 

 ter and integrity of the race or races on 

 which its future depends is, to my mind, as 

 incontestable as the right of the state to 

 safeguard the health and morals of its 

 people. As science has enlightened govern- 



