FEBRUARY 22, 1901.] 
its quantitative and qualitative value, and 
also that the actions of each individual 
must be influenced to a greater or less ex- 
tent by the mass of traditional material 
present in his mind. 
We will first devote our attention to the 
question, Do differences exist in the organ- 
ization of the human mind? Since Waitz’s 
thorough discussion of the question of the 
unity of the human species, there can be no 
doubt that in the main the mental charac- 
teristics of man are the same all over the 
world; but the question remains open, 
whether there is a sufficient difference in 
grade to allow us to assume that the pres- 
ent races of man may be considered as 
standing on different stages of the evolu- 
tionary series, whether we are justified in 
ascribing to civilized man a higher place in 
organization than to primitive man. In 
answering this question, we must clearly 
distinguish between the influences of civili- 
zation and of race. A number of anatom- 
ical facts point to the conclusion that the 
races of Africa, Australia, and Melanesia, 
are to a certain extent inferior to the races 
of Asia, America and Europe. We find 
that on the average the size of the brain of 
the negroid races is less than the size of the 
brain of the other races; and the difference 
in favor of the mongoloid and white races is 
so great, that we are justified in assuming 
a certain correlation between their mental 
ability and the increased size of their brain. 
At the same time it must be borne in 
mind that the variability of the mongoloid 
and white races on the one hand, and of 
the negroid races on the other, is so great, 
that only a comparatively speaking small 
number of individuals belonging to the lat- 
ter have brains smaller than any brains 
found among the former; and that, on the 
other hand, only a few individuals of the 
mongoloid races have brains so large that 
they would not occur atall among the black 
races. That is to say, the bulk of the two 
SCIENCE 
283 
groups of races have brains of the same ca- 
pacities, but individuals with heavy brains 
are proportionately more frequent among 
the mongoloid and white races than among 
the negroid races. Probably this difference 
in the size of the brain is accompanied by 
differences in structure, although no satis- 
factory information on this point is avail- 
able. On the other hand, if we compare 
civilized people of any race with uncivilized 
people of the same race, we do not find any 
anatomical differences which would justify 
us in assuming any fundamental differences 
in mental constitution. 
When we consider the same question 
from a purely psychological point of view, 
we recognize that one of the most funda- 
mental traits which distinguish the homan 
mind from the animal mind is common to 
all races of man. It is doubtful if any 
animal is able to form an abstract concep- 
tion such as that of number, or any con- 
ception of the abstract relations of phe- 
nomena. We find that this is done by all 
races of man. A developed language with 
grammatical categories presupposes the 
ability of expressing abstract relations, 
and, since every known language has gram- 
matical structure, we must assume that the 
faculty of forming abstract ideas is a com- _ 
mon property of man. It has often been 
pointed out that the concept of number is 
developed very differently among different 
people. While in most languages we find 
numeral systems based upon the 10, we 
find that certain tribes in Brazil, and 
others in Australia, have numeral systems 
based on the 3, or even on the 2, which 
involve the impossibility of expressing 
high numbers. Although these numeral 
systems are very slightly developed as com- 
pared with our own, we must not forget that 
the abstract idea of number must he pres- 
ent among these people, because, without 
it, no method of counting is possible. It 
may be worth while to mention one or two 
