348 PSYCHOLOGICAL INVESTIGATION. [PART II. 



tion ; whilst Serres and others maintain that intermixture is the 

 essential lever of all progress. Though we cannot entirely 

 assent to the latter theory , it is unquestionably more accept- 

 able than the first : for whenever we see a people, of whatever 

 degree of civilization, not living in contact and reciprocal 

 action with others, we shall generally find a certain stagnation, 

 a mental inertness, and a want of activity, which render any 

 change of social and political condition next to impossible. 

 These are, in times of peace, transmitted like an everlasting 

 disease, and war appears then, in spite of what the apostles of 

 peace may say, as a saving angel, who rouses the national 

 spirit, and renders all forces more elastic. 



It certainly must remain undecided how far these wholesome 

 results are to be attributed to mental intercourse or to physical 

 intermixture : that, however, the latter is justly considered as a 

 lever of historical development results from the fact, that it has 

 never been absent in a civilized country the ethnographical 

 condition of which is known to us. The old Roman civilization 

 has, besides the non-Indo- Germanic element of the Etruscans, 

 also absorbed other non-Latin tribes, and as regards Greece, 

 modern scholars (Kortum) consider the Pelasgi as an entirely 

 or partially Semitic-Phoenician at any rate, as an Eastern 

 people, which was essentially different from the rest of the 

 population. That non- Greek tribes (Carians, Leleges, Tyr- 

 rheni) lived in Greece before the immigration of the Hellenes, 

 and have gradually become assimilated to the latter, has been 

 rendered certain by historical investigation. 



There is found, however, in South and North America, a nu- 

 merous mixed population who are considered incapable of a 

 high degree of civilization. Semple 1 and Mollien 2 describe the 

 intermixture of races in Caraccas and New Grenada as the 

 source of corruption. In the cities and villages the greatest 

 dissipation prevails ; to lie in the hammock, to smoke, gamble, 

 to see bull fights, are the greatest enjoyments. Religion has no 

 influence : sins are confessed and forgiven ; indolence and 

 apathy characterize the population. The complaint is so far 



1 " Sketch of the present state of Caraccas/' 1812. 



2 " Voyage dans la Eepublique de Colombia," 1824. 



