590 RACE AND CIVILIZATION. 



Two of the commonest and most delightful elastic words in the sub- 

 ject may be looked at once more — " race" and " civilization." The defi- 

 nition of the nature of race is the most requisite element for any clear 

 ideas about man. Our present conception of the word has been modi- 

 fied recently more than may be supposed by our realizing the antiquity 

 of the species. When only a few thousand years had to be dealt with 

 nothing seemed easier or more satisfactory than to map out races on 

 the assumption that so many million people were descended from one 

 ancestor and so many from another. Mixed races were glibly sepa- 

 rated from pure races, and all humanity was partitioned off into well- 

 defined divisions. But when the long ages of man's history and the 

 incessant mixtures that have taken place during the brief end of it 

 that is recorded come to be realized the meaning of "race" must be 

 wholly revised. And this revision has not yet taken effect on the 

 modes of thought, though it may have demanded the assent of the 

 judgment. The only meaning that a "race" can have is a group of 

 persons whose type has become unified by their rate of assimilation 

 and affection, by their conditions exceeding the rate of change pro- 

 duced by foreign elements. If the rate of mixture exceeds that of 

 assimilation, then the people are a mixed race, or a mere agglomera- 

 tion, like the population of the United States. The greatest problems 

 awaiting solution are the conditions and rate of assimilation of races, 

 namely, what period and kind of life is needed for climatic and other 

 causes to have effect on the constitution and structure, what are the 

 causes of permanence of type, and what relative powers of absorption 

 one race has over the other. Until these problems are reduced to 

 something that can be reasonably estimated we shall only grope in the 

 dark as to all racial questions. 



How, then, can these essential problems be attacked? Not by any 

 study of the lower races, but rather by means of those whose history 

 is best recorded. The great mode of isolation on which we can work is 

 religious difference, and oppressed religious minorities are the finest 

 anthropological material. The first question is (given a mixture of 

 various races in approximately known proportions, isolated, and kept 

 under uniform conditions), how soon does uniformity of type prevail, 

 or what proportions of diversity will be found after a given number of 

 generations ? A perfect case of this awaits study in the Copts, who 

 have, by monogamy and the fanaticism of a hostile majority, been 

 rigorously isolated during twelve hundred years from any appreciable 

 admixture, and who before this settling time were compounded of eight 

 or ten different races, whose nature and extent of combination can be 

 tolerably appraised. A thorough study of the present people and their 

 forefathers, whose tombs of every age provide abundant material for 

 examination, promises to clear up one of the greatest questions — the 

 effect of climate and conditions on assimilating mixed peoples. The 

 other great problem is, how far can a type resist changes of conditions, 



