CHAPTER I

_THE INFLUENCE OF THE SOMATIC ENVIRONMENT_

The human body is an “organism” each part of which is in vital relation to the whole, and is influenced by the condition of every other part. This is true of function as well as structure, for function, after all, is merely the term we give to structure in action. Mentality, psychical activity, is a function, and, like all others, is organically conditioned by the whole organism and its several parts. To understand the influence of the body on the mind, therefore, we should consider in such relation each of the physiological “systems” which make up the organic life. For my present purpose, however, it will be sufficient to select those most closely related to mental activity.

_The Brain._—The learned of all times have sought to find “the seat of the soul.” Primitive men generally placed it in the liver or in the heart; but anatomists have been long agreed that it must be somewhere in the head. The latest word from them is that it resides in the nerve cells of the grey matter of the brain, in the number and activity of the “pyramid-neurons” there situate, and probably in their capacity to send out shoots or branches.

This intimate, ultimate, structure and potency establishes the difference between the intellectual faculties of species and individuals. In the lower animals these cells are few and scattered, and their proliferations short and simple. In man the cells increase in number and their extensions become long and complex. They are more abundant when the grey matter is ample, as is the case where the convolutions are intricate.

Up to a recent period it was supposed that the weight or size of the brain was the chief physical element in mental superiority. It is now known, that has little to do with it. Not a few men of distinguished parts, such as Liebig, Gambetta, Tiedemann, etc., have had brains decidedly below the average in weight, while, on the other hand, many with large brains have led unimportant lives. This is also the case with races, for although the African negro is below the European in his cranial capacity, the Fuegian, decidedly below the African in mental development, has a brain larger than either of the other races. Obviously, both the cubical content and weight of the brain depend much on the general size, stature, and weight of the body; and no one has been found who pretends that the biggest man is also the ablest.

We are almost compelled, therefore, to accept as correct the conclusion reached by Lapouge and others, that not the size but the molecular constitution of the brain is finally decisive of intellectual power; and this is a trait which up to the present time has eluded analysis.

This is not inconsistent with holding that where other proportions are the same, a larger, more complex brain is generally significant of higher mental powers; and that a well-balanced skull, with orthognathic features and moderate facial development, are indications favourable for the psychical possessions of the individual or the group.

The _shape_ would seem to be more significant than the weight of the brain. Of all the elements of gross cerebral anatomy it appears to be that most indicative of mental power.

This is a recent discovery of craniologists, the entire meaning of which has not yet been worked out. It is due to the researches of Ammon and Lapouge within the last decade, and to the anthropologist promises solutions of various obscure problems in the cultural growth of the species.

These observers have ascertained, by many thousand measurements on the living and the dead, that those persons who, as a class, are best adapted to the high and continued strain of modern city and competitive life, have skulls in that shape termed “subdolichocephalic,” which means that their brains have a prevailing and fixed spatial relation of their parts, a relation, no doubt, which is the most favourable to the general and prolonged activity of those nerve cells which we know are the seat of psychical function.

Such persons in youth stand at the head in the school, they take the prizes in examinations, they carry off the honours in intellectual contests, they are leaders in the learned professions, they are the self-created “upper class,” and, what is equally noteworthy, in the unhealthy atmosphere of great cities they outlive their associates with other shapes of brain.

But these observers also note that while these somewhat long-skulled persons have such intellectual and even physical advantages in the struggle for existence, they are deficient in others, which, under some circumstances, are even more necessary to success.

The same extended series of measurements and comparisons show that those whose brains are rounder in form—more brachycephalic—prove generally superior in technical skill, in industry, and in perseverance. They are less adventurous, they lack imagination and the stimulus of the ideal, they are narrow and formalists; but they shine in the bourgeois virtues of capacity for steady work, of devotion to hearth and home, in respect for settled government, stable laws, and ancestral institutions.

This favourable brain shape is, in Europe, often correlated with the blonde type, light hair, and grey or blue eyes; but whether this is anything more than a local peculiarity remains in doubt.

Ammon has pointed out, however, that these traits, where they have been united in history, have marked a daring, energetic, progressive stock, one fertile in bold explorers, conquerors, and thinkers. Such was the type of the ancient Aryans, who became the ruling race wherever they carried their victorious standard, “not through numbers, longevity, or fertility, but through the consequences of ‘natural selection.’” Professor Lapouge has further shown that in southern France, where the local aristocracy rose from the same stock as the peasantry by superior personal ability, a notable difference is observable between the skull-shapes of the two classes, the crania of the “gentlemen” being considerably longer in proportion to width than those of the peasantry.

They are well suited for village life and agricultural occupations; but, subjected to the stress and strain of great cities, they die out in the third generation.[3]

Footnote 3:

These deductions were based on many thousand observations in France, Switzerland, and Germany, and are undoubtedly true for the places and periods in which they were conducted; but it has not been shown that they are generally applicable in other areas. Some observers (Livi, Lombroso) have not accepted them for Italy. The opposition they have met in France from Fouillée and others is merely sentimental.

When it is remembered that whole nations, stocks, races, are characterised by the prevalence of one or other of these skull-forms, it is at once seen that a physical basis is here presented for ethnic psychology worthy of attentive study. These authors have, in fact, applied their conclusions in this direction; but, concerning themselves chiefly with the mixed populations of European states, have been principally occupied with the “social selections” which may be attained in such communities from this cause.

While the skull-form thus becomes distinctive of brains possessing or lacking certain faculties, it must not be supposed that this relation is an essential one. The brain will perform its work without reference to the shape of the skull. This is proved by the many tribes who have artificially deformed the head in obedience to fashion or superstition. In America it is noteworthy that the crania thus malformed to the utmost degree are precisely those of the nations of the highest civilisation—the Mayas of Central America and the Quechuas of Peru.

_The Nervous System._—Professor Haeckel, in his lectures on “anthropogeny,” lays down the maxim, “All soul-functions or psychical activities depend directly on the structure and composition of the nervous system.” This is illustrated by the biological development of the nerves of special sense,—of sight, hearing, taste, and smell. Originally they were all indifferent touch-nerves, and by slow degrees in indefinite time developed their specific reactions.

They are yet by no means the same in all persons, as everyone knows. They also differ widely in groups, nations, and races. The study of the “reaction-times” of the principal races has occupied Cattell, Bache, and other psychologists. The sense of taste is notably different. An Eskimo finds pleasure in castor oil and a Kamchatkan in eating rotten fish. The Annamite is almost insensible to pain from wounds, but suffers intensely from moderate cold and is acutely affected by odours. The Fuegian can sleep naked on the snow with comfort, but is easily disturbed by noises.

The intellectual differences between both individuals and races arise not so much from relative mental capacity as from varying reaction to mental stimuli. They all have pretty much the same power to pursue knowledge, if they choose to exert it. The difference is one involving the general nerve-tracts. Perception and attention were the forces which in the history of organisms developed all the special senses from nerves of touch; and the growth of the intellect is consequently closely conditioned by the qualities of nerve-sensations.

_The Osseous System._—To be asked to define the ethnic life of a group from the bones exhumed in its cemeteries would seem a hopeless task. Yet it is possible, for on the osseous system the whole bodily structure is built up, and the activity of the brain is conditioned.

Races differ in their skeletons. That of the African black is heavy, the flat bones thick, the pelvis narrow, and presents many peculiarities which are termed “pithecoid” or ape-like. Contrasting with these are small-boned, delicately formed skeletons of the Indonesians and Japanese, resembling those of the female in other stocks. It would not be difficult to bring the ethnic into relation to these skeletal traits.

Professor Hervé, of the School of Anthropology of Paris, has argued that the presence of the “Wormian bones” and the complexity of the cranial sutures are a measure of the rapidity of brain-development, and consequently a criterion of mental activity in a stock. This can scarcely be accepted, for we are not sure that the rapidity of bone-formation bears any ratio to the growth of the brain-cells; but it is not rash to argue that a people whose bones are largely diseased must have lived in unhygienic conditions, and had become degenerate in mind as well as body.

Such is the case with the skeletons of that wholly unknown tribe who once densely peopled the Salt River valley in Arizona, and of those who dwelt near the great cemetery of Ancon in Peru. About one-third of the skeletons present pathological features indicating long-continued defective nutrition or widespread disease. No wonder that both stocks perished off the earth. Though at one time singularly advanced, they had sunk into complete degeneracy.

_Muscular System; Height and Weight._—There is a relation between height, weight, and mental power, true for the individual and the group. This is not mysterious, as all three depend upon nutrition. Physiologists lay down ratios of height, weight, and age which are requisite to the highest health, mental and physical.

We may go further, and say that any marked aberration from the average of the species in these respects is accompanied by some equally noticeable psychical peculiarity. Dwarfs have often acute minds, but rarely deep affections.

Inferior stature is often an ethnic trait. The central African pygmies, the Lapps, and the Bushmen are familiar examples. Mr. Haliburton has recorded others in the Atlas and Pyrenean mountains; and Dr. Collignon reports the diminution in height in some districts of central France.

The explanation of all is the same—lack of proper, regular, and sufficient alimentation. They are, as the Germans say, _Kümmerformen_, products of wretchedness. The shortest of the Bushmen are also the most miserable—those living amid the barren sands of the Kalihari desert.

The reaction of such prolonged semi-starvation on the functions of the brain-cells leads to psychical dwarfishness. None of these undersized stocks have gained a position in history or contributed to the culture of humanity. They have been unequal in physical strife, and have been forced to the wall.

_Reproduction._—The reproductive function in its various manifestations exerts an enormous influence on the individual mind, and exhibits broad racial and ethnic distinctions. Its power is scarcely less operative in the fate of nations than of persons, and its reflection in the mind of groups deserves closest attention.

The period of puberty changes widely the direction of the thoughts, and the character frequently undergoes a complete transformation. Children previously studious lose interest in their lessons, while others pursue them with greatly increased devotion. The sexual emotions, which mark the epoch, may absorb the whole being or merely stimulate it to higher efforts.

The age at which puberty begins varies, following the general law that the higher the annual temperature the earlier in life does the change set in. This becomes of psychical interest when it is added that the earlier the change the more intense and permeating are the erotic passions; the more do they compel to their sway the other emotions and the intellect.

Only two motives, observes Professor Friedrich Müller, can induce the Australian or the typical African to prolonged labour,—hunger and the sex passion. Civilised communities are measurably lifted above the immediate struggle for food, but not in the least above the other impulse. If you could learn the prime motive, says Dr. Van Buren, of the presence of the crowds of men on Broadway, you would find ninety per cent. of them are there through sex feeling.

The sentiments of love, of marital and parental affection, of family life, control mankind more completely than any other motives. These are physical, personal feelings, and to that extent narrow and in conflict with many which are broader and more altruistic. Few persons can advance beyond them, and the collective mind is obliged by the laws of its own existence to register them as of the very first importance.

The power of a group is, other things being equal, in proportion to the size of the group, and its increase in numbers is in geometrical proportion to its fecundity, provided the food-supply remains sufficient.

These are two closely related and essential factors to advance, and have been so felt from man’s earliest infancy. The complicated systems of marriage and relationship in vogue among the Australian and other rude tribes arose from the effort to adjust the birth-rate to the available amount of food. Many of the forms of marriage arose from the same consideration. In polygamous countries most men are monogamous because they cannot keep large families. Legal infanticide, exposure of the new-born, as in China, is another effort in the same direction. Where such measures are not legalised they reappear in other guises. Artificial abortion and intentional limitation of families are frequent in France and the United States. They are outcrops of a sentiment of self-protection which has been familiar to the species from its beginning.

Sex feeling belongs distinctly to the animal and emotional side of human nature. Where it is the dominating motive, neither individual nor group can attain the highest development. This is noticeably the case in the African. Coloured children in our public schools are equal to their white associates up to the age of puberty. But that change is more profound in the African than in the European constitution. After it has occurred, the difference in favour of the white children becomes very apparent. Their mental world is not so invaded by thoughts of sex, and they are more inclined to study.

In a less degree, as I have before remarked, the same contrast exists between the Teutonic and Latin peoples of Europe, and has been acknowledged to have resulted in decided advantages for the former.

Virility—that is, the reproductive potency in the male—bears no relation to the strength of the erotic passion.

In some the passion of sexual love is little more than an appetite. Satisfied, it is indefinitely quiescent, not entering into the general life; or, if it at times fires the emotions, they are easily restrained or banished by the exercise of other mental powers. This has been the case with many eminent men of notoriously ardent temperaments but never subdued by them (Byron, Goethe).

It is also an ethnic trait, a characteristic of the Teutonic blood, in sharp contrast to the so-called Latin peoples. With the latter, as is obvious from the literature, the erotic feeling is an enduring and overmastering passion, colouring the intelligence and often absorbing into itself the activities of the life.

As virility in man, so fecundity in woman has no relation to sex feeling; or, if any, in a reverse degree.

The famous calculations of Malthus, which cannot be disproved, and which have been confirmed by the latest statistics, show that this fear of population transcending the food-supply is real and ever present. Where it is not immediate, as in modern life, it is nevertheless near and visible in the division of the parental property among a large family of children; in the increased difficulties of properly educating such a family and giving each a proper position and start in life; and in providing for such as are feeble or incompetent. This effort, extended throughout a community, means more intense competition, a more bitter struggle for property, a more constant occupation with sordid details, to the neglect of reflection, study, and abstract thought.

Reproduction, therefore, to its utmost limits, would be of no advantage to a community, but decidedly deleterious. Its effect on the collective mind would be lowering, as it would centre the general attention on material aims and personal interests.

Nor is the individual who would direct his activities by the highest motives at all compelled to increase his kind. The accessory demands upon his time and powers which such an action usually entails, would probably hinder him in his efforts. Darwin forcibly stated this in his _Descent of Man_. He imagines a man who, not compelled by any deep feeling, yet sacrifices his life for the good of others through the love of glory. “His example would excite the same wish for glory in other men and would strengthen by exercise the noble feeling of admiration. He might thus do far more good to his tribe than by begetting offspring with a tendency to inherit his own high character.”

If this is true of one governed by a motive confessedly not the highest, how much more true of him or her whose soul is fired with a devotion to the truth of science or to the welfare of the race!

_Feminism._—The physical contrast of the sexes belongs to all mammals, to birds, and to most of the animal kingdom. The female is generally smaller, lighter, with lines more graceful and delicate. This is true, as a rule, in all races of men and held good for the earliest tribes whose skeletons have been preserved. Yet the contrast in man is so far from positive that the anatomist knows no criteria to establish the sex from the bones except the more obtuse angle of the rami of the pubes in the female; and even this is obliterated in some branches of the human race, the Indo-Chinese, for example, where the rami meet in both sexes at about the same angle (Hervé).

The tendency to “feminism” is not unusual in the white race as an individual peculiarity; and is especially prominent as a racial trait in the Asiatic or Mongolian branch of our species. They have sparse beards, little hair on the body but much and strong on the head, and the features of the sexes are similar. In many respects they display feminine traits of character, being industrious, sedentary, and peace-loving, receptive but not originative, ruled by emotion, and easily brought under the influence of nervous impressions.

Women have much less variability than men; they are precocious, and their growth more rapid, but the arrest of development arrives with them sooner. They remain near the child type throughout their lives.

Mr. Havelock Ellis has argued that for this reason they are nearer the future type of the species, and that the results of modern civilisation are to render men more feminine in occupations, character, appearance, and anatomy.

It would be more correct to say that as civilisation advances the distinctions between the sexes erected by conditions of lower culture tend to disappear, each sex gaining much from the other without forfeiting that which is peculiarly its own.

The masculine woman and the feminine man are erratic, often degenerate types. The tendency to “homosexuality” (or to “non-sexuality”) has appeared from time to time as an ethnic trait. It was notorious in ancient Greece and mediæval Italy, and in both cases presaged deterioration.

_The Vital Powers._—Health is one trait; tenacity of life another. Feeble and sickly people sometimes reveal a surprising vitality; others, who are hale and athletic, succumb to slight attacks. The American Indian, when he falls ill, gives up and dies; while Europeans, though increasingly requiring medical attention, are growing in longevity.

This physical fact has a noticeable bearing on ethnic psychology. Where the old survive, the property and the management of society usually rest in their hands. The traits of age are reflected on the collective mind. It is cautious, perhaps to timidity, slow in action, avoiding strife. These are the traits of Chinese diplomacy, in which country not only is longevity considerable, but the respect for the old passes into veneration.

As a rule, the lower forms of culture are associated with the shortest lives. The Australian is a Nestor who reaches fifty years. Early maturity and early decay mark inferior and degenerate stages of society. Hence they are guided by inexperienced minds and by the emotional characters of youth.

_Temperament._—The ancient physicians had much to say about “temperaments,” classifying them usually as four, the sanguine, bilious, nervous, and phlegmatic. Both modern medicine and psychology have rejected these as a basis of classification, but acknowledge that there lies an important truth in the ancient doctrine.

Professor Wundt, for example, defines temperament from the psychological standpoint as “an individual tendency to the rise of a certain mental state,” and Manouvrier, recognising the intimate relationship of mind and body, explains it as “an ensemble of physical and mental traits arising from fundamental constitutional differences” in individuals.

Confining myself to the psychological aspect of temperament, I should call it the personal mode of reaction to different classes of stimuli. It is the general disposition of the mind, the individual way of looking at things, _l’humeur habituelle_, and is independent of sentiments, ideas, or knowledge. It is the psychic resultant of the whole organic life of the individuals. In this sense, the distinctions of temperaments are justified, as they depend on the dominance of one or the other of the physiological systems—circulatory, alimentary, nervous, genital, etc.—in the economy.

Various writers (Manouvrier, Ribot, Kant) have adopted as the measure of temperaments and the principle of their classification, the one standard of _energy_; in other words, molecular change. They speak of sthenic and hypersthenic temperaments, active and passive, etc.

I doubt if this is correct in physiology, and it is certainly not so in psychology. Men of all temperaments may be equally energetic, equally active in life-work. That is an old observation. The measure or standard should be, not energy, but that general mental condition called _happiness_. That is the popular distinction, and it is the true one. When we speak of a sanguine, bilious, cheerful, gloomy, temperament, we refer to a general and characteristic mental attitude, with reference to individual happiness.

Rabelais could joke on his death-bed, but Byron, young, rich, and courted, could find no theme for song but sorrow.

The phlegmatic temperament is supposed not to enjoy keenly, but also not to suffer keenly. The sanguine temperament is not easily cast down by adversity, while the bilious or melancholic person is little capable of appreciating the joyous side of life.

These ancient terms may not be acceptable to modern science; but the truths on which they are based are acknowledged by all authorities.

They interest us here, because a group has its temperament as much as an individual, drawn, no doubt, from that prevailing among its members, but noticeably strengthened by the inherent forces of ethnic psychics.

The recognition of this is seen in common parlance when we speak of the phlegmatic Dutchman, the gay Frenchman, etc.

Such popular characterisations may not be accurate, but they serve to show that the fact of a national temperament has unconsciously made itself felt.

It does not seem dependent either on nutrition, geographic position, or history; and it is hereditary and constant. Thus the Eskimos, living amid eternal snows, with a limited diet and a desperately hard struggle for existence, have a singularly cheerful disposition, loving to talk, laugh, and indulge in pleasant social intercourse. On the other hand, the Cakchiquels of Guatemala, living amid the most beautiful and fertile tracts in the world, are chronically morose and gloomy. Their temperament is reflected in their language, which, as the late Dr. Berendt remarked, is as singularly rich in terms for sad emotions as it is poor for those of a joyous character.

There is no doubt that a cheerful mental disposition is in itself a defence against the attacks of disease. Seeland, in his anthropologic studies of the question, found that persons of a cheerful temperament are, in an extended series, physically stronger than those who are melancholic, in the proportion of 148:135; though whether this should be regarded as cause or consequence is open to construction; and, while fully recognising the actuality of national temperaments, he adds that an analysis of them, with a view to defining their causes, is still far from practicable. The important conclusion which he reaches, however, is that the happier temperament corresponds to the higher degree of health, and that, in comparison, that which tends to the melancholic is morbid, a pathologic product, an indication of degeneration.

Regarded as a national question, we derive from this that the calm and the cheerful temperaments are those which promise most success and permanence.