The psychology of peoples

Book I The Psychological Characteristics Of Races Chapter I

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The Soul of Races 3-16

How the naturalists classify species — Application of their methods to man— Defective side of the classifications of the human races at present in vogue — Foundations of a psychological description — The average types of the races — How they may be established by observation— The psychological factors which determine the average type of a race — The influence of ancestors and that of the immediate parents — Common psychological groundwork possessed by all the individuals of a race — Immense influence of bygone generations on the present generation — Mathematical reasons for this influence— How the collective soul has spread from the family to the village, from the city to the surrounding district — Advantages and dangers of the conception of the city— Circumstances under which the formation of the collective soul is impossible — Example of Italy — How the natural races have given way to the historic races.

The Limits of the Variability of the Character OF Races 17-24

The variability of the character of races, and not its fixity, constitutes the apparent rule — Reasons for this appearance — • Invariability of the fundamental characteristics and variability vi CONTENTS

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of the secondary characteristics— Analogies' between the psychological characteristics and the irreducible and modifiable characteristics of the animal species — It is only environment, circumstances, and education that influence the accessory psychological characteristics — ^The possibilities of character — Examples furnished by the different periods — The men of the Terror — What they became at different periods — How national characteristics endure in spite of revolutions — Various examples — Conclusion.

CHAPTER III The Psychological Hierarchy of Races . . 25-38

Psychological classification is based, as are anatomical assifications, on the determination of a small number of irreducible and fiindamental characteristics — Psychological classification of the human races— The primitive races — The inferior races — ^The average races — The superior races— The psychological elements the grouping of which allows of this classification — The elements which are of the most importance — Character — Morality — The intellectual qualities are modifiable by education — The qualities appertaining to character are irreducible and constitute the unvarying element in each people — Their role in history — Why it is impossible for different races to understand and influence one another — The reasons why it is impossible for an inferior people to adopt a superior civilisation.

CHAPTER IV The Progressive Differentiation of Individuals AND Races 39-49

The inequality between the different individuals of a race is greater in proportion to the superiority of the race — Mental equality of all the individuals of inferior races — To appreciate the differences that separate races, the superior individuals of each people and not its average representatives must be compared — The progress of civilisation tends towards a greater and greater differentiation of individuals and races — Consequences of this differentiation — The psychological reasons which prevent its becoming too considerable — The individuals of the superior races are highly differentiated as regards their intelligence, and very slightly so as regards their character — How heredity constantly tends to reduce individual superiorities to the average type of the race — Anatomical observations confirming the progressive psychological differentiation of races, individuals, and sexes.

CONTENTS vii

Chapter V Page

Formation of the Historical Races . . . 50-60

How historical races are formed — Conditions which allow of

different races combining to form a single race — Influence

of the number of the individuals involved in the process, of

the dissimilarity of their characters, of the environments, etc.

— Results of cross-breeding — Causes of the great inferiority of

half-breeds — Mobility of the new psychological characteristics

'if! ?ieated by cross-breeding— How these characteristics come to

be fixed — The critical periods of history — Cross-breeding

constitutes an essential factor in the formation of new races,

and at the same time a powerful fector in the dissolution of

civilisations — Importance of the regime of castes — Influence

of environment — Environment can only exert its influence on

new races in process of formation, and on races whose

jincestral characteristics are giving way before the action of

.jcross-breeding — Environment is without influence on old

races — Various examples — The majority of the historical races

life yof ~Eur ope are still inprocess oi ^E^^n — I'a^tjcal and

■~V^.i'&a|^P[lljttjpR!illMj!,' 'Why the period^rt^formatMa of bW'

Book II

ffOW THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF RACES ARE DISPLAYED IN THE VARIOUS ELE- MENTS OF THEIR CIVILISATIONS

The Various Elements of a Civilisation considered AS AN Exterior Manifestation OF THE Soul of a People .... 63-80

, The elements of which a civilisation is composed are the exterior manifestations of the soul of the peoples which have created them — ^The importance of these various elements varies with the different peoples — ^According to the several peoples it is the arts, literature, institutions, etc., that fill the fundamental role — Examples from antiquity : the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans — The evolution of the different elements of a civilisation may be independent of the general march of that civilisation — Examples supplied by the arts — ^What they viii CONTENTS

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express — Impossibility of finding in a single element of a civilisation the measure of the level of that civilisation — Elements virhich assure the superiority of a people — Elements which philosophically are very inferior may be socially very superior.

How Institutions, Religions, and Languages

ARE Transformed ... . . 81-99

The superior races are as powerless as the inferior races to transform suddenly the elements of their civilisation — Contradictions presented by the peoples which have changed their religions, languages, and arts — The example of Japan — In what respect these changes are only apparent — The profound transformations undergone by Buddhism, Brahmanism, Mahometanism and Christianity according to the various races by which they have been adopted — The variations undergone by institutions and languages according to the race that adopts them — That the words which in different languages are considered to correspond represent very dissimilar ideas and "inMes'of'TfiougTHi^mpbssiBifflyior tUs feasca.-^ 'i':iT~^j',g _ ^ , certain languages — ^Why, in books of history, the civilisation ' " of a people sometimes seems to have undergone profound changes — Limits of the reciprocal influence of different civilisations.

How THE Arts are Transformed . . . 100-126

Application of the principles already set forth to the study of the evolution of the arts among the Oriental peoples — Eg5?pt — The religious ideas from which its arts are derived — Developments that await its arts when they are transplanted amid different • races : Ethiopians, Greeks, and Persians — Primitive inferiority of Grecian art — Slowness of its evolution — Adoption and evolution in Persia of Grecian art, Egyptian art, and Assyrian art — The transformations undergone by the arts depend on the race and not on religious beliefs — Examples supplied by the great transformations undergone by Arabian art according to the races which have adopted Islamism — Application of our principles to the investigation of the origin and evolution of the arts in India — India and Greece went to the same sources, but in consequence of the diversity of the races they developed arts having no relationship — Immense transformations undergone by architecture in India among the different races in spite of the similarity of their beliefs.

CONTENTS ix

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Book III Tite History Of Peoples Considered As A Consequence Of Their Character

How THE Soul of Peoples is Responsible for

THEIR Institutions 129-137

The history of a people is always determined by its mental constitution — ^Various examples — How the political institutions of France are the outcome of the soul of tie race — ^Their real invariability beneath their apparent variability — Our most dififerent political parties pursue identical political ends under difiFerent names — Their ideal is always centralisation and the destruction of individual initiative to the profit of the State — How the French Revolution merely executed the programme ^ of the old monarchy — Contrast between the ideal of the Anglo- *^ Saxon race and the Latin ideal — ^The initiative of the citizen substituted for the initiative of the State — Peoples' institutions < are always the outcome of their character.

Application of Preceding Principles to the Comparative Study of the Evolution OF THE United States of America and OF THE Spanish-American Republics . 138-152

The English character — How the American soul has been formed — Severity of the selection resulting from the fconditions. of existence — Forced disappearance of the inferior elements — The negroes and the Chinese — Reasons of the prosperity of the United States and of the decadence of the Spanish- American repubUcs in spite of identical political institutions — Inevitable anarchy of the Spanish-American republics as a consequence of the inferiority of the characteristics of the race.

How THE Modification of the Soul of Races Affects the Historical Evolution of Peoples 153-164

The influence of foreign elements at once transforms the soul of a race, and in consequence its civilisation — Example of the Romans — Roman civil^tion was not destroyed by military

CONTENTS

p; invasions, but by the pacific invasions of the Barbarians — The Barbarians never formed the project of destroying the Empire — Their invasions were not of the nature of conquests — ^The early Frank chiefs always considered themselves to be fiinctionaries of the Roman Empire — They always respected Roman civilisation, and their aim was to continue it — It was only from the seventh century onwards that the Gallic barbarian chiefs ceased to consider the Emperor as their superior — The complete transformation of Roman civilisation was not the consequence of a work of destruction, but of the adoption of an ancient civilisation by a new race — The modern invasions of the United States — The civil strife and the breaking up of the United States into independent and rival States to which these invasions will lead — The invasion of France by fore^ners and their consequences.

CHAPTER I The Role of Ideas in the Life of Peoples . 167-189

The leading ideas of each civilisation are always very few in number — Extreme slowness of their birth and disappearance — Ideas do not influence conduct until they have been transformed into sentiments — ^They then form part of the character — It is thanks to the slowness of the evolution of ideas that civilisations possess a certain fixity — How ideas take root — The reason has no influence whatever — The influence of affirmation and prestige — The role of enthusiasts and apostles — Deformation undergone by ideas as they penetrate the masses — A universally admitted idea soon influences all the elements of civilisation — It is thanks to their community of ideas that the men of each age have a sum total of average conceptions which makes them very much alike in their thoughts and actions — ^The yoke of custom and opinion — It is not relaxed until the critical ages of history when the old ideas are losing their influence and have not as yet been replaced — This critical age is the only age in which the discussion of opinions can be tolerated — Dogmas only hold their own on the condition that they are not discussed — Peoples cannot change their ideas and dogmas without being at once obliged to change their civilisation.

CONTENTS xi

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The Role of Religious Beliefs in the Evolution OF Civilisations ..... 19C3-198

Preponderating influence of religious ideas — ^They have always constituted the most important element of the life of peoples — Religious ideas responsible for the majority of historical events and social and political institutions — A new civilisation always comes into existence with a new religious idea — Power of the religious ideal — -Its influence on character — It directs all the &culties towards the same end — The political, artistic, and literary history of peoples is the offspring of their beliefs — The slightest change in the state of a people's belief results in an entire series of transformations in its existence — ^Various examples.

The Role of Great Men in the History of

Peoples 199-208

The great advances made by each civilisation have always been realised by a small eliie of superior minds — Nature of their role — They synthesise all the efforts of a race — Examples supplied by great discoveries — Political role of great men — They embody the dominant ideal of their race — Influence of the great hallucinated — Inventors of genius transform a civilisation— The fanatics and the hallucinated make history.

Book V Tj/e Dissociation Of The Character Of Races And Their Decadence

How Civilisations Fade Away and Die out . 211-229

Dissolution of psychological species— How hereditary dispositions which had required centuries for their formation may be rapidly lost — ^A very long time is always necessary for a people to raise itself to a high level of civilisation, and in some cases a very short time for it to descend therefrom — The principal factor in the decadence of a people is the lowering of its character — The mechanism of the dissolution of civilisations xii CONTENTS

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has hitherto been the same for all peoples — Symptoms of decadence presented by some Latin peoples — Development of egoism — Diminution of initiative and will power — Lowering of character and morality — The youth of the present day — Probable influence of Socialism— Its dangers and its strength — How it will cause the civilisations that undergo it to return to wholly barbarous forms of evolution — The peoples among whom it will be able to triumph.

CHAPTER n General Conclusions . . , . . . . 230-236

Introduction

MODERN IDEAS ON SOCIAL EQUALITY AND THE PSYCHOLOGICAL BASIS OF HISTORY

Origin and development of the idea of equality — The consequences it has had — The price already paid for its application — Its influence at the present day on the masses — The problems examined in the present work — An inquiry into the- principal factors of the general evolution of peoples — Is this evolution determined by institutions ? — The elements of each civilisation : institutions, arts, creeds, etc. , and whether they have not certain psychological foundations peculiar to each people ? — The element of chance in history and its permanent laws.

THE civilisation of a people is based on a small number of fundamental ideas, which determine its institutions, its literature and its arts. These ideas come very slowly into being, and they are also very slow to disappear. Long after their erroneous nature has become clear to cultivated minds, they remain indisputable truths for the masses, and continue to exert their influence on the rank and file of a nation. It is difficult to obtain recognition for a new idea, but it is no less difficult to discredit an idea that has xiv INTRODUCTION

long been generally accepted. Humanity has always been exceedingly loth to abandon its decayed ideas and its moribund gods.

It is barely a century and a half ago that certain philosophers, who, it should be remarked^ were very ignorant of the primitive history of man, of the variations of his mental constitution and of the laws of heredity, propounded the idea of the equality of individuals and races.

This idea, which would naturally be most attractive to the masses, ended by firmly implanting itself in their mind, and speedily bore fruit. It has shaken the foundation of the old societies, given birth to the most formidable of revolutions, and thrown the Western world into a series of convulsions, the end of which it is impossible to foresee.

Doubtless certain of the inequalities among individuals and races were too apparent to be seriously disputed ; but people found it easy to persuade themselves that these inequalities were merely the outcome of differences of education, that all men are bom equally intelligent and good, and that the sole respon-r sibility for their perversion lies with the institutions they live under. This being the case the remedy was simple in the extreme : all that had to be done was

INTRODUCTION xv

to reform the institutions and to give every man an identical education. It is in this way that institutions and education have ended by becoming the great panaceas of modern democrats, the means of remedying inequalities which clash with the immortal principles that are the only divinities that survive . to-day.

And yet science, as it has progressed, has proved the vanity of the theories of equality and shown that the mental gulf created by the past between individuals and races can only be filled up by the slowly accumulating action of heredity. Modern psychology, together with the stern lessons of experience, has demonstrated that the institutions and the education which suit some individuals and some races are most harmful to others. But when ideas are once in circulation it is not in the power of philosophers to destroy them when they arrive at the conviction that they are erroneous. Like a swollen stream that has overflown its banks, the idea continues its destructive progress with which nothing can interfere.

There is no psychologist, no traveller, no fairly intelligent statesman who is not aware how erroneous is this chimerical notion of the equality of men, which has thrown the world into confusion, brought xvi INTRODUCTION

about in Europe a gigantic revolution, involved America in the sanguinary War of SiJccession, and landed all the French colonies in a state of lamentable decadence; yet in spite of this knowledge they are few indeed who venture to combat this notion.

Moreover the idea of equality, far from being on the decline, continues to make headway. It is in the name of this idea that socialism, which seems destined to enslave before long the majority of Western peoples, pretends to ensure their welfare. It is in its name that the modern woman, forgetting the deeplying mental differences that separate her from man, claims the same rights and the same education as man, and will end, if she be triumphant, in making of the European a nomad without a home or a family.

The masses scarcely trouble themselves about the political and social upheavals to which these levelling principles have given rise or about the far graver events they have yet to bring forth, and the statesmen of the present day are in power too short a time for them to be more heedful. Moreover public opinion has become the sovereign authority, and it would be impossible not to bow to it.

The only real measure of the social importance of an idea is the influence it exerts on men's minds.

INTRODUCTION xvii

The degree of truth or error it contains is only of interest from a philosophic point of view. When an idea has come to be a sentiment with the masses, all the consequences it involves must be undergone in succession.

We see then that it is by means of education and institutions that the modern dream of equality endeavours to seek realisation. It is in their name that, reforming the unjust laws of nature, we attempt to cast in the same mould the intelligences of the negroes of the Martinique, of the Guadeloupe and of the Senegal, those of the Arabs of Algeria and finally those of the Asiatics. The chimera is doubtless quite unrealisable, but experience alone can show the danger of chimeras. Reason is incapable of transforming men's convictions.

The object of this work is to describe the psychological characteristics which constitute the soul of races, and to show how the history of a people and its civilisation are determined by these characteristics. . Neglecting details, or only considering them so far as they are indispensable to the proof of the principles advanced, we shall examine the formation and mental

constitution of the historic races, that is of the races

I* xviii INTRODUCTION

artificially formed in historic times by the chances of conquest, immigration and political changes, and we shall endeavour to demonstrate that their history is determined by their mental constitution. We shall note the degree of fixity or variability of the characteristics of races. We shall try to find but whether individuals and peoples tend towards equality or, on the contrary, towards greater and greater differentiation. We shall then examine whether the elements composing a civilisation, its arts, its institutions, its beliefs, are not direct manifestations of the soul of races, and whether in consequence it is not impossible that they should pass from one people to another. We shall conclude by attempting to determine what are the necessities under the influence, of which civilisations decay and die out. We have dealt at length with the problems in question in various works on the civilisations of the East. This Short volume should be regarded as a brief synthesis.

The point that has remained most clearly fixed in my mind, after long journeys through the most varied countries, is that each people possesses a mental constitution as unaltering as its anatomical characteristics, a constitution which is the source of its sentiments, thoughts, institutions, beliefs and arts.

INTRODUCTION' xix

Tocqueville and other illustrious thinkers have imagined that they have discovered in the institutions of the various peoples the cause of their evolution. I, on the contrary, am persuaded and hope to prove, while choosing my examples from the countries studied by Tocqueville, that institutions are of extremely slight importance as regards the evolution of civilisation. They are most often effects and but very rarely causes.

The history of peoples is determined, no doubt, by very different factors. It is full of particular cases, of accidents which have taken place but which might not have taken place. Side by side, however, with these chances, with these accidental circumstances, there are great permanent laws which govern the general course of each civilisation. The mental constitution of races proceeds from the most general, the most primordial of these permanent, laws. The life of a people, its institutions, beliefs, and arts are but the visible expression of its invisible soul. For a people to transform its institutions, beliefs, and arts it must first transform its soul ; to enable it to bequeath its civilisation to another people, it would be necessary that it should be able to bequeath its soul. Doubtless this is not what history teaches, but we

XX INTRODUCTION

shall easily show that in recording contrary assertions it has allowed itself to be misled by vain appearances.

The reformers who have followed one another for a century past have endeavoured to change everything : Gods, the earth and men ; but their efforts have been wholly unavailing so far as regards the century-old characteristics of the souls of races which time has established.

The conception of the irreducible differences which separate human beings is entirely contrary to the ideas of modern socialists, but it is not the teachings of science that could induce the apostles of a new dogma to renounce their illusory doctrines. Their efforts are a new phase of the eternal crusade of humanity in quest of happiness, that treasure of Hesperides for which the peoples have been searching from the dawn of history onwards. The dream of equality would perhaps avail as much as the old illusions which cradled us in the past, were it not that it is destined to be shattered at an early date on the immovable rock of natural inequalities. Together with old age and death, these inequalities are a part of those apparent iniquities of which nature is full and to which man must submit.

Book I The Psychological Characteristics Of Races

I

BOOK I

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF RACES

THE SOUL OF RACES

How the naturalists classify species — Application of their methods to man — Defective side of the classifications of the human races s.\ present in vogue — ^Foundations of a psychological description — The average types of the races — How they may be established by observation — The psychological factors which determine the average type of a race — The influence of ancestors and that of the immediate parents — Common psychological groundwork possessed by all the individuals of a race — Immense influence of bygon? generations on the present generation — Mathematical reasons for this influence — How the collective soul has spread from the family to the village, from the city to the surrounding district — Advantages and dangers of the conception of the city^Circumstances under which the formation of the collective soul is impossible — Example of Italy — How the natural races have given way to the historic races.

NATURALISTS base the classification of species on the observation of certain anatomical characteristics regularly and constantly reproduced by heredity. We are aware to-day that these characteristics are transformed by the hereditary accumulation of imperceptible changes. Still, if attention be confined to the comparatively short period covered by history, the species may be said to be invariable.

Applied to man, the methods of classification of the naturalists have allowed of the determining of a certain number of perfectly distinct types. By the aid of clearly defined anatomical characteristics, such as the colour of the skin, and the shape and volume of the skull, it has been possible to establish that the human race comprises several species which are quite distinct and probably of very different origin. In the eyes of the scientific men who are respectful of religious traditions, these species are simply I'aces. However, as has been rightly observed, " if the Negro and the Caucasian were snails, all zoologists would affirm unanimously that they constitute excellent species, which could never have descended from the same couple from which they had gradually come to differ."

These anatomical characteristics, those at least of them that can be traced by our analysis, only allow of very summary general divisions. Their divergencies are only perceptible in the case of the most distinct human species ; of the white and yellow races, or the negroes for example. Peoples, however, that closely resemble one another as regards their physique, may, be widely different as regards their modes of feeling and acting, and in consequence as regards their civilisations, beliefs, and arts. Is it possible, for instance, to class in one and the same group a Spaniard, an Englishman, and an Arab ? Are not the mental differences that exist between them apparent toeverybody, and to be detected throughout their history ?

In the absence of anatomical characteristics, it has been proposed to base the classification of certain peoples on various elements, such as language, belief, and political organisation ; but this mode of classification will scarcely bear examination.

The elements of classification which anatomy, languages, environment, or political organisation are incapable of furnishing are supplied by psychology, which shows that behind the institutions, arts, beliefs, and political upheavals of each people. He certain moral and intellectual characteristics that determine its evolution. It is the whole of these characteristics that form what may be called the soul of a race.

Each race possesses a mental constitution as unvarying as its anatomical constitution. There seems to be no doubt that the former corresponds to a certain special structure of the brain, but as science is not sufficiently advanced as yet to acquaint us with this structure, we cannot have recourse to it as a basis of classification. Moreover, a knowledge of it would in no way modify the description of the mental constitution of which it is the determining factor and which is revealed to us by observation..

The moral and intellectual characteristics, whose association forms the soul of a people, represent the synthesis of its entire past, the inheritance of all its ancestors, the motives of its conduct. They appear to be very variable in individuals of the same race, but observation proves that the majority of the individuals of a given race always possess a certain number of common psychological characteristics, which are as stable as the anatomical characteristics that allow of the classification of species, while, like these latter characteristics, the psychological characteristics are regularly and constantly reproduced by heredity.

This aggregate of psychological elements observable in all the individuals of a race constitutes what may rightly be called the national character. Together they form the average type which permits of a people being defined. A thousand Frenchmen, Englishmen, or Chinamen, chosen at hazard, offer notable differences amongst themselves, but nevertheless, owing to racial heredity, they possess common characteristics which allow of the determining of an ideal type of the Frenchman, the Englishman, and the Chinaman analogous to the ideal type which the naturalist presents when he describes in a general manner the dog or the horse. Applicable to the different varieties of dogs or horses, such a description can only include the characteristics common to them all and not those which enable their numerous individual specimens to be distinguished.

Provided a race be sufficiently ancient, and in consequence homogeneous, its average type is established with sufficient clearness for it to be readily noted by the observer.

When we visit a foreign people the only characteristics that can arrest our attention are precisely those that are common to all thfe inhabitants of the country we are travelling through, since they are the only characteristics that are constantly repeated. The individual characteristics, being seldom repeated, escape us, and before long we not only distinguish at first sight between an Englishman, an Italian, or a Spaniard, but we are perfectly able to ascribe to them certain moral and intellectual characteristics, which are the very fundamental characteristics that we referred to above. An Englishman or a Gascon, an inhabitant of Normandy or Flanders, corresponds to a type of which we have a perfectly clear idea and of which we can easily give a description. Applied to an isolated individual, the description may seem very inadequate and sometimes inexact ; applied to the majority of the individuals of one of these races it will depict them perfectly. The unconscious process by which we arrive at an idea of the physical and mental type of a people is absolutely identical in its essence with the method by which a naturalist classifies species.