The Mind of Primitive Man

Abstract

A FAMOUS psychological novelist has asserted that racial differences are irreducible, and that even when love unites two members of distinct races their life, however harmonious, is lived over a slumbering volcano of hate. There is a popular fallacy that racial antipathy is based on physiological foundations. But in so far as such antipathy is real, there is nothing physiological in its causation; and its emotional strength depends on the law that the more automatic and unconscious a habit is, the greater is the displeasure felt and the disgust aroused by infractions of the habit. The most plausible form of this racial habit is one which even scientifically trained minds find it difficult to transcend. This is the attitude of superiority consciously or unconsciously adopted by civilised men towards the semi-civilised, and among the civilised by the so-called Caucasian race. As Prof. Boas puts it, “Proud of his wonderful achievements civilised man looks down upon the humbler members of mankind.” The European looks down on the civilised Oriental. The point of interest, however, is that be claims to be of a higher type, possibly physical, but certainly psychical, on the assumption that achievement depends solely upon aptitude for achievement. The Mind of Primitive Man. By Franz Boas. A Course of Lectures delivered before the Lowell Institute, Boston, Mass., and the National University of Mexico, 1910–11. Pp. xi + 294. (New York: The Macmillan Co.; London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1911.) Price 6s. 6d. net.