Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 6.djvu/816

 802 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

opposed views as to the result of race-mixture. The one holds that it will ultimately cause degeneration, and the other that it alone is responsible for social progress. The first is the theory of Gobineau ; the opposite, the view of Serres. Both views, however, are extreme, though there is more truth in the latter than in the former. 1 But the belief that mere mixture of races will inevitably result in a superior people is untenable. Half-breeds, produced by the mixture of differ- ent races, have nowhere attained a high civilization. The Indian half-breed and the mulatto of the United States, as well as the Kaffir half-caste of south Africa and the Eurasian of India, uphold this statement. Mr. Galton, in his studies of heredity, published in Natural Inheritance, first demonstrated the tendency of the offspring of mixed races to revert to the parent types, and not to form middle types. 2 Even where half-breed races have come into existence, says Taylor, there is a strong tendency to revert to one of the parent types. At the close of the last century the Griquas, half-breeds between the Dutch Boers and the Hottentots, were numerous at the Cape, but as early as 1825 they had practically reverted to the Hottentot type. 3 Poesche's wide observation, extending over many years, led to the conclusion that without the infusion of fresh blood no race of mulattoes has maintained itself to the third genera- tion. 4 In India there is no third generation of English blood. 3

the population .... must take a long time to become mixed and assimilated. This is a plausible view, yet I doubt whether differences of blood have the importance which it assumes. What strikes the traveler, and what the Americans themselves delight to point out to him, is the amazing solvent power which American institutions, habits, and ideas exercise upon newcomers of all races. The children of Irishmen, Germans, and Scandinavians are far more like native Americans than prevalent views

of heredity would have led us to expect I venture, however, to believe that the

intellectual and moral atmosphere into which the settlers from Europe come has more power to assimilate men than their race qualities had power to change it ; and that the future of America will be less affected by this influx of new blood than anyone who has not studied the American democracy of today can realize." (BRYCE, The American Commonwealth, Vol. II, p. 725.)


 * Anthropologie der Natur- Vblker, Vol. I, pp. 422-4.

'GiDDiNGS, Principles, p. 233. 3 TAYLOR, The Origin of the Aryans, p. 199.


 * POESCHE, Die Arier, p. 10; quoted in TAYLOR, p. 199.

s TAYLOR, op. cit., p. 200.