Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 55.djvu/493

Rh more perilous to the Spaniards, because the Spanish press, particularly the monkish journals, systematically treated them with scorn, called them anthropoids, and denied their capacity to attain European civilization. The educated Filipinos foamed with rage when spoken to about these attacks upon their race. "Besides," they said, "it makes the color of our skin a stigma with the Spanish lords, and with all Europe too; why thus insult us and in so cowardly a way, when the censorship at Manila makes it impossible for us to defend ourselves?"

But all these noisy revilings of their race could only outwardly, not inwardly, disturb the self-esteem of the Malays, because their leading spirits had by critical psychological studies of the white race confirmed the opinion of the simple Tagal peasants that the whites are made out of the same earth as the colored, and that the latter could, under equal conditions, have done as well as they. Only the whites have adopted that lordly code of morals which, like the flag with contraband goods, covers the grossest breaches of right and other outrages, which a white gentleman would not venture, indeed, to commit upon his peers, but which, in the treatment of colored men, belong, so to speak, to good tone, to "European smartness."

The educated brown man generally feels in his intercourse with the European that uneasiness, that poorly concealed embarrassment, which the parvenue with us feels in the presence of one of the blue-blooded aristocracy. He feels every instant that the white man's critical eye is upon him, and knows that the criticism will be pitiless and harsh to injustice. He knows, further, that this criticism in every case does not apply only to him, the individual, but that conclusions are drawn at once from his errors, even though they may be only presumed, that are applied to his whole race or caste—conclusions which are never flattering, but always culminate, in agreement with the scorn of the superior, in a severe condemnation.

This consciousness of running the gantlet before the eyes of Europeans often causes the brown man to commit mistakes in European society, which refuses to pass him among people whose favor he would be sure to enjoy.

The opinion which Europeans living in the tropics form of the brown men is generally unfavorable and unjust to them. We Europeans, or rather our nations and states, already judge one another harshly and in a more than partisan manner, because we see first only the weaknesses, often even only the fancied weaknesses, of our neighbors. How, then, could we expect anything better when a European has to pass an opinion on a brown man? We