The Waikato Times With which is Incorporated The Waikato Argus. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 19, 1928. THE ILLUSION OF RACE.

Waikato Times, Volume 104, Issue 17589, 19 December 1928, Page 4

The Waikato Times With which is Incorporated The Waikato Argus. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 19, 1928. THE ILLUSION OF RACE.

If the average New Zealander were asked to slate to what race he belonged he would no doubt reply, "To the British race," and would be quite satisfied to label himself in that way. It is somewhat disconcerting, then, to find in a recent number of the Contemporary Review an article under the heading "The Illusion of Race," in which race is described as a myth. Such distinctions as have grown up are represented as geographical, based partly on a natural fear or hatred of foreigners—xenophobia, to name it technically. The argument is that these differences cluster around tradition in song, story, and literature, ac-

quire a certain concretcness from national triumphs and disasters, acquire demarcation by divagations in language, manners, sefcial and political habits and attitudes, but. are not after all biological race constituents. This is not merely the doctrine of a sensational journalist —for the writer of the article, Mr J. M. Robertson, who is a member of the Privy Council, is none suc h —but is the belief, or half-belief, of a considerable number of men who are entitled to speak on ethnologicß or race questions. In general it may be said on the other side that anthropologists, who, for this question, are the same as ethnologists, make three main race divisions in classifying European peoples. These three divisions are the Nordic, the Mediterranean and the Alpine The Nordic peoples are tall, long-headed, fair in hair and skin, with eyes grey or blue. The Mediterranean are short, long-headed, and somewhat darker in eyes and hair, the latter being often wavy or curly. The Alpine are of medium stature, roundheaded, broadfaced, with a tendency to sallow skin, and their eyes and hair arc medium or dark. It may be remarked incidentally that the conventional stage villain, swarthy, with dark moustachios and scowling mien, is a ngment—most notorious desperadoes in American life have been blond, and as a rule good-looking. To the externals of physical appearance, the, psychologist adds the description of the mental characteristics. The Nordic, race is mainly, introvert. In other words, the thoughts of the Northern peoples are turned inwards. Brooding, silence, lack of outward manifestation of colour, of emotion, of rapid change and of theatricality distinguish the Nordic introvert. The reserve, the mysticism, and the religious preoccupations of the Nordics lend some colour to the classification. The Mediterranean peoples are, on the contrary, extravert, their thoughts being turned outwards. Colour, brightness, rapid changes, emotional outbursts, ready susceptibility to mob effects or to rhetoric are said to characterise them. The Alpines seem to be about half-and-half.

If these distinctions are based on permanent differences and if heredity is the force it is believed to be, then the question of stock is the allimportant one for a country that is inviting immigration. This question has become fiercely controversial in America since the war, particularly as the mental-testing of nearly 2,000,000 men for the army was held to have established the innate mental superiority of the Nordics. Others, however, repudiate this position in toto. They say that race is not as important as environment. For those the common distinction between Celt and Anglo-Saxon is a myth. It will, however, take a long time to convince the lay mind of this fact —if, indeed, it is a fact. The complexity of all problems involving mind and character is far greater than those where there is no living interplay of creative elements. Again, the mixture of races has been so continuous and is of such long standing that there seems little hope of ultimately sorting out the intertwisted strands. But science is not daunted by complexity. Science lives by problems unsolved. As soon as all problems are solved science is lifeless. For the average man the issue has been clouded by unscicntiiic writers by novelists with more emotion than knowledge, and by rhetorical historians who can always appeal to sentiment more powerfully than to reason. Hut Mr J. M. Robertson and others like him will have to produce far more cogent proofs of the truth of their thesis ere they can hope to displace from men's minds the present powerfully fortified conceptions of race and race-pride. Yet, if if can be shown that the main races of mankind

are not fundamentally different; if it

can be shown that their reactions to life differ only as being the results of geography, of climate, or the thousand and one accidents that have caused different rulers in different countries to found and promulgate different traditions; if, at basis, man is not the enemy of his brother man, then the millennium may be a good deal nearer than is commonly supposed. But no! Brother sometimes fights brother, family fights related family, tribe lights kindred tribe, nations are torn by civil war. L<2t anthropologists or ethnologists or sociologists —to whomsoever the task may fall—resolve all men into one basic type of man, the work nf reconciliation and of establishing permanent goodwill yet remains. This is a moral and educational task, a task involving the recreating of a new heart within the basic man, neither Nordic, nor Mediterranean, nor Celtic, but just and indeed homo sapiens, or, as he will be in the classless, warless, halcyonic age, homo sapientior, or even homo sapientissimus.