THE SKETCHER.

Otago Witness, Issue 2894, 1 September 1909, Page 78

THE SKETCHER.

THE BROTHERHOOD OF MAN IN DANGER. THE NEW "SCIENCE" OF HUMAN INEQUALITY, WHICH IS A RENUNCIATON OF THE RIGHTS OF MAN. _ I Ats we about to abandon the idea of brotherhood of man? Does modern i science divide humanity permanently into ' I inferior and superior races? | I "The real or pretended belief that i underlies all slavery — that the children of ! certain perfectly healthy human beings ' are bound to grow up inferior to the chil- j dren of other human, beings — has more ' followers in the civilised world to-day than it has had for a hundred years." i Such is the startling statement with which Mr William E. Wailing opens a long article in the Independent of New j York. Mt Walling is "a writer whose thoughtful contpibutiofns upon labour and social topics have attracted much, notice in America. He has just made a thorough stxtdy of the. negro question, anST ■Aikis article is the result. Its great sigxtificance justifies "the following quotatione ifrom so coraprehejissive a treatment of a "stijbject is as vital to the B-ritish Empire as to tbe United States of Aane- ! rica: — • ■% I ! — Ihe'Heacfion in America. — } ' In the- United States and Europe the belief u> tbe existence of a "natural" hereditary aristocracy lias gained the upper hand, and is now winning a foot- , hold where ii never had one before — that : is, among political radicals and leaders of scientific and philosophical thought. j The reader will readily recall the more and more cautious- attitude assumed in public by the* friends of tbe negro in the North. " The portentous interest of tbisgrowing prejudice indicates a shifting in the whole basis of our political and social thought. For the fundamental and permanent inferiority — of the negro to the white cannot be posited without conceding similar differences between other races and giving inevitable if indirect stipport to the whole theory of blood arktoeracy and caste. This means nothing less than a revolutionary change in the most fundamental li£e principle on which our nation has ibeen evolved. — Exit -Lowell and Emerson. — ObvionaJy this stew theory of, the dominance of the "fittest" races is a backward ! step from the ideas that prevailed among ' the intellectual elite of the North at the time of the emancipation — a renunciation ' of the most cherished and fundamental beliefs oi Lowell, Phillips, and Emerson. The reaction is a return riot .only to the period before 1860, but to the European absolutism of the early eighteenth century. It ie to forget all the lessons . taught Europe by Rousseau and Danton, j ,and America by Franklin, Jefferson, and ' Paine. At * this early period, if the masses even of educated mankind were still unenlightened as to the wrong of human slavery, at least tbe philosophers wye wholly against it. Now, it seems, philosophy and its great successor, science, are both quoted against the rights of man, while many of their leaders are actively taking part in the campaign against human freedom. —Enter the Scientists.— ' Aristocracies have always compared themselves to superior and well-bred animals, and the Southern aristocracy applied stock-breeding principles to tbe negroes. Thrunks to the new doctrines of the survial of the fittest, these principles, anathematised by our revolutionary forefathers almost to the last man, are to be applied to the whole human race. Is it ! not significant of the njw reactionary spirit of ousr time that the able and very often humane and advanced Socialist, Bernard Shaw, should be a leading expositor of "Eugenics," Gallon's proposed science of ..humaa. breeding? Shaw sag-, gest only half-humorously that the future will see a lethal chamber fen- those who ought not to "bs allowed to breed. The subject has become a leading owe in the British magazines, and", as might have 'been expected in this arirtocraey-Laclen atmosphere, has received support from all directions, ever from scientists like Piofessor William Ridgeway, pr«=idmt of the Anthropological Section of the British Association. — Rudyard Kipling's Creed. — | The "scientific" doctrine of human inequality was not born yesterday. It had its earliest origin in tl.-e middle of , the century, after the abolition of slavery in Russia, and the United States, when reactionaries needed* =ome new basis for human servitude. The theory reaches its worst farm, perhaps, among English- ' speaking writers. If it w..re not ."or* this general scientific atmosphere, :t: t might seem a mere eccentricity of genius that lWl>ard Kipling should have adopted the creed of lacial superiority in its most virulent and aggie^ive foim. But the fervic-e -which the inventor cf the phrase "U>2 white nun's burden" has been able to render to t'-s oppre-isors of tl»2 so-callad '"lower" race? tbe world over is due to forces entirely outcide the writer's individual genius. The way was prepared for him by the scientists/ ai.<l he has had no difficulty in finding authorities for those beliefs of his which sum up excellently the anti-social philosophy of our ! time. j Kipling has now concentrated his ideas on human evolution into a single attack — ' for lie who strikes at the unity of hnma- ' nity strikes at the race itself. Into his ' latest story, " The Adventures of Me- j lissa," recently published in Collier's Weekly, he has poured all his bitterness ' and hatred against what has hitherto been our social faith. Kipling takes as his point of departure the fact that a ot bees (read 'A Human Society")

is likely to ctegenerate. The degeneration itself is the original mystery, and all the ill ordering of the hire is not the cause of th« degeneracy, but its effect. Because of this innate degeneracy or original sin of the hive, it is afflicted with parasites and all the other ills of human societies. To fche unfortunate and degenerate, thus mysteriously and epontane-" ously created, Kipling applies every possible term of contempt. " Nor does the author scruple to identify these oddities with the great mass of British working people. We shall not stop to show that, from th« standpoint of the muct more thorough knowledge of the bee displayed in the special studies of Maeterlinck, Kipling's science is fundamentally fake. We only mean to point out again the misanthropy and the far ■worse than. Machiavellian politics that it teaches. For the fate of a dsegeaiera-ting hive is, according to Kipling, destruction, certain and complete. Tbe whole standpoint is, ac he definitely avows, in no sense new, but simply a statement in modern scientific slang of the worldt-old principle of "tradition" against progress. It is thus Kipling Mooeelf who stands for ihe oary- -waily. degenerating elements of modern civilisation — namely, the hoary old tradition that humanity has long ago been trying to slough off. — Nietzsche X<eads th.c Way — • The BiiKter genius of readiion is Friedrich. Nietzsche, whose most violent misanthropies, not yet equalled, were -attained a foil decade in advance of Kipling's. For Nietzsche has fc-eea the most influential writer in the classical country of science fotr nearly two decades. Andnow that tie influence has passed its climax in Germany, it is just reaching its full height in other countries of the Continent. Nietzsche bettered, as is known, that tbe whole human race, not merely th« race of his enemies, is degenerating, and the only hope lies in breeding a new and distinct species. Nietzsche is no coward ; he 'dares to confess repeatedly that his school wants nothing less than world-wide slavery for the working class. And as there must be slaves, there must be masters. Humanity has not yet developed) its superman, but Napoleon and Csesar Borgia were offered to fill the gap ! In a word, the great German prophet of a degenerating humanity finds "the symptoms of declining life," to quote from his "Genealogy of Morals," "in the rising of democracy, of peace arbitraments in place of war, of the equality of woman with man, of the religion of sympathy (Christianity)." Pave we not every reason for supposing Kipling to share these views, at least in large part", even if he expresses them sometimes in parables and. .allusions? Are they not secretly or openly avowed by a large axtd growing part of oar intellectual elite? — Next thfe Anthrolopogists. — In England and America, in France afid Germany, and in, tbe otbsr civilised countries, it is the "antihropologistß" who have lent the most constant and active support to the false doctrines of caste and race; but they are at last thoroughly discredited. Among others the French writer Finot, in his book "Race Prejudice," has shown the utterly untenable position of this pseudo-anthro-pology, even though it has filled thousands of volumes of more or less "scientific research." The book has already had a remarkable reception, and must exert a great influence for the truth. It •lias the triple value of summing up toe theories of race prejudice, of showing their essential futility, and of proving uhe fundamental unity of the human race. As to humar varieties, it was attempted at the time of the slavery controversy to classify tbam by the colour of their skins, as white, yellow, black, red, and brown. Any educated person to-day is able to prove the scientific inadequacy of any such classification even for the purpose of. differentiaiiag humanity in varieties, to say nothing of races. It is now discovered that among those races that are confessedly most backward, and are therefore usually classed as ' most inferior, are the very ones with the longest skirlls. The result has baen that the advocates of the doctrine 6f racial inferiority are abandoning skull measurements as a crucial test, and are now totally at f&a for any physiological data on which to rest. This leaves them only psychoIcgical analyses, whic'n Finot reduces to ivn equal absurdity by mere quotations o! endless contradictions from the various "authorities" on the subject. — Re-sults of Race Mixture. — We do not need to -recall the remarkable number of geniu-es who have been of mixed blood. Th-3 very fact that the human race has advanced m the last few thousand years, as all anthropologists are ayieed, strongly reinforces the belief that tbe m^st general race mixture is 'beneficial to humanity and lead*, not to a reversion to an ancestral t\ pa, but to the maximum of progress, fot the intermixture hae been almost univer.'Jil. iSciencs not only d&trie« the existence of any rational basis foi a fundamental diflerentiation of human varieties, but refuses to admit that there exists in normal human brings any irrational feeling or instinct of racial antipathy against members of an alien race to which they are accustomed. Where considerably different and clearly marked varieties of mankind are living skje by side (as in America), the temptation, for the more developed to keep the more backward in permanent subjection seems, indeed, to be almost irresistible. The whole of the truth is that the whites, as a rule, hate to have the lower caste of the South, who happen to be blacks, ot a level with themselves. As at least two reputable and conservative Southern Governors have clearly stated, what the respectable aod Tistocratic whites of the

South want is to Jceep the negro in. a position of inferiority. The Hbrth, too, is being tainted with/ the same inhuman caste and while the negro's enemies are" aggressive his friends are benumbed by the new and undemocratic- "culture" our universities and publicists hare been, importing from monarchical and aristocratic Europe. That same Europe, which was almost at the •feet of .Washington and Lincoln, is now become our political preceptor and given free rein to corrupt our literature andr our youth. — A Titanic Struggle. — Here are two powerful world-move-ments, equally aggressive and. vigorous: the movement toward democracy, hitherto led by the United States, and now newly, shared by the people of Russia, Japan, Turkey, Persia, and bj a growing minority in Egypt, China, and India; tl» movement for less democracy and more* Empire, supported by a bare majority of the English and* Germans at the terrible expense of tbe lower classes of both countries and the ruin of the subjected peoples. Are we about to see the antidemocratic principle redouble its strength in England and Germany and .obtain., the., up£er> h'anct'inT th»ls£rongboid'V of 3oab<>7 cracy? 'Or wiH the defenders of hicErtadual freedom, ©oeial jtwtice, and: human brotherhood awake in time to the, danger oi the .most* monstrous reversion .in history sinoe- €lte foundation of ttf« -relxgjqilS- of human brotherhood and lqvef note the tine arrived" when something shtraia be done, when the propaganda' of hatred should be checked-, when democrats and lovers of humanity must once more subordinate every cause to the great and underlying cause, and cento© all their efforts, as of old, around the struggle far human brotherhood?