BESTAMIN F. TRUEBLOOD, LL.D., Secretary of the American Peace Society, Member of the International Peace Bureau. Prof. EDSON V. TUCKEY (Economics and Sociology, Syracuse U.). Prof. JAMES HAYDEN TUFTS (Philosophy, U. of Chicago). Prof. JOHN MARTIN VINCENT (European History, Johns Hopkins U.). CHARLES D. WALCOTT, President of Washington Academy of Sciences, VicePresident of National Academy of Sciences, Secretary of Smithsonian Institution Prof. ULYSSES G. WEATHERLY (Sociology, U. of Indiana). Prof. HUTTON WEBSTER (Social Anthropology, U. of Nebraska). Prof. HERBERT WELCH, D.D., LL.D., President Ohio Wesleyan University. Prof. R. M. WENLEY, SC.D., Litt.D., LL.D. (Philosophy, U. of Michigan). Prof. WILLIS MASON WEST, M.A. (History, U of Minnesota). Prof. NATHAN WESTON (Economics, U. of Illinois). Prof. GEORGIA L. WHITE (Economics, Smith College, Northampton). The Hon. JAMES GUSTAVUS WHITELEY, late Consul-General Belgian Congo, Prof. ALBERT C. WHITTAKER (Economics, Stanford U.). Prof. WALTER F. WILLCOX (Political Economy and Statistics, Cornell U.). Prof. Dr. CH. C. WILLIAMSON (Economics and Politics, Bryn Mawr College). Prof. A. P. WINSTON (Economics, Washington, U.). Dr. STEPHEN S. WISE, The Free Synagogue, New York. Prof. JAMES WITHROW (Chemistry, Ohio State, U.). Prof. THEODORE SALISBURY WOOLSEY, LL.D. (International Law, Yale U.). Prof. ABBOTT YOUNG (Economics, Stanford U.). Prof. CHARLES ZUEBLIN, Boston. OCCIDENT ORIENT FIRST SESSION FUNDAMENTAL CONSIDERATIONS MEANING OF RACE, TRIBE, NATION By BRAJENDRANATH SEAL, M.A., Ph.D., Principal, Maharajah of Cooch Behar's College, Cooch Behar, India. IF modern civilisation is distinguished from all other civilisations by its scientific basis, the problems that this civilisation presents must be solved by the methods of Science. The evolution of Universal Humanity through the concourse and conflict of Nationalities and Empires is too vast and complex for the analytical methods of Aristotelian or Machiavellian Politics, the so-called Historical Schools of Montesquieu or Vico, the arbitrary standards of the Law of Nature, or of Nations, or the learned decisions of international jurists. Modern Science, first directed to the conquest of Nature, must now be increasingly applied to the organisation of Society. But, in this process, Science is no longer in the merely physicochemical, or even in the merely biological plane, but is lifted to the sociological and historical platform. A scientific study of the constituent elements and the composition of races and peoples, of their origin and development, and of the forces that govern these, will alone point the way to a settlement of inter-racial claims and conflicts on a sound progressive basis, the solution of many an administrative problem in the composite United States and the heterogeneous British Empire, and even the scope and methods of social legislation in every modern State. Physical Anthropology with its permanent anatomical types, cultural Ethnology with its geographical zones of ethnic culture, the Philosophy of History with its law of three or more stages, have made notable contributions to this end. But their conflicting claims must be harmonised. A synthetic view of Race is possible, only when we consider it not as a statical, but as a dynamical entity, plastic, fluent, growing, with energies not exhaust, but superimposing layer upon layer like the earth, its scene, still subject to the primal forces that have built up the bed-rocks in their order of sequence and distribution. This is the point of view of genetic Anthropology. It will study Race and Racial Types as developing entities, tracing the formation of physical stocks or types as radicles, their growth and transmutation into ethnic cultural units (clans, tribes, peoples), and finally, the course of their evolution into historical nationalities. A study of genetic conditions and causes, of the biological, psychological, sociological forces at work, which have shaped and governed the rise, growth, and decadence of Races of Man, can alone enable us to guide and control the future evolution of Humanity by conscious selection in intelligent adaptation to the system and procedure of Nature. Race, Variety, Species.-Physical Anthropology must turn to the systematists for definitions of these terms. Not that the Systematists are agreed in theory or in practice. The line between "good" and "bad" species remains as uncertain as when Kerner discussed the question. But by general consensus, such classifications are based on the following considerations : (1) Degree of likeness in characters (morphological and physiological); (2) Degree of stability or constancy of the like characters; (3) Degree of fertility of unions within the group as well as outside, after groups have been tentatively formed by considerations of likeness and stability; and (4) Degree of community of blood, descent or kinship. First, we group together individuals resembling one another with some certain degree of distinctness in one or more characters which are peculiar, i.e., by which such an assemblage is differentiated from allied assemblages. If we then find that the distinctive characters are not stable but more or less readily modifiable, and either (1) that they are not uniformly transmitted to offspring within certain limits of allowable variation, or not so transmitted under some certain change of environment, neither very violent nor very sudden, or (2) that they are definitely known to have been induced by recent change of environment, the assemblage is regarded as a variety (climatic or otherwise). If, again, we find that the peculiar characters, though stable and uniformly transmissible under the above conditions and limitations, are not sufficiently distinct, or "present but small degrees of divergence from those of allied groups," we class the group as a constant variety. Now, when the common and peculiar characters of group are distinct, stable and transmissible (hereditary) within wide its of environmental change, it is usually found that the individuals such a group breed together in a state of nature, and are more |