new conscience which are coming into the consideration of the race question everywhere. The wrongs to our Southern Negroes, political and social, are still flagrant and intolerable; but I am emphasising here the elements of hope and genuine advance. I believe that in the next decade the new humanity which is becoming so pervasive will achieve no greater triumphs than in the field of inter-racial justice, and will do this the more rapidly and effectively as we all make the world our parish and work together internationally.

[Paper submitted in English.]

APPENDIX

TURKEY

By Dr. RIZA TEVFIK,

Deputy for Adrianople in the Imperial Ottoman Parliament.

HUMANITY, in its inevitable evolution, advances towards an ideal, just as our solar system follows some great path in its voyage to the unknown region where it will fulfil the cycle of its evolution. The idea of a congress for the purpose of bringing races together and endeavouring to secure a better understanding between them is, to my mind, the symbol of a sublime ideal of which I have long desired to see the realisation.

The Turkey of to-day has ever been a vast battle-field, and on it the older civilisations have left the ruins of their ephemeral splendour. From Asia Minor have come, more than once, the forces that have devastated Europe. Warlike nations have often passed through it; they have trodden on a land that seems, from its geographical situation, a bridge built between the two continents. Each nation has left in it, as it passed, some portion of its frame, lacerated and torn with battle, until the Ottoman nation, as we find it to-day, has become a veritable mosaic of races.

In relation to the rest of the world, therefore, our microcosm provides, in a comparatively narrow field, the best opportunities for a close study of the question of the different races which are represented among us by so many and such heterogeneous communities. Hence it is that the most pressing social question for constitutional Turkey has been, from the time the new government was proclaimed, the firm and definitive establishment of a friendly understanding between its various ethnic elements, in order to be able to secure the first conditions of a harmonious and prosperous social life.

The attainment of this supreme aim has been a matter of very serious consideration to us, and we have been compelled to study the chief conditions of it. In this way we have succeeded in detecting the causes of the unhappy discord that there is in the concert of social life; in this way, too, we have become acutely conscious of the practical and actual difficulty of the task.

This analytical study cannot be anything more than a summary and orderly account of the important question which at present interests us. But I may be permitted to observe that, not only is there a striking analogy between social and moral questions of the same general description, whether they arise in Turkey or elsewhere, but these social questions have a more or less evident, but

always real and persistent, affinity with economic and political questions. One might say, in mathematical language, that social questions and economic questions are functional with each other.

I believe that it will be better and more convenient to consider the question of races from two general points of view; first economically, then morally. I am bound to say that, if there are mischievous antipathies at the present time separating races, it is especially due to a certain lack of equilibrium which interferes with the mutual relations and injures the reciprocal interests of races. These interests, however, material or moral, objective or subjective, real or imaginary, go to form the question of life or death, for which each race struggles, with a mind illumined by its own instinct of self-preservation.

Hence it is that these differences easily degenerate, especially when there is sudden and aggressive contact, into a mischievous antipathy that is dangerous to the cause of true civilisation, because these unfortunate circumstances lower man's moral level and reveal the brute-nature that is hidden in the depths of his being. It is one cause of that "return to a primitive condition" which we must endeavour to prevent.

For the same reason these differences give birth to a whole series of obstinate and hurtful prejudices. These may indeed have some justification, and even a relative utility, in view of the preservation of society; but from another point of view they are a costly evil, because such a state of things can only be obtained at the price of intellectual degradation.

Knowing well that the adoption of too exclusive or narrow a point of view will only lead me to erroneous conclusions, however logical they may be, I shall endeavour to refrain from entering into details and set aside all nationalist and religious sentiment, in order to take a general view of the history of humanity.

I shall, therefore, deal with this important question only in an abstract, and even negative, sense; that is to say, instead of enumerating a series of conditions that may be necessary to establish a good understanding between races, I will endeavour to concentrate my attention on the causes which, in my opinion, prevent this good understanding that everybody desires to see. Although this way of considering the question is negative in form, it will lead to certain positive and practical results.

Amongst the causes of racial discord there are quite a number of "conventional prejudices" which are generally regarded as indisputable scientific truths and have the authority of law in the civilised world. It would have been well if M. Max Nordau, the able author of Conventional Lies, had classified them. Some of them, such as "racial prejudice," have the air of being scientific, but are none the less mere prejudices. Although Herbert Spencer, the eminent philosopher, and M. Novicow, the distinguished sociologist, have given us a masterly treatment of this question, I should like to deal with it and draw certain conclusions in regard to it.

Racial prejudice rests, like all other prejudices, on a very complicated framework of sophisms. The superiority of one race over another is estimated by its capacity and its aptitude for civilisation, and that is quite sound. But, unfortunately, civilisation is not properly understood; that is the root of the evil. There we must seek the inexhaustible source of the confused fallacies which have so far complicated and perverted the notion of race that we sometimes take it to be an "entity" of a new order.

In the first place, we are accustomed to think that the only virtues necessary for civilisation are martial qualities. We neglect far too much the virtues in the proper sense of the word, the moral virtues. That comes of an erroneous or superficial study of the facts of history and of a false interpretation of certain principles of naturalist philosophy-principles which are perfectly true, but relative. It is on this point that we draw up illegitimate and sophistical genera

lisations, dragging in certain kinds of sociological and political facts which have no place in a province that is ruled by a biological principle, for instance.

I am as convinced as any man that "the survival of the fittest in the struggle for life" is a sound principle, but I very much question whether the only conditions of this fitness are what we call the "warlike virtues." If I am told that such is the situation invariably in the animal world I reply that it ought not to be the same in the human world. I may add that in the animal world fertility, which is a distinctive sign of inferior races and species, is an important element in the fitness of the species to survive in virtue of its numbers. It is the same with endurance, which makes the individuals of a species better able to resist the destructive agencies of Nature. The exigencies of material life are other conditions that must not be neglected; a people whose individual members can live on a handful of rice or an onion and reproduce indefinitely is as formidable as the peoples who have large guns. All these qualities, and many others, facilitate adaptation by reducing its first conditions. These are qualities of races that are generally regarded as inferior, but the race that has these qualities may command a larger zone of expansion in the world. It resembles an economic machine that needs very little fuel to work; though its products are not of a high quality there is a certain compensation that must not be overlooked. A flower that is, like certain orchids, produced by artificial selection, demands infinitely more care than the wild dandelion, for instance.

The idea of superiority, like everything else, is relative. Moreover, we must diagnose these qualities by a careful study of the psychic, sociological, or moral causes which have given birth to them. We shall probably find that qualities of quite a different origin are invoived and that it is not always the warlike qualities that are victorious.

Respect for law and the gift of conservative innovation-to use the happy phrase of Walter Bagehot-are excellent qualities of a military origin; a long period of military discipline that gave rise to them. It is owing to them, Bagehot says, that the Romans conquered the world. I agree. But I do not understand how the Romans with such qualities were unable to overcome the moral strength of a few Christian martyrs who eventually destroyed their great Empire. The Turks of the Ottoman Empire have these qualities in a higher degree than the Ottomans of other races, such as the Greek, the Arab, the Albanian, and the Kurd. How is it that these qualities have not secured for the true Turks of the Empire either a superiority in numbers or a supremacy in commerce or art?

A quality of a certain kind can only secure a certain kind of superiority; we cannot expect of a martial quality success in commercial competition. Their warlike virtues have secured the government for the Turks, and they have ever held the reins in their vigorous hands. They have always, or almost always, produced statesmen, magistrates, captains, and soldiers of the first rank. But they have, unfortunately, very little capacity for commerce, finance, and industry. Great commercial and industrial enterprises tempt them no longer. They have little disposition for philosophy and science. It is a race with practical but martial qualities. They have no moral and social qualities that are distinctive of them. As is well known, they are hospitable, but this is not a virtue inherent in the race, as the Bedouin also has it, and as it is really not so much a quality as a custom strictly related to the "nomad condition" or a certain stage of social evolution. Neither is it an exclusively Oriental virtue, for the Chinaman, who represents the oldest civilisation, is distinguished for his aversion to foreigners.

Let us consider the Jewish people. This people has indisputably a higher capacity than any other for finance and commerce. It has also a very advanced and pronounced degree of social virtue-moral solidarity. But it does not

possess these two excellent qualifications for the struggle in virtue of its belonging to the Semitic race, as is generally thought. How is it, in that case, that the nomad tribes which belong to the same race as the Jews are constantly killing each other and have an aggressive and military rather than a conciliatory and industrial character? It cannot be said that these two qualities, which have saved the life and preserved the integrity of the Jewish people more effectively than in the case of any other people, and "in spite of the countless persecutions that they have endured," are martial qualities. It is precisely after it had lost its warlike qualities and its national independence that the people of Israel acquired these two higher qualities, one of which secures for it supremacy in the financial world and the other maintains a moral cohesion among its members scattered throughout the world. It needs a long discipline of misfortunes--a harder discipline than that of the Romans-to acquire these capacities; and this education has lasted at least twenty-five centuries, during which it had not the same rights as other nations. In that circumstance must we seek all its virtues and defects. There again we will find the explanation of the paradox that it is very materialistic in business and very idealistic in its dreams of its glorious past, that it is cosmopolitan while it remains at heart as nationalist as it was under the rule of its ancient patriarchs, that it is very liberal and innovating while it remains extremely conservative in the observance of its eminently traditional customs.

These instances prove-in my opinion, at least-that these qualities, like many others of the same kind, have very little to do with what is called the "innate capacity of races," a vague formula that I find it difficult to understand precisely. I can at the most admit an innate capacity of the individual, but not of the race. If the races of men really have a certain innate capacity and aptitude, it consists in the instinctive and unconscious qualities of conservatism, an instinct that is inherent, not merely in the nature of man, but in the insect itself. How, then, can we suppose that this conservative instinct, common to all human beings, can be the true measure of the higher moral and intellectual qualities which assure the supremacy of one nation over others? It would be like measuring and estimating the intensity of light with a pair of scales.

I can easily admit that the conservative instinct is the cause of all higher qualities and virtues. But that is not the question. We want to know how the same instinct has given rise to certain qualities in one race and different qualities in another. We have to determine the influence of the specific factors which have brought about this differentiation among the various races of men ; and, in the case with which we are especially concerned here, we have, I think, to discover those factors which we must regard as prejudicial to a good understanding or incompatible with it.

I should be the first to admit this sociological truth, that war has played the greatest part in the formation of the ancient and more or less barbaric civilisations, in the rise of the great conquering nations, and in their geographical distribution. Mythology, prehistoric science, archæology, and many other fields of research in which the scientific spirit is actively engaged in pursuing its fruitful investigations, show us that war and conquest polarise nations and even national sentiments; that civilisation, which has not emerged all at once from obscurity, has had to advance with slow and halting steps, even disorderly and "ataxic" steps, if I may use the expression, in its uncertain faith; and that commerce and industry, the two great pacific factors of civilisation, were at first very rudimentary, and suffered grievously from the sudden dislocations and waste of a chronic state of war.

As the various peoples were not at the same level of social evolution, and the ways and means of communication were not what they are to-day, there was no harmony between them. At times a barbaric horde, formidable in its