33. Race, Nationality, and Language
The term race has here been used in its biological sense, for a group united in blood or heredity. A race is a subdivision of a species and corresponds to a breed in domestic animals. Popularly, the word is used in a different sense, namely that of a population having any traits in common, be they hereditary or non-hereditary, biological or social (Chapter [I]). It is customary, but scientifically inaccurate, to speak of the French race, the Anglo-Saxon race, the Gypsy race, the Jewish race. The French are a nation and nationality, with a substantially common speech; biologically, they are three races considerably mixed, but still imperfectly blended (§ [24]). Anglo-Saxon refers primarily to speech, incidentally to a set of customs, traditions, and points of view that are more or less associated with the language. The Gypsies are a self-constituted caste, with folkways, occupations, and a speech of their own. The Jews, who were once a nationality, at present, of course, form a religious body, which somewhat variably, in part from inner cohesion and in part from outer pressure, tends also to constitute a caste. They evince little hereditary racial type, measurements indicating that in each country they approximate the physical type of the gentile population.
It may seem of little moment whether the word race is restricted to its strict biological sense or used more loosely. In fact, however, untold loose reasoning has resulted from the loose terminology. When one has spoken a dozen times of “the French race,” one tends inevitably to think of the inhabitants of France as a biological unit, which they are not. The basis of the error is confusion of organic traits and processes with superorganic or cultural ones; of heredity with tradition or imitation. That civilizations, languages, and nationalities go on for generations is obviously a different thing from their being caused by generation. Slovenly thought, tending to deal with results rather than causes or processes, does not trouble to make this discrimination, and every-day speech, dating from a pre-scientific period, is ambiguous about it. We say not only “generation,” when there is no intent to imply the reproductive process, but “good breeding” (literally, good brooding or hatching or birth), when we mean good home training or education; just as we “inherit” a fortune or a name—social things—as well as ineradicable traits like brown eye-color. Biology has secured for its processes the exclusive use of the term “heredity”; and biologists employ the term “race” only with reference to a hereditary subdivision of a species. It is equally important that the word be used with the same exact denotation in anthropology, else all discussion of race degenerates irretrievably into illogical sliding in and out between organic and social factors. The inherently great difficulties which beset the understanding and solution of what are generally called race problems, as discussed in the next chapter, are considerably increased by a confusion between what is and what is not racial and organic and hereditary.
CHAPTER IV
PROBLEMS OF RACE
[34.] Questions of endowment and their validity.—[35.] Plan of inquiry.—[36.] Anatomical evidence on evolutionary rank.—[37.] Comparative physiological data.—[38.] Disease.—[39.] Causes of cancer incidence.—[40.] Mental achievement and social environment.—[41.] Psychological tests on the sense faculties.—[42.] Intelligence tests.—[43.] Status of hybrids.—[44.] Evidence from the cultural record of races.—[45.] Emotional bias.—[46.] Summary.