On the other hand, most individuals of this day and land do habitually infer, like Galton, from cultural status to biological worth, so far as the Negro is concerned. The same persons who eagerly accept the demonstration of a flaw in the argument in favor of Athenian superiority, generally become skeptical and resistive to the exposition of the same flaw in the current belief as to Negro inferiority. It is remarkable how frequently and how soon, in making this exposition, one becomes aware of the hearer’s feeling that one’s attitude is sophistical, unreal, insincere, or motivated by something concealed.
The drift of this discussion may seem to be an unavowed argument in favor of race equality. It is not that (§ [271]). As a matter of fact, the bodily differences between races would appear to render it in the highest degree likely that corresponding congenital mental differences do exist. These differences might not be profound, compared with the sum total of common human faculties, much as the physical variations of mankind fall within the limits of a single species. Yet they would preclude identity. As for the vexed question of superiority, lack of identity would involve at least some degree of greater power in certain respects in some races. These preëminences might be rather evenly distributed, so that no one race would notably excel the others in the sum total or average of its capacities; or they might show a tendency to cluster on one rather than on another race. In either event, however, the fact of race difference, qualitative if not quantitative, would remain.
But it is one thing to admit this theoretical probability and then stop through ignorance of what the differences are, and another to construe the admission as justification of mental attitudes which may be well founded emotionally but are in considerable measure unfounded objectively.
In short, it is a difficult task to establish any race as either superior or inferior to another, but relatively easy to prove that we entertain a strong prejudice in favor of our own racial superiority.
46. Summary
It would seem that the subject of race problems, that is, the natural endowment of human races, can be summarized as follows:
The essential difficulty of these problems lies in the fact that the performance of groups is the product of two sets of factors, biological and cultural, both of which are variable and not always readily separable.
Progress in solution of the problems will be made gradually, and will be hastened by recognition of how few positive determinations have been made.
Most of the alleged existing evidence on race endowment is likely to be worthless.
The remainder probably has some value, but to what degree, and what it demonstrates, cannot yet be asserted.