Fortunately, his work upon the transcription of Tagalog remains to us, a translation having appeared in the “Bijdragen” of the Indian Institute. Unfortunately, this work only increased the hatred of his political opponents, for the Spaniards were very much opposed to any independent work on the part of the Filipinos, being convinced that everything of the kind was merely a cloak for separatist views, and whatever was suspected of separatism in the Philippines was certain of meeting an unhappy fate.
Rizal, brought up among the Spaniards, was no better instructed than they themselves in modern ethnology, and, indeed, it was through Professor Blumentritt’s instrumentality that his attention was first directed to the defects in his education in that direction, whereupon he began with ardor to enlarge his knowledge in comparative ethnology. The works upon general ethnography by Perschel, F. Müller, Waitz, Gerland, and Ratzel, the ethnographical parallels of André, Wilkins’s work, the culture-historical publications of Lippert and Helwald became at once the subject of his industrious and thorough study, a study, furthermore, that not only enlarged his knowledge but afforded him the consolation of the assurance that his people were not an anthropoid race as the Spanish asserted, for he found that the faults and virtues of the Tagal are entirely human, and, moreover, he became convinced that the virtues and vices of any people are not mere peculiarities of a race but inherited qualities, qualities that become affected by climate and history.
At the same time he continued what he called his “course in practical ethnology”; that is to say, he studied the life of the French and German peasants, because he thought that a peasantry preserves national and race peculiarities longer than the other classes of a people, and also because he believed he ought to compare only the peasantry of Europe with his own [[365]]countrymen, because the latter were nearly all peasants. With this object in view he withdrew for weeks to some quiet village where he observed closely the daily life of the country people.
He summed up the results of his scientific and “practical” studies in the following propositions:
1. The races of man differ in outward appearance and in the structure of the skeleton but not in their physical qualities. The same passions and pains affect the white, yellow, brown, and black races; the same motives influence their actions, only the form in which the emotions are expressed and the way the actions are directed are different. Neither is this particular form of conduct and expression constant with any race or people but varies under the influence of the most diverse factors.
2. Races exist only for the anthropologists. For a student of the customs of a people there are only social strata, and it is the task of the ethnologist to separate and identify these strata. And just as we mark out the lines of stratification in the mountain ranges of a geological sketch so ought we to mark out the social strata of the human race. And just as there are mountains whose summits do not reach to the highest strata of the geological system, so there are many people that do not reach the highest social strata, while the lowest strata are common to all of them. Even in the old established civilizations of France and Germany a great proportion of the population forms a class which is upon the same intellectual level with the majority of the Tagal, and is to be distinguished from them only by the color of the skin, clothing, and language. But while mountains do not grow higher, peoples do gradually grow up into the higher strata of civilization, and this growth does not depend upon the intellectual capacity alone of a given people, but it is also due to some extent to good fortune and to other factors, some of which can be explained and others not.
3. Since not only the statesmen who conduct colonial affairs but scientific men as well maintain that there are races of limited intelligence that could never attain the height of European culture, the real explanation must be as follows: The higher intelligence may be compared to wealth—there are rich and poor peoples just as there are rich and poor individuals. The rich man that believes he was born rich deceives himself. He came into the world as poor and naked as his slave, but he inherits the wealth that his parents earned. In the same way intelligence is inherited. Races that formerly found themselves compelled by certain special conditions to exercise their mental powers to an unusual extent have naturally developed their intelligence to a higher degree than others and they have bequeathed this intelligence to their descendants, who in turn have increased it by further use. Europeans are rich in intelligence but the present inhabitants of Europe could not affirm without presumption that their ancestors were just as rich in intelligence at the start as they themselves are now. The Europeans have required centuries of strife and effort, of fortunate conjunctions, of the necessary ability, of advantageous laws, and of individual leading men to enable [[366]]them to bequeath their intellectual wealth to their present representatives. The people that are so intelligent to-day have become so through a long process of transmission and struggles. History shows that the Romans thought no better of the Germans than the Spaniards think of the Tagalog, and when Tacitus praises the Germans he does so in the same style of philosophical idealizing that we see in the followers of Rousseau, who thought that their political ideal was realized in Tahaiti.
4. The condemnatory criticism of the Filipinos by the Spaniards is easy to explain but appears not to be justified. Rizal demonstrated this in the following way: Weaklings do not emigrate to foreign lands but only men of energy that travel hence already prejudiced against the colored races and reach their destination with the conviction, which is usually sanctioned by law, that they are called to rule the latter. If we remember, what few white men know, that the Filipinos fear the brutality of the whites, it is easy to explain why they make such a poor showing in works written by the white while they themselves cannot reply in print. If we consider further that the Filipinos with whom the whites had dealings belong, for the most part, to the lower strata of society, the opinions of them given by the whites have about the same value as that of an educated Tagal would have who should travel to Europe and judge all Germans and French by the dairy-maids, porters, waiters, and cab-drivers he might meet.
5. The misfortune of the Filipinos is in the color of their skin and in that alone. In Europe there are a great many persons that have risen from the lowest dregs of the populace to the highest offices and honors. Such people may be divided into two classes, those that accommodate themselves to their new position without pretensions and whose origin is consequently not imputed to them as a disgrace, but on the contrary they are respected as self-made men; and the conventional parvenus, who are ridiculed and detested universally.
A Filipino would find himself ordinarily in the second of these two classes no matter how noble his character or how perfect a gentleman he might be in his manners and conduct, because his origin is indelibly stamped upon his countenance, visible to all, a mark that always carries with it painful humiliations for the unfortunate native since it for ever exposes him to the prejudices of the whites. Everything he does is minutely examined; a trifling error in the toilet, which would be overlooked in a shoemaker’s son that had acquired the title of baron, and might easily happen to a pure-blooded descendant of the Montmorencys, in his case excites amusement and you hear the remark: “What else do you expect? He is only a native.” But even if he does not infringe any of the rules of etiquette, and is besides an able lawyer or a skilful physician, his accomplishments are not taken as a matter of course, but he is regarded with a kind of good-natured surprise, a feeling much like the astonishment with which one regards a well trained dog in a circus, but never as a man of the same capabilities as a white man.
Another reason for the mean opinion in which the Filipinos have been held by the whites is found in the circumstance that in the tropics all the servants are colored. They have the defects of their social class and of servants everywhere. Now, when a German housewife complains of her servants, she does not extend their bad qualities to the whole German [[367]]nation; but this is done unblushingly by Europeans that live in the tropics, and they never apparently feel any compunctions but sleep the sleep of the just, undisturbed by conscience.
The merchants also have contributed to the unfavorable judgment of the Filipinos. Europeans come to the tropics in order to get rich as soon as possible, which can only be done by buying from the natives at astoundingly low rates. The latter, however, do not regard this proceeding as a really commercial one, but they believe that the whites are trying to cheat them; and they govern themselves accordingly by trying, on their side, to overreach the whites while their dealings with one another are far more honorable. Consequently the Europeans call the natives liars and cheats, while it never occurs to them that their own exploiting of the ignorance of the natives is a conscienceless proceeding, or rather they believe that, as whites, they are morally justified in dealing immorally with the natives because the latter are colored.
Dr. Rizal finally came to think that he need no longer wonder at the prejudice of the whites against his people after he saw in Europe what unjustifiable prejudices European nations entertain against one another. He himself was always benevolent and moderate in his judgment of foreign peoples. His active and keen mind, his personal amiability, his politeness and manner as a man of the world, and his good and noble heart gained him friends everywhere, and, therefore, the tragic death of this intellectually distinguished and amiable man aroused general concern.
Rizal was an artist of delicate perceptions, a draftsman and sculptor as well as a scholar and ethnologist. Professor Blumentritt possesses three statues made by him of terra cotta which might aptly serve as symbols of his life. One represents Prometheus bound. The second represents the victory of death over life, and this scene is imagined with peculiar originality: a skeleton in a monk’s cowl bears in its arms the inanimate body of a young maiden. The third shows us a female form standing upon a death’s head and holding a torch in her high uplifted hands. This is the triumph of knowledge of the soul over death. Rizal, concludes Professor Blumentritt, was undoubtedly the most distinguished man not only of his own people but of the Malay race in general. His memory will never die in his fatherland. [[368]]