PLEA AND COUNTERPLEA
Who aught adjudges ere both sides are heard,
Just though his judgement, is himself unjust.
Seneca
By far the ablest plea yet made for the "backward races" is to be found in the address of Dr. Franz Boas on Human Faculty as Determined by Race, published (at least, printed) in the Proceedings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1894. This distinguished anthropologist, now of Columbia University, New York City, speaks from the pinnacles of science, and his words must not go unregarded. We shall notice every salient point in his twenty-six pages, and shall quote him verbatim as far as possible. Such a formal defence seems to call for an equally formal rejoinder.
He objects to the argument from the superiority of the White civilization to the superiority of the White race as involving two errors: (a) "the achievement and the aptitude for an achievement have been confounded", (b) "every deviation from the white type is considered a characteristic feature of a lower type" (p. 302). It is declared that "these two errors underlie our judgments of races;" but why and whether they are really errors, or in what measure, here at least no attempt is made to show. This will not do. Such plausible assumptions are neither disproved nor discredited by merely labeling them "errors." However, there follows: "It might be objected that although achievement is not necessarily a measure of aptitude, it seems admissible to judge the one by the other" (pp. 302-3). But why "objected"? Has any reason been opposed against which one could "object"? None whatever. We do object very seriously to the implication that already there has been advanced some argument. The word "objected" should be changed to "argued."
Hear now the answer to this "objection." "It seems desirable to enter into these questions somewhat fully. Let our mind go back a few thousand years until it reaches the time when the civilizations of eastern and of western Asia were in their infancy. As time passed on, these civilizations were transferred from one people to another, some of those who had represented the highest type of culture sinking back into obscurity, while others took their places. During the dawn of history, we see civilization clinging to certain districts, in which it is taken up now by one people, now by the other. In the numerous conflicts of these times the more civilized people were often vanquished. The conqueror, however, learned the arts of life from the conquered and carried on the work of civilization. Thus the centres of civilization were shifting to and fro over a limited area and progress was slow and often interrupted. At the same period the ancestors of the races, who are now among the most highly civilized, were in no [?] way superior to primitive man as we find him now in regions that have not come into contact with modern civilization.
Was the culture attained by the ancient civilized people of such character as to allow us to claim for them a genius superior to that of any other race?"
Such is not the question; it is not about "any other race," but about the present backward races—African especially and Australian. It should have been said, "Was Greek civilization such as to indicate that the Athenian was superior to the Senegambian or the Hottentot?" Will any one hesitate for an answer?
"First of all, we must bear in mind that none of these civilizations was the product of the genius of a single people."