CHAPTER XVII
THE RACE-MAKING PERIOD (continued)
The Influence of Occupations and of Race-crossing
In the foregoing chapter we noticed certain well-marked and generally recognised differences of national character presented by the French and the English peoples—namely, the greater independence of the English, the greater sociability of the French people; and we noted how these differences of national character show themselves throughout the institutions of the two nations, and how they have played a great part in determining the difference of their histories; especially, we saw, how they are of prime importance, when we seek to account for the greater expansion of the English people throughout the world.
We then noticed several attempts that have been made, by Buckle, Boutmy, Maine and others, to account for these differences as results of differences of political institutions during the last thousand years. We found that all these attempts fail, and that the differences of political institutions, which these authors have regarded as the causes of the differences of national character, are really the expressions of a fundamental racial difference; that, in short, these authors have inverted the true causal relation. I then drew attention to the work of the school of Le Play and especially to its fundamental principle—namely, that, while peoples are in a state of primitive or lowly culture, their geographical or physical environment determines their occupations and, through their occupations, their social organisations, especially their domestic organisation; and that particular modes of occupation and of social organisation of a primitive people, persisting through many generations, mould the innate qualities and form the racial character.
I said that two brilliant workers of the school—namely, Demolins and de Tourville—had applied this principle to account for those differences between the national characters of the French and English peoples which we were considering. I have now to reproduce their account in as condensed a form as possible.
Demolins claims to show that the short dark round-headed people, who formed the bulk of the Gauls and also of the population of modern France, came, in prehistoric times, from the Eurasian steppe region, reaching France by way of the valley of the Danube, a long narrow lowland region confined on the north by the Carpathians and mountains of Bohemia, on the south by the Balkans and Swiss Alps. He supposes that, for long ages, they had lived as pastoral nomads on the steppes. By examining the nomads who still lead the pastoral life on the steppes, he shows the kind of social organisation to which this pastoral life inevitably gives rise and under which they lived; and he traces the effects which such occupation and such social organisation produce on the mental qualities of a people.
The system is the patriarchal system par excellence. It is something very different from the Roman system characterised by the patria potestas, which the writings of Sir H. Maine have perhaps tended to confuse with the true patriarchal system. The patriarchal system of the pastoral nomads is essentially a communal system, under which all the brothers, sons, and grandsons of the patriarch form, with their families, a community which holds all the property, consisting of flocks and herds, in common; each member having his claim to his share of the produce, each doing his share of the common labour, and each having a voice in the regulation of the affairs of the family. Such a system represses individualism; there is no individual property, there are no individual rights, duties, or responsibilities; no scope for individual initiative; the individual is swallowed up in the community; superior energy or enterprise bring no superior rewards, but rather tend to social disorganisation and to the detriment of the individual who displays them. Further, the work of looking after the herds of cattle is easy and delightful, calling for no sustained exertion; and the herds provide every necessary article of food, clothing, and shelter. Beyond the family group there exists no political organisation; for the group is self-supporting and independent, it has no need of relations with other groups, and each group lives far apart from others, wandering in some ill-defined region of the immense plain.