THE NEGRO RACE AND EUROPEAN CIVILIZATION 165
and the blessings of civilization. Now, if justice has any definite meaning, it implies respect for the sphere of an individual exist- ence. We certainly cannot be just to the African if we demolish all his native institutions, simply because we will not take the trouble to understand them. No cruelty of war, no suffering, will be resented by the African so much as an attack upon his private property ; and unless the system of concessions to European com- panies is to prove a curse to Africa, it must respect scrupulously the native property rights. The European must also have a care not to break up further such tribal and social unity as exists among the African populations. The basest forms of social life exist among the jetsam and flotsam of tribal populations along the African coast and in south Africa, where the original unity has been dissolved by European interference. It is here that the mis- sions have their greatest work to do, by creating a new social unity and morality for those which have been so recklessly destroyed.
We have seen that European interference may succeed in creating a new economic basis for African life. Whether it can do more, whether it can deeply and permanently influence African life in the direction of specifically European civilization in its intellectual and moral aspects, is more doubtful. The most potent civilizing agency at all times has been example, and in this respect the relations of the white to the negro race have been particularly unfortunate. The white men who have come to Africa have either been colonial officials, impatiently waiting for their next leave of absence, with little insight into the true needs of native society; or traders whose sole purpose was to get the wealth of the natives rapidly and for the cheapest possible return. The missionaries, men often of single-hearted devotion, have been too few to act as a leavening force upon the entire mass of the African negroes. Moreover, many of them have found it difficult to put their message into the form of greatest helpfulness to the African. Their example, too, holds up the ideal of an intellectual and spiritual life, rather than that of mechanical and industrial effi- ciency which the Africans so much need. In these respects the Islamitic races have the advantage. They come in contact with the Africans in large numbers, as merchants, industrials, and
