Above the primitive races axe found the inferior races, represented more especially by the negroes. They are capable of attaining to the rudiments of civilization, but to the rudiments only. They have never been able to get beyond quite barbarian forms of civilization, even where chance has made them the heirs, as in Saint Domingo, of superior civilization. . . . The inferior races further display but an infinitesimal power of attention and reflection; they possess the spirit of imitation in a high degree, the habit of drawing inaccurate general conditions from particular eases, a feeble capacity for observation and for deriving useful results from their observations, an extreme mobility of character, and a very notable lack of foresight. The instinct of the moment is their only guide (pp. 27-30).
The common European estimate of the negro, according to Olivier, is that
he is brutish, benighted and unprogressive, . . . "half-devil and half-child" ("White Capital and Coloured Labour," London, 1910, p. 2).
My own experience compels me to accept Le Bon's estimate as applicable to our American pure negro in perhaps slightly less extreme form, and with occasional exception; but "devil" is no more applicable to him than to white "brutes." Le Bon's description would seem to describe fairly accurately the racial characteristics of the negroes. The opinion of many men with whom I have discussed this matter confirms me in this judgment. The average of the Caucasian race is by implication characterized by the opposite traits of the typical negro.
The negro differs from the Caucasian in several well-marked anatomical characteristics. Any one who has associated with negroes detects even more striking mental or temperamental differences. These are quite obvious to teachers of mixed schools, fairly common in certain northern states. Where negro, mulatto and white are jointly concerned the teachers are unequivocal in their opinion that mental alertness and the development of the higher psychical activities corresponds in degree quite uniformly with the amount of "white" blood as judged by color of the skin. Le Bon also is quite emphatic on this point:
This "mental constitution" is the source of a race's "sentiments, thoughts, institutions, beliefs and arts," its "soul."
Where does the mulatto stand with respect to negroes and whites? In general, as a race, approximately midway. But it includes types combining the best as well as the worst of both races. The former almost certainly predominate at the present time.
In Jamaica, according to Governor Olivier,
