Beyond all other criteria of a race must rank its mental endowments. These are what decide irrevocably its place in history and its destiny in time. Some who have personally studied the American race are inclined to assign its psychical potentialities a high rank. For instance, Mr. Horatio Hale hesitates not to say: “Impartial investigation and comparison will probably show that while some of the aboriginal communities of the American continent are low in the scale of intellect, others are equal in natural capacity, and possibly superior, to the highest of the Indo-European race.”[43] This may be regarded as an extremely favorable estimate. Few will assent to it, and probably not many would even go so far as Dr. Amedée Moure in his appreciation of the South American Indians, which he expresses in these words: “With reference to his mental powers, the Indian of South America should be classed immediately after the white race, decidedly ahead of the yellow race, and especially beyond the African.”[44] Such general opinions are interesting because both of them are the results of personal observations of many tribes. But the final decision as to the abilities of a race or of an individual must be based on actual accomplished results, not on supposed endowments. Thus appraised, the American race certainly stands higher than the Australian, the Polynesian or the African, but does not equal the Asian. A review of the evidence bears out this opinion. Take the central social fact of government. In ancient America there are examples of firm and stable states, extending their sway widely and directed by definite policy. The league of the Iroquois was a thoroughly statesman-like creation, and the realm of Peru had a long and successful existence. That this mental quality is real is shown by the recent history of some of the Spanish-American republics. Two of them, Guatemala and Mexico, count among their ablest presidents in the present generation pure-blood American Indians.[45] Or we may take up the arts. In architecture nothing ever accomplished by the Africans or Polynesians approaches the pre-Columbian edifices of the American continent. In the development of artistic forms, whether in stone, clay or wood, the American stands next to the white race. I know no product of Japanese, Chinese or Dravidian sculpture, for example, which exhibits the human face in greater dignity than the head in basalt figured by Humboldt as an Aztec priestess.[46] The invention of a phonetic system for recording ideas was reached in Mexico, and is striking testimony to the ability of the natives. In religious philosophy there is ample evidence that the notion of a single incorporeal Ruler of the universe had become familiar both to Tezcucans and Kechuas previous to the conquest.