The Basis of Social Relations: A Study in Ethnic PsychologyBrinton, Daniel G. (Daniel Garrison)
Science
The Basis of Social Relations: A Study in Ethnic Psychology
Brinton, Daniel G. (Daniel Garrison)
Ethnopsychology; Sociology
But these observers also note that while these somewhat long-skulled
persons have such intellectual and even physical advantages in the
struggle for existence, they are deficient in others, which, under some
circumstances, are even more necessary to success.
The same extended series of measurements and comparisons show that those
whose brains are rounder in form—more brachycephalic—prove generally
superior in technical skill, in industry, and in perseverance. They are
less adventurous, they lack imagination and the stimulus of the ideal,
they are narrow and formalists; but they shine in the bourgeois virtues
of capacity for steady work, of devotion to hearth and home, in respect
for settled government, stable laws, and ancestral institutions.
This favourable brain shape is, in Europe, often correlated with the
blonde type, light hair, and grey or blue eyes; but whether this is
anything more than a local peculiarity remains in doubt.
Ammon has pointed out, however, that these traits, where they have been
united in history, have marked a daring, energetic, progressive stock,
one fertile in bold explorers, conquerors, and thinkers. Such was the
type of the ancient Aryans, who became the ruling race wherever they
carried their victorious standard, “not through numbers, longevity, or
fertility, but through the consequences of ‘natural selection.’”
Professor Lapouge has further shown that in southern France, where the
local aristocracy rose from the same stock as the peasantry by superior
personal ability, a notable difference is observable between the
skull-shapes of the two classes, the crania of the “gentlemen” being
considerably longer in proportion to width than those of the peasantry.
They are well suited for village life and agricultural occupations; but,
subjected to the stress and strain of great cities, they die out in the
third generation.[3]
Footnote 3:
These deductions were based on many thousand observations in France,
Switzerland, and Germany, and are undoubtedly true for the places and
periods in which they were conducted; but it has not been shown that
they are generally applicable in other areas. Some observers (Livi,
Lombroso) have not accepted them for Italy. The opposition they have
met in France from Fouillée and others is merely sentimental.
When it is remembered that whole nations, stocks, races, are
characterised by the prevalence of one or other of these skull-forms, it
is at once seen that a physical basis is here presented for ethnic
psychology worthy of attentive study. These authors have, in fact,
applied their conclusions in this direction; but, concerning themselves
chiefly with the mixed populations of European states, have been
principally occupied with the “social selections” which may be attained
in such communities from this cause.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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