If self-help applied under certain conditions within the blood kin as it unquestionably did, that is to say, within the law, it applied with greater force to all classes and offenders who were outside the blood kin and were outside the law. If a stranger or an alien came within the community bounds and did not sound his horn, community law sanctioned his instant killing by anyone who met him. Men could not peaceably enter the precincts of the German tribes as late as the year 500 or 600 A.D. without being liable to instant death unless they complied with certain definite formularies. Until within five hundred years, the stranger was practically without rights in any country but his own, and might be dealt with violently by individuals or bodies of citizens. One has but to remember the tortures visited upon the Jews in all European countries with impunity to realize the truth of the doctrine of self-help when applied to strangers. There was literally no law to govern the situation. The courts did not deal with it, no penalties were provided for the restraining of individuals or of the community at large, dealing with strangers until a relatively recent time. Is it not true that the difference in blood between the Negro and the white man has caused a survival of this notion of self-help, today illogical, unreasonable, absurd, but powerful none the less despite its technical infraction of the law of the land? Is not the lynching of a Negro or of a white man simply the old primitive self-help with the hue and cry and the execution of the victim when caught by the mob or by the sheriff's posse? There is perhaps no field of speculation so fascinating as this of the survival of bygone customs, traditions, and notions, in present society. At the same time he will be a poor and uncritical student who will not recognize the ease of erecting vast structures upon slender foundations. My purpose in this article is not to allege the necessary truth of this proposition, but, if possible, to stimulate along different lines than has been common the researches of those who are interested in the psychological attitude of the white man toward the Negro.