Unfortunately the descriptions of the state of mind of primitive people, such as are given by most travellers, are too superficial to be used for psychological investigation. Very few travellers understand the language of the people they visit; and how is it possible to judge a tribe solely by the descriptions of interpreters, or by observations of disconnected actions the incentive of which remains unknown? But even when the language of the people is known to the visitor, he is generally an unappreciative listener to their tales. The missionary has his strong bias against the religious ideas and customs of primitive people, and the trader has no interest in their beliefs and in their barbarous arts. The observers who seriously tried to enter into the inner life of a people, the Cushings, Callaways, and Greys, are few in number, and may be counted on one’s fingers. Nevertheless the bulk of the argument is always based on the statements of hasty and superficial observers. Numerous attempts have been made to describe the peculiar psychological characteristics of primitive man. Among these I would mention those of Klemm, Carus, De Gobineau, Nott and Gliddon, Waitz, Spencer, and Tylor. Their investigations are of merit as descriptions of the characteristics of primitive people, but we cannot claim for any of them that they describe the psychological characters of races independent of their social surroundings. Klemm and Wuttke designate the civilized races as active, all others as passive, and assume that all elements and beginnings of civilization found among primitive people—in America or on the islands of the Pacific Ocean—were due to an early contact with civilization. Carus divides mankind into “peoples of the day, night and dawn.” De Gobineau calls the yellow race the male element, the black race the female element, and calls only the whites the noble and gifted race. Nott and Gliddon ascribe animal instincts only to the lower races, while they declare that the white race has a higher instinct which incites and directs its development. The belief in the higher hereditary powers of the white race has gained a new life with the modern doctrine of the prerogatives of the master-mind, which have found their boldest expression in Nietzsche’s writings. All such views are generalizations which either do not sufficiently take into account the social conditions of races, and thus confound cause and effect, or were dictated by scientific or humanitarian bias, by the desire to justify the institution of slavery, or to give the greatest freedom to the most highly gifted. Tylor and Spencer, who give an ingenious analysis of the mental life of primitive man, do not assume that these are racial characteristics, although the evolutionary standpoint of Spencer’s work often seems to convey this impression.