CHAPTER VI

THE LATIN CHARACTER

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE LATINS AND THE TEUTONS

THE physical differences between the Teutons and the Latins have been noticed in the previous chapters, and are so generally well known that a mere reference to them will suffice here. The Teuton is a big, burly fellow, with broad features, fair hair, and blue eyes. The Latin is smaller and weaker, but very active and wiry. He has an ivory-white or olive-coloured skin, black hair and eyes, an oval face, small mouth, high, narrow forehead, and generally prominent nose. There are slight differences between the branches of the Melanochroic race, probably due to the crossing of this race with the older races which it has displaced, but these are not more marked than the differences between the various branches of the Xanthochroi, and in no case do these different physical characteristics show a racial difference. In essential particulars the Greeks, Italians, Spaniards, Celts, Armenians, and other of the Melanochroi exhibit merely local physical differences inherited from the original inhabitants of the country in which they are found.

THE ANCIENT BRITON

Of the earlier races which inhabited Europe before the Latins we know very little, but in no case did the cross between these and the new race produce a

distinct race. There are several small remnants of races, differing in their characteristics from the Latins, who may perhaps represent the more or less pure descendants from the older races, but their origin must be determined by further investigation. With regard to the ancient Britons, however, the race which inhabited the British Isles previously to the first landing of the Romans, I think we must regard them as extinct. Judging from the stage of civilisation he is represented to have reached, the Briton was probably a dark-skinned savage who lived principally by hunting. Bravery is common among savages, and therefore there is nothing improbable in the stories told of Cassivelaunus, Boadicea, Caractacus, or other British heroes; but they belonged to an older and physically weaker race than the Latins, and therefore it is absurd to represent them as having Teutonic proportions, as some of our modern sculptors and painters do.

LATIN METHODS OF COLONISATION

When we study the Roman method of colonising, I think we must recognise that the ancient Briton was simply wiped out during the four and a half centuries of Roman rule. The Latins have never shown much consideration for human life, and therefore it is morally certain that they slaughtered and enslaved the Britons very much as the Spaniards did the Aztecs of Mexico and the Incas of Peru. On the other hand, the Latins have never shown the repugnance to intermarriages with an inferior race which some branches of the Anglo-Saxons have developed. Hence, wherever they have colonised they have energetically proceeded to wipe out the original inhabitants of the country by every means in their power. We know that this process of assimilation has gone on much more rapidly in the Spanish and Portuguese colonies of America than

in the Anglo-Saxon colonies. In the United States and in Canada the Indian is almost unaffected by the influx of whites, while in South America it would be difficult to find a pure-bred Indian in some of the Republics. In South America the Spaniards had a continent with several millions of inhabitants to conquer, while Britain was only a small island with a sparse population. If the Romans dealt with the ancient Britons as the Spaniards did with the American Indians, it does not seem too extravagant to assume that when the Saxons first arrived in England the ancient Briton had almost disappeared, except, perhaps, in the mountains of Wales and Scotland, and in Ireland, and had been replaced by the Latinised Celt. But the Briton, although inferior, mentally and physically, to the Latin, was not so weak as to disappear without leaving any trace. Hence, whereas the American Indian has failed to influence the language in South America to any great extent, the ancient Briton adhered to his language with remarkable tenacity. Although much inferior to the Latin, he was thus far superior to the American; and this is further supported by the fact that he was an ironworker, while the American was still in the copper or bronze age. How the Latinised Celts were driven into the mountains by the Saxons, who thus completed the annihilation of the ancient Briton, will be more readily understood when I have described the struggle between the Latin and the Teuton in Britain. Racial struggles are very similar in their general features; they differ only in detail. In describing one such struggle we make others intelligible. It is necessary here to allude to the ancient Briton to show that his influence on the Anglo-Saxon was very slight, and that he may therefore be eliminated as far as the present inquiry goes. But I do not mean to suggest that he is unworthy of further notice. If anthropology is to become an exact, or nearly exact, science, we shall

have to know all that is to be discovered of all the races of man. It seems to me that under the operations of the natural laws the good is preserved and the bad eliminated. By the good I mean all those qualities which are beneficial, and by the bad, all that are detrimental to the race. How these various attributes or qualities of humanity are filtered or separated in their transmission from an older to a younger race, it is impossible to say at present, but that they are so filtered the course of evolution from the lower to the higher may be taken as proof. Probably the Anglo-Saxon owes much of his quickness, his love of sport, his lightness of character, as compared with the Teuton, to his relationship to the race or races which we call the ancient Briton. But this must be left for future investigation. The Teuton belongs to a young race. His character is not yet formed, and it is impossible to say at present whether he will approach nearer to the Anglo-Saxon or the Anglo-Saxon will finally gravitate towards the Teuton. But there can be no doubt that as the Xanthochroic race develops, the various branches will draw gradually closer and closer, so that, as in the cases of the Melanochroi and perhaps other races, the difference between the various branches will be due solely to the difference of language. Besides the ancient Britons, there have been small numbers of people of other races who have from time to time settled in England, but their influence has also been slight, and for the purposes of this study may be left aside for the present. The chief agents in moulding the Anglo-Saxon, as we know him, have been those branches of the Xanthochroi known as the Teuton, and the Scandinavian, and the Latin branch of the Melanochroi. To this last must be added the influence of the Greek branch of the same race, through its literature.

MENTAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE LATIN

The characteristic which tends to differentiate the Teuton from the Latin more completely than his size, strength, or colouring, is his sense of selfresponsibility, his power of self-government. The Latin, like many of the older race, does not possess this power in any marked degree. Apart from this the Latin exhibits all the virtues and all the vices common to humanity. He is vivacious, subtle, imaginative, fond of sensation and amusement, quickwitted but credulous, and is easily imposed on when his sympathy or his sentiment is appealed to. Sentiment, in fact, exercises a powerful influence on his mind. He will pray until he falls into an ecstasy, during which he will make all kinds of good resolutions for the future, but as a rule the fit passes off without producing any permanent effect. He is very superstitious, and believes in supernatural beings of all sorts and sizes. Hence he fears the darkness, and is always in dread that some ghost or fairy or spirit will appear to him, and so lively is his imagination that he frequently persuades himself that he sees these supernatural creatures. Probably it is because of this characteristic that he seeks for signs and omens and prays for supernatural aid in his enterprises. He is strongly anthropomorphic, and reverences the dead as saints, and he prays earnestly to them for the deliverance of his own soul and the souls of his friends from a purgatory in which he believes they are confined until they have expiated the sins they may have committed during their lives. But although he is mentally a coward he is physically brave. His method of fighting is to endeavour to disorganise the enemy by the fierceness of his onrush; but should he be checked in this he is liable to a panic, and then his discipline breaks down, and he sometimes shows a degree of cowardice which