Wolfram
07-06-2005, 04:30 PM
Race, Foundation for Human Understanding - by John R. Baker
An eminent biologist's classic analysis of the forbidden subject.
Original publisher: Oxford University Press), 1974, 625 pp., $25.00.
Reviewed by Thomas Jackson
There is probably no other treatment of the biology and physical
anthropology of race that approaches it in breadth, detail,
erudition or style. Even more remarkable is the book's point of
view. Far from evading the issue of racial differences in ability,
it was written for the very purpose of investigating and clarifying
those differences.
Dr. Baker, now deceased, was the ideal author for this book. He was
professor emeritus of cytology at Oxford University, a Fellow of the
Royal Society, and president of the Royal Microscopical Society. To
these professional qualifications he added an abiding interest in
what he called the "ethnic question," that is to say, the entire
range of ways in which the races differ.
Written late in life, Race is Dr. Baker's definitive statement on
what he considered one of the most important issues of our time.
From start to finish the book is stuffed with little-known, eye-
opening facts, and it is fascinating, even essential reading for
anyone with a serious interest in race. It is supplemented with more
than 80 illustrations, and some of the simpler line drawings are
reproduced here.
Race is organized in four parts. The first is a summary of what was
thought and freely written about racial differences up through the
end of the 1920s when, as Dr. Baker puts it, "the curtain came down"
on open discussion. The second is an introduction to the biology of
taxonomy or classification, including a thorough treatment of how
races and species are identified. The third is a detailed inventory
of the biological differences that distinguish the major races and
subraces. In this section Dr. Baker makes a particular study of
whites, or Europids as he calls them, and of Africans (Negrids),
Bushmen (Sanids), Australian aborigines (Australids), Celts, and
Jews. In the final section, Dr. Baker sets out what he considers to
be the essential criteria for determining what he bluntly calls
superiority and inferiority. Not surprisingly, his conclusions are
at odds with current dogma.
Dr. Baker's historical account of what has been written about ethnic
differences includes introductions to a number of people one might
well expect, such as the Comte de Gobineau, Houston Stewart
Chamberlain, Nietzsche, Francis Galton, and even Hitler. Dr. Baker
also describes the pioneering but no longer recognized work of men
like Johann Blumenbach (1752-1840) and Samuel Sommerring (1755-1830).
Other famous men have pronounced themselves on the question of
racial differences and, until recently, few have had any sympathy
for the notion of equality. Rousseau, for example, thought the
chimpanzee was a primitive form of human being, and Kant, Voltaire,
and Hume thought the Negro vastly inferior to the European. Dr.
Baker reminds us that even the Bible is hardly silent on the ethnic
problem. The Children of Israel routinely exterminated enemies, whom
they considered inferior, and in the tenth book of Joshua, they
enslaved the entire Hivite people.
The Proper Study of Mankind In the more technical sections that
follow, Dr. Baker draws on his scientific training to treat homo
sapiens as just one more member of the animal kingdom. "No one knows
man who knows only man," he observes, and adds: "One might almost go
so far as to say, in relation to the ethnic problem, that the proper
study of mankind is animals." By this he means that without a
thorough grounding in biology and taxonomy it is impossible to view
man with the detachment that science requires. Dr. Baker writes, he
explains, in the spirit that inspired T. H. Huxley to conclude
that "Anthropology is a section of zoology [and] . . . the problems
of ethnology are simply those which are presented to the zoologist
by every widely distributed animal he studies." In this, Dr. Baker
is out of step with many contemporary social scientists who seem to
believe that humans are uniquely exempt from the laws of heredity
and from the kind of scrutiny to which all other animals are subject.
Dr. Baker leads us firmly back to biology with an account of how
evolution gave rise to different species, how species are
classified, the nature of hybridity, and the circumstances under
which animals can be made to mate with differing species.
Anthropology indeed becomes a branch of zoology. However, in this
discussion it becomes clear that man differs from animals in at
least one important way: humans are exceedingly unselective in their
mating habits and will copulate with individuals--across racial
lines, for example--from whom they are physically very different.
The contrast with the seven kinds of European mosquito, for example,
could not be greater. Their eggs can be distinguished because of
slight differences, but adults are so similar that not even experts
can tell them apart under a microscope. What experts cannot do, the
mosquitoes do without fail; they never interbreed.
Dr. Baker likewise reports that Grant's gazelle and Thompson's
gazelle live together in mixed herds and are so similar in
appearance that it takes a trained eye to tell them apart. They,
too, never interbreed. It is only under domestication that animals
can be made to overcome their repugnance for mates unlike themselves
and thus produce mules or leopons (a cross between tiger and
leopard). Domesticated dogs breed indiscriminately with widely
different types but wild dogs like wolves, foxes, and coyotes breed
only with their own kind.
Man is the most domesticated of animals and the least exclusive in
his amours--but his promiscuity varies enormously by group and
individual. As Dr. Baker points out, the Indian caste system
successfully prevented interbreeding even among racially similar
people. At the same time, there are individuals whose lust for
animals is so great that bestiality has had to be specifically
forbidden ever since Biblical times.
The races and sub-races of man have evolved largely because of
geographical separation, but Dr. Baker also refers to what he
calls "ecological races" that evolved to fill different but
overlapping niches. The small stature of African pygmies, for
example, fits them to forest life while the larger Negrids live in
clearings.
If humans had continued to evolve in isolation or if they were as
discriminating as animals in their choice of mates, racial
differences would eventually lead to mutually infertile species.
This would be diversity of a truly remarkable kind.
Domestication and travel have led to increasing miscegenation, but
Dr. Baker speculates about another possible reason. The skulls of
our remote ancestors show that their olfactory organs were much
better developed than ours. It is also likely that ancient man had
stronger odors than does modern man, and since our ancestors' mating
habits were probably governed by smell just like those of animals,
this discouraged mating with unfamiliar peoples. Even today the
races have different odors.
Dr. Baker notes drily that although modern man is scrupulous in
selecting only the most promising breeding couples among his
domestic animals, he almost never gives the same attention to his
own reproduction. "It follows," he adds, "that we cannot look for
any advance in inborn intelligence . . . ."
Race and Color Dr. Baker writes at some length about skin color, but
only because race and color are sometimes confused. He himself
thinks the subject is trivial and, in fact, since at least Darwin's
time scientists have recognized that color is unimportant in
distinguishing biological forms. Dr. Baker points out that to make
color the touch stone of race is as stupid as to think that a red
rose is more closely related to a red petunia than to a white rose.
Australian aborigines are similar in color to Bushmen, for example,
but it would be difficult to think of two racial groups that are
more dissimilar biologically. Likewise, Dr. Baker explains that some
of the inhabitants of northern India have relatively dark skin but
are racially very close to Europids.
Skin color is affected by the color of blood that may be visible
through it, but the main reason for variations in skin color is the
presence of different amounts of the pigment melanin. All humans
make the same melanin and have much the same number of melanocytes--
the difference is in how much melanin is produced. The darkest
Africans have visible concentrations of melanin even in the whites
of their eyes and on their tongues. Melanin colors hair as well as
skin, though it is the presence of a slightly different substance,
called phaeomelanin, that causes "red" hair.
Dr. Baker explains that blue eyes are not caused by a blue pigment
but by the absence of pigment. Eyes appear to be blue for the same
reason the edges of a snow bank may appear blue: red light and other
long wave lengths pass through but shorter, bluer wave lengths are
refracted and scattered, and some are reflected back towards the
viewer.
Light-skinned people are probably descended from dark-skinned people
who migrated from the tropics. The skin of Europeans transmits three
and a half times as much sunlight as the skin of Africans, and the
ultraviolet rays convert ergosterol in the body into vitamin D. Dark-
skinned people, whose skins are adapted to sunnier latitudes, may
therefore get rickets--caused by vitamin D deficiency--if they live
in cold climates.
The third section of Race, in which Dr. Baker describes the myriad
ways in which the races differ from each other physically is the
most technical. It includes general descriptions of blood chemistry,
physiology and skeletal structure, with a special emphasis on the
characteristics of the skull. It introduces concepts like
brachycephaly, paedomorphism, and the cranial index.
It is useful for the reader to have had some training in physiology
but it is not necessary. Even the most technical passages can
usually be understood by a non-specialist who has paid close
attention to earlier explanations, and Dr. Baker has set his most
abstruse observations in smaller type as a signal to laymen that
they may skip over them without much loss.
A certain level of scientific detail is necessary here not merely
because physiological differences between the races require a
certain vocabulary. In this section Dr. Baker is at pains to explain
the extent to which some races show the traits of primitiveness--the
retention into the modern era of features possessed by our remote
ancestors--and paedomorphy--the retention as adults of traits
commonly associated with children.
For example, it is indisputable that Australids are more primitive
than other races. Like Pithecanthropus, their teeth and lower jaws
are strikingly large, and their skulls are twice as thick as those
of any other race. The forehead recedes sharply, and the brow ridges
are so well developed as to be reminiscent of Pithecanthropus and of
the larger apes. The brain is only about 85 percent the size of that
of Europids and the back part has lunate folds not found in other
races but similar to those in the brains of orang-utans. Likewise,
the nasal aperture is similar, in some respects, to that of the
orang-utan.
The Bushmen, or Sanids, show equally remarkable evidence of
paedomorphy. Their very small size--males are often no taller than
4'7" or 4'9"--is the most obviously juvenile characteristic retained
by adults. Their skulls are notably short and squat like those of a
Europid infant and their eyes are set wide apart like a new-born's.
The facial and body hair of both sexes is very weakly developed and
reminiscent of children. Among males, the scrotum is like that of a
pre-adolescent: so small and tightly drawn up that one might think
only one testicle had descended.
As for Negrids, aside from a brain that is very slightly smaller
than that of Europids and Sinids (North Asians), Dr. Baker finds no
characteristics that could be called either primitive or
paedomorphous. Negrids differ in blood chemistry from other races,
and have broader shoulders and thinner calves. Certain tribes, such
as the Hottentot, show extreme steatopygia or enlarged buttocks. In
some cases the posterior extends horizontally, almost like a shelf.
Francis Galton, who travelled among the Hottentot in 1850 and 1851,
wrote of one such woman that he was "perfectly aghast at her
development." He wanted to measure her dimensions but could not
bring himself to ask her permission to do so. Instead, he took
observations through his sextant and, he says, "worked out the
results by trigonometry and logarithms."
Equal or Unequal? The question of whether Africans are, on average,
equal in intelligence to whites is important both in the United
States and in Britain. Dr. Baker therefore devotes considerable
space to 19th-century accounts of African societies before they came
into sustained contact with foreigners. This is the only sure way to
know how far they had been able to advance without outside influence.
Every explorer found a remarkable poverty of development. No black
African society had a written language or a calendar. None used the
wheel or practiced joinery or built multi-story buildings. Iron
smelting was common but no black Africans built what could be called
a mechanical device, even one so simple as a hinge. Africans
apparently tamed no animals themselves but received already-
domesticated dogs and cattle from north of the Sahara. None used any
beast of burden, despite the presence of large mammals that could
have been tamed.
Although African societies are today described as having rich oral
histories, this was by no means universal. A few tribes did have men
who could recite the histories of their kings, but many were
completely ignorant of the past. The Ovaherero tribe, for example,
kept no count of years at all.
Slavery and polygamy were widespread. Arbitrary execution of
subjects by rulers or wives by husbands was common. A few tribes ate
human flesh though even some of their own members seem to have
rejected this custom. Some coastal natives, seeing slaves being fed
before being loaded onto ships for export, believed that Europeans
intended to eat them.
Some people have argued that the reason Africans showed such poor
development was that the effort to maintain life was too great to
permit the leisure for advancement. On the contrary, the missionary
and explorer, David Livingstone, found that some parts of the
continent were a veritable paradise:
"To one who has observed the hard toil of the poor in old civilized
countries, the state in which the inhabitants here live is one of
glorious ease. . . . Food abounds, and very little labour is
required for its cultivation; the soil is so rich that no manure is
required."
Although Dr. Baker does not pursue this idea very far, he suggests
that it was the very ease of life in Africa that kept high
intelligence from being as necessary for survival as it was in
harsher climates.
In the concluding section of Race, Dr. Baker draws the only
conclusions that the data will permit: Just as they differ in
biology, the races differ in their mental traits. They are not
equally intelligent or capable of building civilized societies. Dr.
Baker reviews the literature on mental testing and on the
heritability of intelligence and finds that it only confirms his
conclusions.
After setting out an interesting set of criteria for genuine
civilization he finds that the first people to achieve it were the
Sumerians of the fourth millennium B. C. Physically, it is likely
that they were more closely related to the Kurds than to any other
present people. Europids and Sinids have also created genuine
civilizations, but Negrids and Australids have not.
Dr. Baker puts the Maya of Central America in a category of their
own. Their astronomy and mathematics were extremely advanced and
were at one time the most sophisticated in the world. They built
great cities and administered large territories. However, Dr. Baker
hesitates to call them genuinely civilized for several reasons: they
did not use the wheel or use commercial weights, their written
language was poorly developed and their religion was a mass of
superstitions that were often the basis for torture, human
sacrifice, and mass slaughter.
A Mountain of Evidence Race is a veritable mountain of evidence, all
of which can lead only to the conclusion that the races differ in
ability. Nevertheless, Dr. Baker is strictly the scientist. He draws
no further conclusions and makes no suggestions about social policy.
There is no doubt in his mind that current orthodoxy on this subject
is absurd, but he limits his exegesis to the interpretation of data.
In its realm, however, Race is a magisterial work to which justice
cannot be done in a review. It is probably the single most ambitious
and comprehensive volume on the subject ever attempted, and is
surely without peer in its treatment of the physical differences
that distinguish races. It is not an easy book--Dr. Baker does not
address himself to dullards or dilettantes--but in these blighted
times it is a stroke of astonishing good fortune that a man of his
immense learning and ability should have chosen to take up a
position on the unpopular but truthful side of "the ethnic problem."
Oxford University Press, which first published Race, soon came to
consider it an embarrassment and let it go out of print. It has been
reprinted by the Foundation for Human Understanding, Box 5712,
Athens, GA 30604. The price is $25.00 plus $3.00 for shipping
An eminent biologist's classic analysis of the forbidden subject.
Original publisher: Oxford University Press), 1974, 625 pp., $25.00.
Reviewed by Thomas Jackson
There is probably no other treatment of the biology and physical
anthropology of race that approaches it in breadth, detail,
erudition or style. Even more remarkable is the book's point of
view. Far from evading the issue of racial differences in ability,
it was written for the very purpose of investigating and clarifying
those differences.
Dr. Baker, now deceased, was the ideal author for this book. He was
professor emeritus of cytology at Oxford University, a Fellow of the
Royal Society, and president of the Royal Microscopical Society. To
these professional qualifications he added an abiding interest in
what he called the "ethnic question," that is to say, the entire
range of ways in which the races differ.
Written late in life, Race is Dr. Baker's definitive statement on
what he considered one of the most important issues of our time.
From start to finish the book is stuffed with little-known, eye-
opening facts, and it is fascinating, even essential reading for
anyone with a serious interest in race. It is supplemented with more
than 80 illustrations, and some of the simpler line drawings are
reproduced here.
Race is organized in four parts. The first is a summary of what was
thought and freely written about racial differences up through the
end of the 1920s when, as Dr. Baker puts it, "the curtain came down"
on open discussion. The second is an introduction to the biology of
taxonomy or classification, including a thorough treatment of how
races and species are identified. The third is a detailed inventory
of the biological differences that distinguish the major races and
subraces. In this section Dr. Baker makes a particular study of
whites, or Europids as he calls them, and of Africans (Negrids),
Bushmen (Sanids), Australian aborigines (Australids), Celts, and
Jews. In the final section, Dr. Baker sets out what he considers to
be the essential criteria for determining what he bluntly calls
superiority and inferiority. Not surprisingly, his conclusions are
at odds with current dogma.
Dr. Baker's historical account of what has been written about ethnic
differences includes introductions to a number of people one might
well expect, such as the Comte de Gobineau, Houston Stewart
Chamberlain, Nietzsche, Francis Galton, and even Hitler. Dr. Baker
also describes the pioneering but no longer recognized work of men
like Johann Blumenbach (1752-1840) and Samuel Sommerring (1755-1830).
Other famous men have pronounced themselves on the question of
racial differences and, until recently, few have had any sympathy
for the notion of equality. Rousseau, for example, thought the
chimpanzee was a primitive form of human being, and Kant, Voltaire,
and Hume thought the Negro vastly inferior to the European. Dr.
Baker reminds us that even the Bible is hardly silent on the ethnic
problem. The Children of Israel routinely exterminated enemies, whom
they considered inferior, and in the tenth book of Joshua, they
enslaved the entire Hivite people.
The Proper Study of Mankind In the more technical sections that
follow, Dr. Baker draws on his scientific training to treat homo
sapiens as just one more member of the animal kingdom. "No one knows
man who knows only man," he observes, and adds: "One might almost go
so far as to say, in relation to the ethnic problem, that the proper
study of mankind is animals." By this he means that without a
thorough grounding in biology and taxonomy it is impossible to view
man with the detachment that science requires. Dr. Baker writes, he
explains, in the spirit that inspired T. H. Huxley to conclude
that "Anthropology is a section of zoology [and] . . . the problems
of ethnology are simply those which are presented to the zoologist
by every widely distributed animal he studies." In this, Dr. Baker
is out of step with many contemporary social scientists who seem to
believe that humans are uniquely exempt from the laws of heredity
and from the kind of scrutiny to which all other animals are subject.
Dr. Baker leads us firmly back to biology with an account of how
evolution gave rise to different species, how species are
classified, the nature of hybridity, and the circumstances under
which animals can be made to mate with differing species.
Anthropology indeed becomes a branch of zoology. However, in this
discussion it becomes clear that man differs from animals in at
least one important way: humans are exceedingly unselective in their
mating habits and will copulate with individuals--across racial
lines, for example--from whom they are physically very different.
The contrast with the seven kinds of European mosquito, for example,
could not be greater. Their eggs can be distinguished because of
slight differences, but adults are so similar that not even experts
can tell them apart under a microscope. What experts cannot do, the
mosquitoes do without fail; they never interbreed.
Dr. Baker likewise reports that Grant's gazelle and Thompson's
gazelle live together in mixed herds and are so similar in
appearance that it takes a trained eye to tell them apart. They,
too, never interbreed. It is only under domestication that animals
can be made to overcome their repugnance for mates unlike themselves
and thus produce mules or leopons (a cross between tiger and
leopard). Domesticated dogs breed indiscriminately with widely
different types but wild dogs like wolves, foxes, and coyotes breed
only with their own kind.
Man is the most domesticated of animals and the least exclusive in
his amours--but his promiscuity varies enormously by group and
individual. As Dr. Baker points out, the Indian caste system
successfully prevented interbreeding even among racially similar
people. At the same time, there are individuals whose lust for
animals is so great that bestiality has had to be specifically
forbidden ever since Biblical times.
The races and sub-races of man have evolved largely because of
geographical separation, but Dr. Baker also refers to what he
calls "ecological races" that evolved to fill different but
overlapping niches. The small stature of African pygmies, for
example, fits them to forest life while the larger Negrids live in
clearings.
If humans had continued to evolve in isolation or if they were as
discriminating as animals in their choice of mates, racial
differences would eventually lead to mutually infertile species.
This would be diversity of a truly remarkable kind.
Domestication and travel have led to increasing miscegenation, but
Dr. Baker speculates about another possible reason. The skulls of
our remote ancestors show that their olfactory organs were much
better developed than ours. It is also likely that ancient man had
stronger odors than does modern man, and since our ancestors' mating
habits were probably governed by smell just like those of animals,
this discouraged mating with unfamiliar peoples. Even today the
races have different odors.
Dr. Baker notes drily that although modern man is scrupulous in
selecting only the most promising breeding couples among his
domestic animals, he almost never gives the same attention to his
own reproduction. "It follows," he adds, "that we cannot look for
any advance in inborn intelligence . . . ."
Race and Color Dr. Baker writes at some length about skin color, but
only because race and color are sometimes confused. He himself
thinks the subject is trivial and, in fact, since at least Darwin's
time scientists have recognized that color is unimportant in
distinguishing biological forms. Dr. Baker points out that to make
color the touch stone of race is as stupid as to think that a red
rose is more closely related to a red petunia than to a white rose.
Australian aborigines are similar in color to Bushmen, for example,
but it would be difficult to think of two racial groups that are
more dissimilar biologically. Likewise, Dr. Baker explains that some
of the inhabitants of northern India have relatively dark skin but
are racially very close to Europids.
Skin color is affected by the color of blood that may be visible
through it, but the main reason for variations in skin color is the
presence of different amounts of the pigment melanin. All humans
make the same melanin and have much the same number of melanocytes--
the difference is in how much melanin is produced. The darkest
Africans have visible concentrations of melanin even in the whites
of their eyes and on their tongues. Melanin colors hair as well as
skin, though it is the presence of a slightly different substance,
called phaeomelanin, that causes "red" hair.
Dr. Baker explains that blue eyes are not caused by a blue pigment
but by the absence of pigment. Eyes appear to be blue for the same
reason the edges of a snow bank may appear blue: red light and other
long wave lengths pass through but shorter, bluer wave lengths are
refracted and scattered, and some are reflected back towards the
viewer.
Light-skinned people are probably descended from dark-skinned people
who migrated from the tropics. The skin of Europeans transmits three
and a half times as much sunlight as the skin of Africans, and the
ultraviolet rays convert ergosterol in the body into vitamin D. Dark-
skinned people, whose skins are adapted to sunnier latitudes, may
therefore get rickets--caused by vitamin D deficiency--if they live
in cold climates.
The third section of Race, in which Dr. Baker describes the myriad
ways in which the races differ from each other physically is the
most technical. It includes general descriptions of blood chemistry,
physiology and skeletal structure, with a special emphasis on the
characteristics of the skull. It introduces concepts like
brachycephaly, paedomorphism, and the cranial index.
It is useful for the reader to have had some training in physiology
but it is not necessary. Even the most technical passages can
usually be understood by a non-specialist who has paid close
attention to earlier explanations, and Dr. Baker has set his most
abstruse observations in smaller type as a signal to laymen that
they may skip over them without much loss.
A certain level of scientific detail is necessary here not merely
because physiological differences between the races require a
certain vocabulary. In this section Dr. Baker is at pains to explain
the extent to which some races show the traits of primitiveness--the
retention into the modern era of features possessed by our remote
ancestors--and paedomorphy--the retention as adults of traits
commonly associated with children.
For example, it is indisputable that Australids are more primitive
than other races. Like Pithecanthropus, their teeth and lower jaws
are strikingly large, and their skulls are twice as thick as those
of any other race. The forehead recedes sharply, and the brow ridges
are so well developed as to be reminiscent of Pithecanthropus and of
the larger apes. The brain is only about 85 percent the size of that
of Europids and the back part has lunate folds not found in other
races but similar to those in the brains of orang-utans. Likewise,
the nasal aperture is similar, in some respects, to that of the
orang-utan.
The Bushmen, or Sanids, show equally remarkable evidence of
paedomorphy. Their very small size--males are often no taller than
4'7" or 4'9"--is the most obviously juvenile characteristic retained
by adults. Their skulls are notably short and squat like those of a
Europid infant and their eyes are set wide apart like a new-born's.
The facial and body hair of both sexes is very weakly developed and
reminiscent of children. Among males, the scrotum is like that of a
pre-adolescent: so small and tightly drawn up that one might think
only one testicle had descended.
As for Negrids, aside from a brain that is very slightly smaller
than that of Europids and Sinids (North Asians), Dr. Baker finds no
characteristics that could be called either primitive or
paedomorphous. Negrids differ in blood chemistry from other races,
and have broader shoulders and thinner calves. Certain tribes, such
as the Hottentot, show extreme steatopygia or enlarged buttocks. In
some cases the posterior extends horizontally, almost like a shelf.
Francis Galton, who travelled among the Hottentot in 1850 and 1851,
wrote of one such woman that he was "perfectly aghast at her
development." He wanted to measure her dimensions but could not
bring himself to ask her permission to do so. Instead, he took
observations through his sextant and, he says, "worked out the
results by trigonometry and logarithms."
Equal or Unequal? The question of whether Africans are, on average,
equal in intelligence to whites is important both in the United
States and in Britain. Dr. Baker therefore devotes considerable
space to 19th-century accounts of African societies before they came
into sustained contact with foreigners. This is the only sure way to
know how far they had been able to advance without outside influence.
Every explorer found a remarkable poverty of development. No black
African society had a written language or a calendar. None used the
wheel or practiced joinery or built multi-story buildings. Iron
smelting was common but no black Africans built what could be called
a mechanical device, even one so simple as a hinge. Africans
apparently tamed no animals themselves but received already-
domesticated dogs and cattle from north of the Sahara. None used any
beast of burden, despite the presence of large mammals that could
have been tamed.
Although African societies are today described as having rich oral
histories, this was by no means universal. A few tribes did have men
who could recite the histories of their kings, but many were
completely ignorant of the past. The Ovaherero tribe, for example,
kept no count of years at all.
Slavery and polygamy were widespread. Arbitrary execution of
subjects by rulers or wives by husbands was common. A few tribes ate
human flesh though even some of their own members seem to have
rejected this custom. Some coastal natives, seeing slaves being fed
before being loaded onto ships for export, believed that Europeans
intended to eat them.
Some people have argued that the reason Africans showed such poor
development was that the effort to maintain life was too great to
permit the leisure for advancement. On the contrary, the missionary
and explorer, David Livingstone, found that some parts of the
continent were a veritable paradise:
"To one who has observed the hard toil of the poor in old civilized
countries, the state in which the inhabitants here live is one of
glorious ease. . . . Food abounds, and very little labour is
required for its cultivation; the soil is so rich that no manure is
required."
Although Dr. Baker does not pursue this idea very far, he suggests
that it was the very ease of life in Africa that kept high
intelligence from being as necessary for survival as it was in
harsher climates.
In the concluding section of Race, Dr. Baker draws the only
conclusions that the data will permit: Just as they differ in
biology, the races differ in their mental traits. They are not
equally intelligent or capable of building civilized societies. Dr.
Baker reviews the literature on mental testing and on the
heritability of intelligence and finds that it only confirms his
conclusions.
After setting out an interesting set of criteria for genuine
civilization he finds that the first people to achieve it were the
Sumerians of the fourth millennium B. C. Physically, it is likely
that they were more closely related to the Kurds than to any other
present people. Europids and Sinids have also created genuine
civilizations, but Negrids and Australids have not.
Dr. Baker puts the Maya of Central America in a category of their
own. Their astronomy and mathematics were extremely advanced and
were at one time the most sophisticated in the world. They built
great cities and administered large territories. However, Dr. Baker
hesitates to call them genuinely civilized for several reasons: they
did not use the wheel or use commercial weights, their written
language was poorly developed and their religion was a mass of
superstitions that were often the basis for torture, human
sacrifice, and mass slaughter.
A Mountain of Evidence Race is a veritable mountain of evidence, all
of which can lead only to the conclusion that the races differ in
ability. Nevertheless, Dr. Baker is strictly the scientist. He draws
no further conclusions and makes no suggestions about social policy.
There is no doubt in his mind that current orthodoxy on this subject
is absurd, but he limits his exegesis to the interpretation of data.
In its realm, however, Race is a magisterial work to which justice
cannot be done in a review. It is probably the single most ambitious
and comprehensive volume on the subject ever attempted, and is
surely without peer in its treatment of the physical differences
that distinguish races. It is not an easy book--Dr. Baker does not
address himself to dullards or dilettantes--but in these blighted
times it is a stroke of astonishing good fortune that a man of his
immense learning and ability should have chosen to take up a
position on the unpopular but truthful side of "the ethnic problem."
Oxford University Press, which first published Race, soon came to
consider it an embarrassment and let it go out of print. It has been
reprinted by the Foundation for Human Understanding, Box 5712,
Athens, GA 30604. The price is $25.00 plus $3.00 for shipping