tribute by their immobility to the air of indolence or languor which so impressed padres and rancheros.’ Just as complete is the transition from the manifestations of race-hatred culminating on the war-path to ‘the abject docility of the Seri when at peace and in camp.’ Altogether the Seris offer a brilliant example of intuitive relying upon reserve strength to the disregarding of the mechanical and artificial devices known to civilization, which so often make the individual absolutely dependent upon them and not upon himself, causing many a dire calamity in times of real storm and stress. The rapidity of the transition from extreme inertness to extreme activity is also emphasized by Dr. McGee. It therefore seems that the long periods of inactivity do not appreciably injure either the brief periods of activity or inhibit the swift passage from one to the other so characteristic of these savages. According to Dr. McGee the Seri have acquired a ‘race-sense’ in these matters, that never fails them.
Generalizations are always hazardous, but we can hardly doubt that the Seris as described by Dr. McGee more fairly typify the savage and primitive man than do certain other tribes glimpsed at by incompetent or casual observers.
The Race.—That the races of man, and perhaps all mankind considered as a whole, have their alternations of activity and inactivity is very probable. Particularly is this true when we consider some special quality, which may be said to correspond to genius in the individual. There are ‘lean’ and ‘fat’ years of racial genius. Havelock Ellis, in his careful study of ‘British Genius,’[1] notes as one of the two most important factors, ‘a spontaneous rhythmical rise and fall in the production of genius’; this is indicated in the distribution of men of genius by centuries and half-centuries, etc. The so-called ‘ages’ of English history—Elizabethan, Victorian—the Augustan period in Rome, the era of Pericles in Greece, and their innumerable counterparts in the annals of other lands afford proof of the rhythmic movement of racial genius at its best in comparatively brief intervals, while the ‘dark ages’ of much longer duration are represented in many other parts of the world than in Europe. The renaissances and revolutions of various sorts, the outbursts of political energy, invention, maritime discovery, literature, dramatic art, etc., represented in Athens by the period 530-430 B. C, in England by 1550-1650 A. D., and in America by 1783-1814, are well worth studying from this point of view. For Europe the brief period 1550-1700 is particularly glorious, since during it there came into the world Spenser, Marlowe, Shakespeare, Bacon and Lope da Vega, while during the period 1620-1640 were born Dryden, Locke, Molière, Racine and Spinoza. Italian art, Semitic religion, Greek philosophy, Hindu metaphysics and Chinese rationalism are not with-
