associated together without acquiring a similarity of manners, and such a similarity, once established, naturally tends to persist. That national character is due to this kind of imitation, Hume shows by pointing out that it exists only where there is community among people, as, for example, where they have lived for centuries under the same government. Moreover, if a race live in the midst of another people and yet have little community with it, each race tends to retain its original character. Small states, if they are isolated from the neighboring states, even though they may be closely contiguous, have a character of their own which may differ widely from that of their neighbors, while, on the other hand, if a people be widely scattered but remain in close communication, they retain their character. In short, a similarity of character is always correlated with direct communication and opportunity for imitation rather than with similarity of physical conditions. Undoubtedly Hume narrows the meaning of physical conditions to an unwarrantable degree. Practically all that he discusses is the possibility of correlating national character with marked differences of temperature or climate, and he holds, properly enough, that this is impossible. Naturally he fails to recognize any hereditary similarities inherent in different races.[1] There is little doubt, however, that Hume was quite right in allowing decidedly the most important place to the psychic environment, even after all allowances have been made for physical heredity. The pertinent criticism of Hume's view lies rather in the opposite direction. He conceives imitation much too superficially. His psychology does not allow nearly enough importance to imitation, suggestibility, docility, and the similar con-
- ↑ Sir Leslie Stephen (English Thought in the Eighteenth Century, Vol. II, pp. 182 ff.) regards Hume as the most characteristic representative of the individualistic view of society, and criticises him most severely because of his omission of the influences of race from among physical conditions, though his logic, as Stephen says, 'seems to cast it in his face.' In Stephen's view this omission reduces the race to 'a mere chaos of unconnected individuals.' Surely this criticism is too sweeping and results from the fact that Stephen himself ignores the possibility of social unity through the medium of imitation. Without denying the inadequacy of Hume's treatment of the influence of physical factors, the present trend of sociological thought appears to justify his emphasis on social heredity rather than Stephen's on physical heredity. One thinks, of course, of the theories of Tarde, Royce, and Baldwin.
