The psychology of peoples Author:Gustave Le Bon Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III THE PSYCHOLOGICAL HIERARCHY OF RACES Psychological classification is based, as are anatomical classifications, on the determination of a small ... more »number of irreducible and fundamental characteristics—Psychological classification of the human races—The primitive races—The inferior races—The average races—The superior races—The psychological elements the grouping of which allows of this classification—The elements which are of the most importance—Character—Morality—The intellectual qualities are modifiable by education—The qualities appertaining to character are irreducible and constitute the unvarying element in each people—Their role in history—Why it is impossible for different races to understand and influence one another—The reasons why it is impossible for an inferior people to adopt a superior civilisation. WHEN the grounds are examined, in a work on natural history, of the classification of species, it is at once observed that the irreducible, and in consequence the fundamental characteristics, which allow of the determination of each species, are very few in number. Their enumeration always occupies but a few lines. The reason is that the naturalist only concerns himself with the unvarying characteristics, and pays no heed to the transitory characteristics. Moreover these fundamental characteristics have as their inevitable consequence an entire series of other characteristics. The case is the same with the psychological characteristics of races. If details be gone into, innumerable slight divergencies are found to exist between different peoples and different individuals. On the other hand, if only the fundamental characteristics be considered, they are seen to be very few in number for each people. It is only by examples —we shall shortly adduce...« less