of her statesmen. In Boyle's time a people
could make its national spirit heard and felt only by resorting to brute
force. In our times there are other means; a people mobilizes its
national spirit by means of the daily press; the promulgation of
national propaganda has become a fine art; modern statesmen have learned
that national feelings, rightly directed, have the force of an
avalanche. The problems of Race and of Nationality, then, are by no
means new, but in their modern form they are new. The far-flung lines of
the British Empire and the mobilization of the popular spirit by means
of the press and propaganda have compelled our statesmen, historians,
publicists, psychologists, and anthropologists to re-examine the nature
of the forces which lie behind racial movements and national agitations.
Of the importance of a right understanding of the nature of these forces
for the future maintenance and development of the British Empire there
cannot be any question. In the guiding of its destinies Oxford men will,
in the future as in the past, take a leading part, and much of their
success will depend on how far they have grasped the nature of the
inward forces which group mankind into races and nations. That is my
reason for making the problems of Race and Nationality the subject of
this lecture in memory of Robert Boyle.

INHERITED INSTINCTS AND MODERN IDEALS ARE OUT OF HARMONY

It has scarcely been possible in recent years to open a newspaper
without our eye being arrested by head-lines telling us of racial
strifes or international contentions. One day we read of race riots; on
the next we learn that the inhabitants of a certain area of land demand
separation from all surrounding peoples. By a process of
'self-determination' they demand to be recognized as a separate people
or nation. These racial and national contentions are not restricted to
any particular people or land; we find them in every country. The
politician is too near to these racial and national manifestations of
the modern world to see them in their proper light; even the historian
is not far enough away from them to see them in their right perspective.
You cannot explore the secret sources from which they spring unless you
have grasped the immensity of man's unwritten history. Let me make my
meaning quite clear by an historical example chosen from man's body.
Among our modern populations there are no ailments more prevalent than
those which arise from