e on ethnic character. No one will deny the
prominent rank it holds in the earlier stages of human culture. It is
scarcely too much to say that most of the waking hours of the males of
some tribes are taken up with religious ceremonies. Religion is,
however, essentially "divinatory," that is, its chief end and aim is
toward the future, not the present, and therefore the impress it leaves
on national character is far less permanent, much more ephemeral, than
either government or language. This is constantly seen in daily life.
Persons change their religion with facility, but adhere resolutely to
the laws which protect their property. The mighty empire of Rome secured
ethnic unity to a degree never since equalled in parallel circumstances,
and its plan was to tolerate all religions--as, indeed, do all
enlightened states to-day--but to insist on the adoption of the Roman
law, and, in official intercourse, the Latin language. I have not
forgotten the converse example of the Jews, which some attribute to
their religion; but the Romany, who have no religion worth mentioning,
have been just as tenacious of their traits under similar adverse
circumstances.

The Arts, those of Utility, such as pottery, building, agriculture and
the domestication of animals, and those of Pleasure, such as music,
painting and sculpture, must come in for a full share of the
ethnologist's attention. They represent, however, stadia of culture
rather than national character. They influence the latter materially and
are influenced by it, and different peoples have toward them widely
different endowments; but their action is generally indirect and
unequally distributed throughout the social unit.

These four fields, Language, Government, Religion and the Arts, are
those which the ethnologist explores when he would render himself
acquainted with a nation's character; and now a few words about the
methods of study he adopts, and the aims, near or remote, which he keeps
in view.

He first gathers his facts, from the best sources at his command, with
the closest sifting he can give them, so as to exclude errors of
observation or intentional bias. From the facts he aims to discover on
the above lines what are or were the regular characteristics of the
people or peoples he is studying. The ethnic differences so revealed are
to him what organic variations are to the biologist and morphologist;
they indicate evolution or retrogression, and show an advance to