a fact of the utmost importance for the understanding of the negro's social and political status and his future in this country. It may be well, therefore, to indicate the psychological principles involved.

We have seen in the opening chapter that the instincts together with their emotional accompaniments are the "cosmic roots" of the social and moral \ relations of men just as they are also the basis of the social relations among gregarious animals. In the lower animals, however, these instincts function to bring about social relations only within very definite limits, that is, there are certain definite stimuli to which definite instinctive activities respond. These stimuli in the case of animals are all at the level of sense-perception. It is the sight, or sound, or smell of the enemy that causes the herd of cattle to run together for protection. So far as we know, these social instincts are not called into play by mental images; this seems to be a trait peculiar to man alone. In his case the fundamental instincts of pugnacity, sympathy, sex, and the like can be evoked by the image of the exciting object. Hence the richer the store of mental images, the richer the possibilities of playing upon the emotional life associated with these instincts. They are like so many combinations of key strokes for calling out the rich tonal possibilities of the piano. The instinctive basis for the

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æsthetic emotions in the art connoisseur is not different from that of the savage or of the child, but the vastly richer store of mental imagery and the combinations and associations which they have undergone in his mind make possible ways of initiating and blend- | ing these emotions which the child or savage cannot possibly have. In the same way the instinctive basis for the moral sentiment in the law-abiding American citizen and in the African negro are the same. The former, however, through his training in a good home and an advanced moral order, has blended the first crude images of concrete moral situations, on the basis of which child and savage act, into comprehensive moral categories of the mind. Here the imaginal element forms only the scheme or framework for the general concept which calls out moral sentiments and is the real sanction of moral conduct. The ability to grasp these general ideas, to make them a vital part of individual standards of action and to bring the instinctive nature to heel in obedience to them is the measure of moral character and social worth.

It follows from the above that the enrichment and enlargement of the ideational life will result not necessarily in the atrophy, but certainly in the control and tempering of the primal vigour of the emotions. The rationalistic temperament is not unusually the unemotional, while the strongly emotional thinker

tends to subordinate the relational and abstract elements to the imaginal. We can understand this from what has been said, for the image is just one remove from the sense-percept which was the original point of initiation for the setting off of the emotions. A vigorous sense stimulus, such as a blow in the face. or a piercing scream, will evoke the instinctive emotional reaction of anger or fear without our conscious coöperation. For the same reason the vivid mental image of the original experience will tend to call up its emotional accompaniments. Hence the individual or group that tends to do its thinking in terms of mental imagery rather than in general ideas will be strongly emotional and perhaps will find logical thinking difficult from the presence of the disturbing emotional elements. Where this peculiarity has its roots deep in individual or racial temperament the results are of particular importance for the student of social problems.

These facts have an important bearing upon the race traits of the negro. Any one who knows him thoroughly in his home life, at his daily work, in his moments of intense religious excitement when more than at any other time he lays bare his inmost soul, will be convinced that a fundamental race trait, not to be ignored in discussing any phase of the negro question, is that he is imaginal in his thinking and

emotional in his actions. His mind receives and reproduces external impressions with photographic faithfulness, but he is lacking in the apperceptive process by which these impressions are transformed and combined into comprehensive forms of thought which may serve to cope successfully with complex future situations. The logical implications of past experience are largely lost upon him because he is engrossed with the affective accompaniments of the present.

There seems little doubt that the black excels the white in sheer strength of memory power. This is indicated by Stetson's experiments upon some 1000 school children of Washington equally divided between the whites and the blacks.1 Simple verses from Eugene Field were read and explained to groups of 20 to 40 children which they repeated in concert twice. Each child was then required to repeat the verse again in private and the degree of proficiency in reproduction was graded on a scale of 100. Out of the four trials the average of the blacks exceeded that of the whites three times, while in three out of the four tests the blacks attained the highest individual percentage of reproduction. The significance of this test is heightened by the fact that the negroes of Washington are hardly typical, owing to the very 1 Psychological Review, IV, pp. 285-289.

large element of white blood and superior economic and social advantages. Senator John T. Morgan of Alabama once remarked of the coloured population of Washington that they are the most intelligent and progressive body of negroes to be found anywhere in the world and he doubtless did not exaggerate the facts. A similar test upon the negroes of the far South might show still greater dependence upon memory in the mental processes.

The imaginal character of the negro's thinking may be observed in their folklore, which Joel Chandler Harris has exploited in his "Brer Rabbit" tales, as well as in the allegorical stories that are improvised around every negro fireside. But nowhere does the intimate relation between the imagery of his thought and his emotional life appear more clearly than in the songs and sermons and prayers of the negro church. One who listens to the negro preacher will observe that his hold upon his people is not found so much in his ability to develop a theme in a logical fashion as in the skill with which through vivid imagery he is able to stir those powerful elemental emotions that lie at the basis of the religious life.

The writer had an opportunity to test this statement while attending the services in the negro churches of Washington. There are in that city several negro churches, largely composed of intelligent and well