But
the emotions are there all the same, and they do their work all the
same. The most highly educated man in the most highly educated society
cannot sneer them out of being.
But it is time to pass to the more strictly scientific aspect of the
subject. The doctrine of race, in its popular form, is the direct
offspring of the study of scientific philology; and yet it is just now,
in its popular form at least, somewhat under the ban of scientific
philologers. There is nothing very wonderful in this. It is in fact the
natural course of things which might almost have been reckoned on
beforehand. When the popular mind gets hold of a truth, it seldom gets
hold of it with strict scientific precision. It commonly gets hold of
one side of the truth; it puts forth that side of the truth only. It
puts that side forth in a form which may not be in itself distorted or
exaggerated, but which practically becomes distorted and exaggerated,
because other sides of the same truth are not brought into their due
relation with it. The popular idea thus takes a shape which is naturally
offensive to men of strict precision, and which men of strict scientific
precision have naturally, and from their own point of view quite
rightly, risen up to rebuke.
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