cruited from its ranks. The contrast of this type, whose energy has carried it all over Europe, with the persistently sedentary Alpine race is very marked. A certain passivity, or patience, is characteristic of the Alpine peasantry. This is true all the way from northwestern Spain, where Tubino (1877) notes its degeneration into morosity in the peasantry, as far as Russia, where the great inert Slavic horde of northeastern Europe submits with abject resignation to the political despotism of the house of the Romanoffs. Ordinarily a negative factor in politics, always socially conservative, this race when once aroused becomes irresistible. As a rule, not characterized by the domineering spirit of the Teuton, this Alpine type makes a comfortable and contented neighbor, a resigned and peaceful subject. Whether this rather negative character of the Alpine race is entirely innate: or whether it is in part, like many of its social phenomena, merely a reflection from the almost invariably inhospitable habitat in which it has long been isolated, we may not pretend to decide.
The peculiar temperament of the Alpine population comes to the surface in political affairs, being attested by great conservatism. This reactionary instinct is in the long run far more common to all human nature, I believe, than is generally supposed; in the Alpine Celt it is developed or conserved, if you please, to a marked degree. Socially, the peculiarities of disposition we have mentioned are of even greater importance, as we sought to impress in our preceding article. In fact, the future of the type depends largely upon this circumstance. The most persistent attribute of the Alpine Celt is his extreme attachment to the soil, or, perhaps, better, to locality. He seems to be a sedentary type par excellence; he seldom migrates, except after great provocation; so that, once settled, he clings to his patrimony through all persecution, climatic or human. If he migrates to the cities, as does the "mobile" Teuton, he generally returns home to the country to spend his last days in peace. Such re-emigration of the Alpine type late in life is in fact offered by Collignon[1] as the main explanation for the prevalence of the long-headed variety in the towns to-day. He inclines to this view rather than to the theory that it is due to the greater number of the immigrant Teutons, as Ammon and Lapouge are disposed to maintain. At all events, whichever explanation be true, the fact that mental differences between our racial types exist, if they become accentuated with the ever-increasing pressure of civilization, can not but profoundly affect the future complexion of European populations. A phase of racial or social competition of such
- ↑ 1895, p. 125.
