and true in the
national mind, do their power augment and their domain extend; just so
much more quickly and firmly do they express themselves, in acts, forms
and institutions, and thus enable the nation to enrich, beautify and
strengthen its own existence. We have but to glance along the nations
of the world and to reflect on the outlines of their histories, to
perceive the correctness of the conclusion which Prof. Lazarus, perhaps
the most eminent analyst of ethnic character of this generation, reaches
in one of his essays: "A people which is not rich in ideas, is never
rich; one that is not strong in its thinking powers, is never
strong."[18-1]

I claim, therefore, that the facts of ethnology and the study of racial
psychology justify me in formulating this maxim for the guidance of the
historian: _The conscious and deliberate pursuit of ideal aims is the
highest causality in human history._

The historian who would fulfil his mission in its amplest sense must
trace his facts back to the ideas which gave them birth; he must
recognize and define these as the properties of specific peoples; and he
must estimate their worth by their tendency to national preservation or
national destruction.

This is the maxim, the axiom, if you please, which both the ethnologist
and the historian must bear ever present in mind if they would
comprehend the meaning of institutions or the significance of events.
They must be referred to, and explained by, the ideas which gave them
birth. As an American historian has tersely put it, "The facts relating
to successive phases of _human thought_ constitute History."[18-2]

I am aware that a strong school of modern philosophers will present the
objection that thought itself is but a necessary result of chemical and
mechanical laws, and therefore that it cannot be an independent cause.
Dr. Post has pointedly expressed this position in the words: "We do not
think; thinking goes on within us,"[19-1] just as other functions, such
as circulation and secretion, go on.

It is not possible for me at this time to enter into this branch of the
discussion. But I may ask your attention to the fact that one of the
highest authorities on the laws of natural science, the late George J.
Romanes, reached by the severest induction an exactly opposite opinion,
which he announced in these words: "The human mind is itself a causal
agent. Its motives are in large part matters of its own creation. * * *
Intellig