The Political Institutions and Theories of the Hindus: A Study in Comparative Politics c7.s1.6

c7.s1.6

² While not prepared to be a “monist” or “absolutist” in the conception of *Kultur-geschichte*, the present author accepts with certain limitations the general thesis as to what Bagehot would call the influence of “physics” upon “politics”. A recent summary of the geographical interpretation of history is to be seen in Huntington’s *Pulse of Asia* (Ch. XVIII). It will be noticed that the philosophical analysis attempted by “physicists” is invariably based on too many *assumptions* in regard to the historical data themselves, especially to those bearing on the Orient. The hemispheroidal generalizations are therefore reared on erroneous premises. Some of the worst specimens of the mal-application of the comparative method, so far as the selection of sociological facts is concerned, are furnished in the writings of Huntington. In the *Pulse of Asia* this neo-climatologist takes for granted in the newspaper style that “Mohammedanism favors immorality” (pp. 128, 232) and that Persians are “prone to lying” (pp. 364—366). The postulate of the “white man’s burthen” is, moreover, the pervading philosophy of this book (p. 323) as also of his *Civilization and Climate* (pp. 35, 201, 259, 262). His appreciation of Japan in the latter volume (pp. 255—256) is accordingly explained by a corollary to the same logic, viz, that “nothing succeeds like success”. From the obverse side the identical *idola* is illustrated in the chapter on the “Problem of Turkey” in his *World Power and Evolution*, which *en passant* is inspired more by political propagandism than devotion to science. A short but comprehensive criticism of the prevailing fallacies in comparative culture-history is set forth in Sarkar’s “Futurism of Young Asia” in the *International Journal of Ethics* for July 1918. See also the section on “Asians *vs.* Latins and Slavs” in the author’s article on “Americanization from the viewpoint of Young Asia” in the *Journal of International Relations* (July 1919) for an examination of the alleged social and cultural distinction between the oriental and European laborers in regard to their assimilability to American conditions.