  Although Du Bois’s essay acknowledges, as the “final word of science, so far,” that physical differences distinguish “at least two, perhaps three, great families of human beings—the whites and Negroes, possibly the yellow race” (1897a, 52), it more importantly maintains that that there exist eight, spiritually distinct races. It also maintains that each spiritually distinct race, as such, is causally constructed by historical and social factors, for it asserts that each spiritually distinct race causally owes its spiritual distinctiveness (its peculiar message, which dictates its particular historical role) to such factors—specifically, to the common histories, laws, religions, habits of thought, and conscious strivings that have caused it to be the cohesive, spiritually distinct race it is (1897, 54–56).