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wallace.online.org
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12.07.2015 Views

176 NATURAL SELECTION vmor freedom from them is often accompanied by marked externalcharacters. Now, there is every reason to believe that thishas acted, and, to some extent, stillmay continue to act onman. In localities where certain diseases are prevalent, thoseindividuals of savage races which were subject to them wouldrapidly die off, while those who were constitutionally freefrom the disease would survive, and become the progenitorsof a new race. These favoured individuals would probablybe distinguished by peculiarities of colour, with which againin the texture or the abundance of hair seem topeculiaritiesbe correlated, and thus may have been brought about thoseracial differences of colour which seem to have little relationto mere temperature or other obvious peculiarities of climate.From the time, therefore, when the social and sympatheticfeelings came into active operation, and the intellectual andmoral faculties became fairly developed, man would cease tobe influenced by natural selection in his physical form andstructure. As an animal he would remain almost stationary,the changes of the surrounding universe ceasing to produce inhim that powerful modifying effect which they exercise overother parts of the organic world. But from the moment thatthe form of his body became stationary, his mind wouldbecome subject to those very influences from which his bodyhad escaped ; every slight variation in his mental and moralnature which should enable him better to guard againstadverse circumstances, and combine for mutual comfort andprotection, would be preserved and accumulated the better;and higher specimens of our race would therefore increase andspread, the lower and more brutal would give way and successivelydie out, and that rapid advancement of mentalorganisation would occur which has raised the very lowestraces of man so far above the brutes (although differing solittle from some of them in physical structure), and, in conjunctionwith scarcely perceptible modifications of form, hasdeveloped the wonderful intellect of the European races.Influence of external Nature in the development of theHuman MindBut from the time when this mental and moral advancecommenced, and man's physical character became fixed and

vin THE DEVELOPMENT OF HUMAN RACES 177almost immutable, a new series of causes would come intoaction and take part in his mental growth. The diverse aspectsof nature would now make themselves felt, and profoundlyinfluence the character of the primitive man.When the power that had hitherto modified the body hadits action transferred to the mind, then races would advanceand become improved, merely by the harsh discipline of asterile soil and inclement seasons. Under their influence ahardier, a more provident, and a more social race would bedeveloped than in those regions where the earth produces aperennial supply of vegetable food, and where neither foresightnor ingenuity are required to prepare for the rigours ofwinter. And is it not the fact that in all ages, and in everyquarter of the globe, the inhabitants of temperate have beensuperior to those of hotter countries ? All the great invasionsand displacements of races have been from North to South,rather than the reverse ;and we have no record of there everhaving existed, any more than there exists to-day, a solitaryinstance of an indigenous inter -tropical civilisation. TheMexican civilisation and government came from the North,and, as well as the Peruvian, was established, not in the richtropical plains, but on the lofty and sterile plateau:: of theAndes. The religion and civilisation of Ceylon were introducedfrom North India ;the successive conquerors of theIndian peninsula came from the North-west; the northernMongols conquered the more Southern Chinese and it was;the bold and adventurous tribes of the North that overranand infused new life into Southern Europe.Extinction of Lower RacesIt is the same great law of " the preservationof favouredraces in the struggle for life," which leads to the inevitableextinction of all those low and mentally undeveloped populationswith which Europeans come in contact. The red Indianin North America and in Brazil ;the Tasmanian, Australian,and New Zealander in the southern hemisphere, die out, notfrom any one special cause, but from the inevitable effectsof an unequal mental and physical struggle. The intellectualand moral, as well as the physical, qualities of the Europeanare superiorthe same; powers and capacities which haveN

176 NATURAL SELECTION vmor freedom from them is often accompanied by marked externalcharacters. Now, there is every reason to believe that thishas acted, and, to some extent, stillmay continue to act onman. In localities where certain diseases are prevalent, thoseindividuals of savage races which were subject to them wouldrapidly die off, while those who were constitutionally freefrom the disease would survive, and become the progenitorsof a new race. These favoured individuals would probablybe distinguished by peculiarities of colour, with which againin the texture or the abundance of hair seem topeculiaritiesbe correlated, and thus may have been brought about thoseracial differences of colour which seem to have little relationto mere temperature or other obvious peculiarities of climate.From the time, therefore, when the social and sympatheticfeelings came into active operation, and the intellectual andmoral faculties became fairly developed, man would cease tobe influenced by natural selection in his physical form andstructure. As an animal he would remain almost stationary,the changes of the surrounding universe ceasing to produce inhim that powerful modifying effect which they exercise overother parts of the organic world. But from the moment thatthe form of his body became stationary, his mind wouldbecome subject to those very influences from which his bodyhad escaped ; every slight variation in his mental and moralnature which should enable him better to guard againstadverse circumstances, and combine for mutual comfort andprotection, would be preserved and accumulated the better;and higher specimens of our race would therefore increase andspread, the lower and more brutal would give way and successivelydie out, and that rapid advancement of mentalorganisation would occur which has raised the very lowestraces of man so far above the brutes (although differing solittle from some of them in physical structure), and, in conjunctionwith scarcely perceptible modifications of form, hasdeveloped the wonderful intellect of the European races.Influence of external Nature in the development of theHuman MindBut from the time when this mental and moral advancecommenced, and man's physical character became fixed and

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