318 THE ACTION OF NATURAL 



their influence, a hardier, a more provident, and a 

 more social race would be developed, than in those 

 regions where the earth produces a perennial supply 

 of vegetable food, and where neither foresight nor 

 ingenuity are* required to prepare for the rigours of 

 winter. And is it not the fact that in all ages, and 

 in every quarter of the globe, the inhabitants of tem- 

 perate have been superior to those of hotter countries ? 

 All the great invasions and displacements of races have 

 been from North to South, rather than the reverse ; 

 and we have no record of there ever having existed, 

 any more than there exists to-day, a solitary instance 

 of an indigenous inter - tropical civilization. The 

 Mexican civilization and government came from the 

 North, and, as well as the Peruvian, was established, 

 not in the rich tropical plains, but on the lofty and 

 sterile plateaux of the Andes. The religion and civi- 

 lization of Ceylon were introduced from North India ; 

 the successive conquerors of the Indian peninsula came 

 from the North-west ; the northern Mongols conquered 

 the more Southern Chinese ; and it was the bold and 

 adventurous tribes of the North that overran and in- 

 fused new life into Southern Europe. 



Extinction of Loiuer Races. 



It is the same great law of " the preservation of 

 favoured races in the struggle for life," which leads 

 to the inevitable extinction of all those low and 

 mentally undeveloped populations with which Euro- 

 peans come in contact. The red Indian in North 



