7 2 8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



harmoniously into one society. The government and customs of 

 neither were suited to both. Forced together as they were, there 

 could only result a struggle for supremacy, and the gradual assimila- 

 tion of the more yielding characters of each. Passions and vices were 

 earlier the habits of mankind than reason and virtues : the former 

 were, therefore, the more constant, the latter the more readily de- 

 stroyed. The mental characters and customs were more alike also 

 among primitive than among advanced societies, and would more 

 readily assimilate. So we find, for many generations after the union, 

 that the new society is lower in the scale of civilization than were 

 either of the parts which composed it. 



Now, after three and a half centuries, the conflicting elements have 

 been so far eliminated, and the remaining parts have become so far 

 assimilated, that the society consists of a people who are of an in- 

 creasing homogeneity, and which represents a civilization that has 

 been reared upon an Aztec foundation, with a Spanish superstructure. 



If, however, these general principles be admitted that societies 

 by mingling produce a new society having the characteristics of each 

 of its parts, and the persistence of the characters of the respective 

 parts are controlled by laws, the operation of which may be approxi- 

 mately determined by a knowledge of the several societies it may 

 still be objected that the application of the principles to the influence 

 of the Chinese in the United States would lead to a conclusion favor- 

 able to their immigration. Why, it may be asked, is not the civiliza- 

 tion of the Chinese one which would affect ours for the better ? With 

 an antiquity which fades away in the prehistoric past, it still exists 

 with the apparent vigor of youth, and controls under one government 

 a larger population than has existed in any nation which history men- 

 tions. Why are not its antiquity and success an exemplification of 

 the survival of the fittest ? We have received from the Chinese silk, 

 tea, and paper ; and by the invention of gunpowder and printing they 

 have added to those great agents of civilization, the sword and the 

 pen, a thousand-fold. We have been told that the dream of the West- 

 ern political reformer was long since realized among this people whom 

 we teach our children to call semi-civilized ; that government offices, 

 from the highest to the lowest, the most prized honors and social posi- 

 tion, are all based upon an educational qualification. By the adoption 

 of the Chinese system England, and, following her, the United States, 

 are endeavoring to advance the efficiency and to raise the moral and 

 intellectual standard of their civil services. For these and many other 

 products of the civilization of the Chinese they must always command 

 the respect of Christendom. Is not, then, the conclusion justified that, 

 if we have heretofore profited so much from our slight knowledge of 

 that people, we may be indefinitely benefited by their absorption into 

 our body politic ? 



A reply to these objections can only properly be made by such a 



