230 THE DESCENT OF MAN. [Part L 



ed out ; 32 and so it may be with the evil effects from spir- 

 ituous liquors, as well as with the unconquerably strong 

 taste for them shown by so many savages. It further ap- 

 pears, mysterious as is the fact, that the first meeting of 

 distinct and separated people generates disease. 33 Mr. 

 Sproat, who in Vancouver Island closely attended to the 

 subject of extinction, believes that changed habits of life, 

 which always follow from the advent of Europeans, in- 

 duces much ill-health. He lays, also, great stress on so tri- 

 fling- a cause as that the natives become "bewildered and 

 dull by the new life around them ; they lose the motives 

 for exertion, and get no new ones in their place." 34 



The grade of civilization seems a most important ele- 

 ment in the success of nations which come in competition. 

 A few centuries ago Europe feared the inroads of Eastern 

 barbarians ; now, any such fear would be ridiculous. It 

 is a more curious fact that savages did not formerly waste 

 away, as Mr. Bagehot has remarked, before the classical 

 nations, as they now do before modern civilized nations ; 

 had they done so, the old moralists would have mused 

 over the event ; but there is no lament in any writer of 

 that period over the perishing barbarians. 36 



Although the gradual decrease and final extinction of 

 the races of man is an obscure problem, we can see that 

 it depends on many causes, differing in different places 

 and at different times. It is the same difficult problem as 

 that presented by the extinction of one of the higher ani- 



32 See remarks to this effect in Sir H. Holland's ' Medical Notes and 

 Reflections,' 1839, p. 390. 



33 I have collected (' Journal of Researches, Voyage of the "Beagle,"' 

 p. 435) a good many cases bearing on this subject: see also Gerland, 

 ibid. s. 8. Poeppig speaks of the " breath of civilization as poisonous 

 to savages." 



34 Sproat, 'Scenes and Studies of Savage Life,' 1868, p. 284. 



35 Bagehot, " Physics and Politics," ' Fortnightly Review,' April 1, 

 1868, p. 455. 



