Chap. VII. THE EACES OF MAN. 239 



the fact, that the first meeting of distinct and separated 

 people generates disease. 33 Mr. Sproat, who in Van- 

 couver Island closely attended to the subject of extinc- 

 tion, believes that changed habits of life, which always 

 follow from the advent of Europeans, induces much ill- 

 health. He lays, also, great stress on so trifling a cause 

 as that the natives become " bewildered and dull by the 

 " new life around them ; they lose the motives for exer- 

 " tion, and get no new ones in their place." M 



The grade of civilisation seems a most important 

 element in the success of nations which come in compe- 

 tition. A few centuries ago Europe feared the inroads 

 of Eastern barbarians ; now, any such fear would be ridi- 

 culous. 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 civilised 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 perish- 

 ing barbarians. 35 



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 animals — of the fossil horse, for instance, 

 which disappeared from South America, soon afterwards 

 to be replaced, within the same districts, by countless 

 troops of the Spanish horse. The New Zealander seems 



33 1 have collected ( ; Journal of Besearches, Voyage of the " Beagle," ' 

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

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

 " to savages." 



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



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

 1868, p. 455. 



