THE PERILS OF RAPID CIVILIZATION. 225 



tion lias conferred on mankind. The prolonged " expectation of life " 

 which tables of life-insurance exhibit is of itself sufficient to demon- 

 strate this fact ; and much has been written to show in what the ele- 

 ments of this gain consist. 



On the other hand, however, there is reason to believe that, for the 

 newer races, the immediate effect of a contact with civilization has 

 been disastrous. The rapid growth out from barbarism is not always 

 a safe or a simple process. The birth of " a nation in a day " is not 

 devoid of grave perils. A brief consideration of the physical effects 

 of civilization upon primitive peoples is the object of this paper. 

 First, as to the facts. There are upon our globe numerous barbarous 

 and semi-barbarous tribes who have never come much in contact with 

 the woi'ld's progress, and we have no reason to believe that these 

 peoples are in any degree dying out. Nature keeps them, like the 

 lower animals which the hunter has never molested, in full and proba- 

 bly somewhat increasing ranks. It is obvious that figures are very 

 difficult to obtain regarding such races — almost as difficult as in re- 

 spect to the dumb animals with which we have compared them. Both 

 alike undergo reduction from the attacks of their natural enemies, and 

 from famine, disease, flood, fire, and hurricane. Yet no general law 

 of survival of the fittest sweeps these races entirely from the earth, or 

 even greatly reduces their numbers. This law may and probably does 

 have effect within the tribes themselves, bringing the strongest to the 

 front and leaving the weakest in the rear, but it does not operate against 

 the existence of the tribe as a whole so long as there is no contact or 

 conflict with a superior race, any more than it operates against the in- 

 crease of the human species as a whole. In China and Japan, almost 

 alone of such peoples, we have means of judging of the population at 

 different intervals ; and, while there is room for doubt as to the abso- 

 lute accuracy of the census, yet the figures are so numerous and the 

 general tendency so uniform that it may be taken to show with cer- 

 tainty an increase within the last few centuries almost equal to that of 

 England. For instance, we have statements of the population of China 

 at many periods within the last five hundred years, in part from native 

 and in part from European authorities, showing an increase of from 

 eight to ten hundred per cent in the number of inhabitants.* This 

 enormous gain has been in spite of many and terrible famines, of san- 

 guinary wars, and of extensive infanticide. It is reasonable to sup- 

 pose that in other lands, of which we have no figures to inform us, 

 there has also been a like fertility, and that savages have a vigor of 

 stock which has led to increase and multiplication on a scale not 

 greatly different from that of our own race. 



When, however, barbarous peoples come in contact with a higher 

 civilization, they almost invariably undergo a decay pretty nearly 



* See a list of various censuses in the " Journal of the Statistical Society," toI. xx, 

 p. 51. 



VOL. XXTI. — 15 



