126 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



struggles between clans and tribes 

 for the possession of desirable terri- 

 tory, or for the capture of food or 

 slaves, or for the gratification of 

 predatory and belligerent instincts, 

 gave rise to the permanent chief, to 

 the ruling hierarchy, and to all the 

 other characteristics of a militant 

 society. The degree of heat or hu- 

 midity or the luxuriant vegetation of 

 the tropics had no more to do with 

 this political organization than the 

 degree of cold, or the dryness of the 

 atmosphere, or the comparative pov- 

 erty of the soil of some of the West- 

 ern States with the similar political 

 organization of the Indians that 

 roamed over them. None of these 

 physical characteristics can prevent 

 the play of those forces that drive 

 people eventually to the adoption of 

 that form of social organization that 

 will best promote their happiness. 

 As the social philosophy of evolution 

 shows, the social organization best 

 fitted for this purpose is the one 

 where the largest individual freedom 

 prevails. Since the abolition of 

 slaveiy and serfdom and many other 

 forms of despotism has been found 

 necessary for the best interests of 

 society in Europe, we have a right 

 to believe that the abolition of the 

 same forms of despotism will be 

 found necessary for the best interests 

 of society in the tropics. 



It is true that in the tropics the 

 white man has found it uncomfort- 

 able to work, and has often reduced 



the indigenes to a kind of slavery. 

 But that either is inevitable and un- 

 avoidable because of the laws of so- 

 cial evolution, or any more than a 

 temporary reversion, there is no 

 reason for holding. Alfred Russel 

 Wallace, who spent twelve years in 

 the tropics, says in a recent article 

 that the white man can and does 

 work in every part of them. If he 

 does not work, it is simply for the 

 same reason that he does not work in 

 Europe or the United States — name- 

 ly, because he does not have to. 

 When, however, necessity lays its 

 heavy hands on him, driving him to 

 earn his living by the sweat of his 

 brow, he does it in the tropical region 

 quite as well as he does in the tem- 

 perate. That is shown particularly 

 in Queensland. But when natives 

 can be reduced to slavery the crime 

 is committed with slight compunc- 

 tion, and defended on the same 

 ground that it was defended in the 

 South and elsewhere. The time 

 must come, however, as it came in 

 Brazil and in other countries where 

 slave labor was found too wasteful 

 and demoralizing, when it will be 

 displaced with free labor. The time 

 must come, too, when free institu- 

 tions will be found as essential under 

 the equator as farther north. With- 

 out them social evolution can not 

 reach its highest point, nor man at- 

 tain to his greatest happiness, a state 

 that he is always seeking, no matter 

 where he lives. 



^cicntiftc %iXtxviXuxt, 



SPECIAL BOOKS. 



The famous discovery in Java, by Dubois, of the skullcap, femur, and 

 two teeth in the upper Tertiary rocks has led to many interesting dis- 

 cussions, among which was a paper read by Ernst Haeckel before the 

 International Congress of Zoologists, held in Cambridge, England, last 

 year. In this paper Haeckel contended that in these remains we had at 

 last the long-sought-for missing link.* This paper excited much interest, 



* The Last Link. Our Present Knowkdge of the Descent of Man. By Ernst JlaeckeL Adam and 

 Charles Black. 1808. 



