DAVENPORT— EFFECTS OF RACE INTERMINGLING. 367 



often sees in mulattoes an ambition and push combined with intel- 

 lectual inadequacy which makes the unhappy hybrid dissatisfied 

 with his lot and a nuisance to others. 



To sum up, then, miscegenation commonly spells disharmony — 

 disharmony of physical, mental and temperamental qualities and 

 this means also disharmony with environment. A hybridized people 

 are a badly put together people and a dissatisfied, restless, inefifective 

 people. One wonders how much of the exceptionally high death rate 

 in middle life in this country is due to such bodily maladjustments; 

 and how much of our crime and insanity is due to mental and tem- 

 peramental friction. 



This country is in for hybridization on the greatest scale that the 

 world has ever seen. 



May we predict its consequences? At least we may hazard a 

 prediction and suggest a way of diminishing the evil. Professor 

 Flinders-Petrie in his essay on " Revolutions of Civilization " sug- 

 gests that the rise and fall of nations is to be accounted for in this 

 fashion. He observes that the countries that developed the highest 

 type of civilization occur on peninsulas — Egypt surrounded on two 

 sides by water and on two sides by the desert and by tropical heat, 

 Greece, and Rome on the Italian peninsula. It is conceded that such 

 peninsulas are centers of inbreeding. Flinders-Petrie concluded 

 that a period of prolonged inbreeding leads to social stratification. 

 In such a period a social harmony is developed, the arts and sciences 

 flourish but certain consequences of inbreeding follow, particularly, 

 the spread of feeble-mindedness, epilepsy, melancholia and sterility. 

 These weaken the nation, which then succumbs to the pressure of 

 stronger, but less civilized, neighbors. Foreign hordes sweep in ; 

 miscegenation takes place, disharmonies appear, the arts and sci- 

 ences languish, physical and mental vigor are increased in one part 

 of the population and diminished in another part and finally after 

 selection has done its beneficent work a hardier, more vigorous 

 people results. In them social stratification in time follows and a 

 high culture reappears ; and so on in cycles. The suggestion is an 

 interesting one and there is no evident biological objection to it. 

 Indeed the result of hybridization after two or three generations is 

 great variability. This means that some new combinations will be 



