MIGRATIONS OF RACES OF MEN CONSIDERED HISTORICALLY. 585 



Englisli rabbit iu Australia. Species of shrubs and herbaceous plants, 

 the seeds of most of them brought accidentally from America or Asia, 

 have thrice overrun the Hawaiian Islands, so that the present vegeta- 

 tion of the group is largely different from that which Cook found little 

 more than a century ago. Thus the migrations of men, which nature 

 once governed, have now come to be followed by those of other crea- 

 tures, and are the vsource of many a change u})on the face of nature 

 herself. 



VI. — INFLUENCES RESULTINCf FROM MIGRATION. 



If we ask what has been tlie result of the changes we have been 

 considering on the political organizations of mankind, and on the types 

 of human culture, the answer must unquestionably be that they have 

 become fewer and fewer. From the beginning of authentic history the 

 j)rocess of reducing the number of tribes, of languages, of independent 

 political communities, of forms of barbarism or of civilization, has gone 

 on steadily, ami indeed Mith growing speed. For many parts of the 

 world our data do not go far back. But if we take the part for which 

 the data are most complete, the basin of the Mediterranean, we find 

 that now there are only nine, or at the most ten, languages (excluding 

 mere dialects) spoken on its coasts, while the number of States, count- 

 ing ^lontenegro, Egypt, Malta, and ^Morocco as States, is ten. In the 

 time of Herodotus tliere must have been at least 30 languages, while 

 the independent or semi independent tribes, cities, and kingdoms were 

 beyond all comparison more numerous. The result of migrations has 

 been to overwhelm the small tribes and merge them in larger aggre- 

 gates, while the process of permeation, usually, though not always, a 

 sequel of conquest, has assimilated even those among whom no consid- 

 erable number of intruders came. Sometimes the mere contiguity of 

 the new and stronger race extinguishes the weak one, as in the case of 

 the Tasmanian aborigines.* But more frequently the weaker is simply 

 absorbed into and accepts the language and general tyi)e of the 

 stronger, which is not necessarily the more gifted or the more civilized; 

 and thus Britain has become Anglicized, the Celtic population retain- 

 ing its languages and some of its distinctive marks only in western 

 and mountainous corners; thus the Wends of i!^orth Germany have 

 been Germanized, thus the Laps of the extreme north of Europe are 

 being absorbed by the Norwegians, Finns, and Bussians; thus some of 

 the Albanian clans arc being Hellenized; thus the Talains of I*egu are 

 becoming merged in the Burmese, as possibly the latter may ultimately 

 be in the Chinese. The remarkable thing is that neither this blending 

 of races, nor the transfer of races to new climatic and economic condi- 

 tions, tends to develop new types to anything like the same extent as 



* So the Guaaches of Tenerife sooa disappeared as a distinct race, though some of 

 their blood remains; so the Maories and native Hawaiians have become greatly 

 reduced in numbers, and are likely to become before long extinct. 



