38 THE ORGANIC GROWTH OF THE LIVING WORLD sec. 



of dark and fair, that is to say, the formation therewith 

 connected of other characters, has an advantage in the 

 struggle for existence over the pure original Germanic blonde. 

 In this last case only would the increase of the darker type 

 appear as an adaptation. But I am of the opinion that the 

 simple physiological preponderance of the dark colour 

 principally determines the result ; that the dark complexion 

 in Germany is accordingly to be taken as an example of the 

 principle that modifications resulting from sexual inter- 

 mixture are not necessarily useful to the organism in which 

 they appear, but may be indifferent. 



Wallace, it is true, ascribes to pigment an importance in 

 the production of greater acuteness of the senses.^ Neverthe- 

 less, according to him, the blonde possess greater intelligence ; 

 they have, he believes, acquired this because in the struggle 

 for existence, in consequence of their deficiency in acuteness 

 of sense, they were driven to rely upon their intelligence. 

 Perhaps it might be urged on another side in favour of 

 adaptation as explaining the predominance of darkness of 

 complexion, that intermixture of blood is within certain 

 limits an advantage. In Germany, as a matter of fact, the 

 purely Germanic blondes of the north show no less vigour 

 in the struggle for existence than the mixed race of the south. 



That darkness of hair and eyes is among us something 

 newly ingrafted and is on the increase is proved by the 

 universally known fact that the children of dark German 

 parents are as a rule, in the earlier years of life, fair, and 

 have blue or gray eyes : here also characters which were 

 dominant in the ancestors are repeated in youth. This 

 biogenetic fact struck me first and very forcibly in the 

 Upper Engadine, where obviously an intermixture of blonde 

 Germans with dark Eomans has taken place, and where it is 

 the more surprising because the climate in that region would 



^ Wallace, Troincal Nature, German translation, Braunschweig, Vieweg, 1S79. 



