Metcalf: Evolution and Man 
subject worthy of extended treatment, 
but it is not quite germane to the main 
thaSis of this discussion. 
Our paleontological records indicate 
that orthogeneSis has been a widely 
prevalent factor, and in our mental 
picture of the evolutionary process it 
should be given a salient position. 
Natural selection has consisted largely 
in the elimination of species whose 
unfitness was shown only after a long 
period of indifferent orthogenic develop- 
ment. In human evolution and in the 
growth of human culture as well, such 
trends may well have played a major 
role. The relative immunity of certain 
races” to altruism, which has more or 
less infected some other races, chiefly 
since Jesus’ time, may profitably be 
considered from the standpoint of 
racial qualities as developed trends. 
ISOLATION OF HUMAN RACES 
Gulick and Romanes brought out 
very clearly the importance of isolation 
as a factor in evolution, and it is of 
especial interest in human evolution. 
The development during the last half 
million years of so many races of men, 
some now extinct, some persistent as 
relatively pure stocks, others inter- 
mingled, has been greatly influenced by 
isolation, has indeed been possible only 
through this factor. The spread of 
man over the whole of the habitable 
earth and the development of com- 
munication are destroying isolation and 
removing it as an influence in the evolu- 
tion of man. We are approaching the 
time when every man may fairly be 
called every other man’s neighbor. 
Intermingling of the peoples through 
travel, and that breaking down of 
social bars which always results from 
the growth of cosmopolitanism, are 
rapidly reducing the hindrance to amal- 
gamation of the races which existed 
during the now passing age of relative 
isolation. It seems clear that there is 
destined to be but one race of mankind 
in time, a highly hybrid stock to which 
all of the present races which are able to 
persist shall make their contribution. 
357 
Both processes, extinction and fusion, 
have been taking place in America’s 
short history, and with such rapidity 
that they can actually be observed, 
The unplastic Indian of the East and 
of the Great Plains and the still more 
conservative Pueblo Indian of the dry 
country of the southwest, are disap- 
pearing and seem destined to extinction. 
The negro, on the other hand, is 
increasing and is rapidly being whitened 
in spite of strong distaste on the part 
of the white race to intermarriage and 
the enactment of stringent laws against 
such intermarriage. A still better ex- 
ample of the impotence of social ostra- 
cism to stay the process of racial fusion 
is furnished by the Jew, whose blood is 
strongly infused into all the major 
nations of the Occident. The Syrian 
Jew is plainly a Syrian, the German 
Jew largely a Teuton, the Spanish Jew 
has absorbed many Spanish characters. 
Each of these Jews resembles his local 
neighbor more than he resembles his 
brother Jew of another country, and 
this racial fusion has come about in 
spite of a social ostracism of centuries 
more rigorous than we of today, 
especially we Americans, can adequately 
conceive. 
Given racial contacts, even the ille- 
gitimate unions, it seems, must be 
sufficient in time to cause fusion of all 
races into one. Of course to the biol- 
ogist, accustomed as he is to think of 
evolution in periods of geologic time, 
a thousand years are as one day. The 
amalgamation of the races of man into 
one race about as homogeneous as the 
present European population will doubt- 
less take a few thousand years to 
accomplish, but, so far as we can judge 
from the conditions now existing and 
those seemingly necessarily about to 
come, such union of the races seems 
inevitable. And it has one feature of 
great advantage: it will give in the 
resultant race a great variety and 
diversity of unit qualities to be manip- 
ulatedineugenic marriage. The greater 
the range of qualities the greater the 
possibilities, for both good and evil. 
2 The author has in mind here the Greeks and the Germans, peoples whose philosophy of life 
has been self-development rather than service. 
