100 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CALIFORNIA 
life. The systematic development of flora and fauna, in successive ages, 
extends in an orderly chain from their dim and distant beginning, to our own 
time, through universal changes of atmosphere, climate, and oscillations of 
temperature. A continual unbroken chain of organisms has extended from 
paleozoic formations.to those of our day, governed by law that knows no 
change. Each species has gradually evolved from its predecessor in an ante- 
cedent age, by a gradual modification of its parts, culminating in the age 
it characterizes, and fades away in succeeding ones. 
Change is everywhere the soul of nature. The race which first acquired 
the human form, and became properly entitled to be called Man, probably 
ascended from one original type, which has since diversified, and may in this 
age be divided into five distinct varieties (not types), generally classified as 
Caucasians—white, Mongolians—yellow, Malayans—brown, Americans—red, 
and Negroes—Dblack. 
As white and black are apparent opposites, and science shows the white 
race to be superiorly developed, it is fair to presume that primitive man was 
black; subsequent nations, brown; their branches, red; from these sprang 
the yellow, and thence the white. Under local changes of atmospherical 
and physical conditions, of climate, food, etce., the original black became 
modified to a permanent brown. In like manner one shade and color after 
another became permanently established. As with complexion, so also with 
stature, symmetry, and strength. Proper use develops, while disuse brings 
decay. - 
Some anatomists have claimed that color may be produced by the arrest of 
utero-gestation, or is governed by its relative duration in races, thus ‘‘ causing 
the ultimate portions of the blood to become so assimilated with the cellular 
and serous tissues of the foetus as to render the body variously colored— 
black, brown, red, or copper color.’’ Lusus nature have illustrated this fact. 
The present of any race depends largely upon the physical conditions of 
the soil they inhabit. When these remain unaltered, the race cannot advance, 
unless it can develop, by brain power, sufticient ingenuity to overcome the 
drawbacks to advancement; such as draining marshes, heating dwellings, 
importing ice, etc., thus growing, in spite of natural restraint, faster than the 
slow process of natural evolutionary changes would permit. 
Modifications in different types of vegetable or animal life neither progress 
equally nor evenly. There is no intrinsic necessity that they should undergo 
modifications at all, unless conditions change, or in the case of man, who 
invents ways of surmounting natural conditions. To him the extreme North 
becomes habitable by the use of warm clothing, artificial heat and light during 
long winter nights. By a restless spirit pressing him forward and a judicious 
control of elements, he is enabled to obtain artificial conditions far in advance 
of the physical condition of his habitation, and thus pre-naturally exalt and 
develop himself and his race. With the loss of these conditions the highly 
developed man would perish or relapse into a comparatively barbaric state, to 
where his development would exactly agree with his actual physical surround- 
ings. 
Darwin unmistakably illustrates the tendency of all forms to variations, 
which when once produced, join in equal battle to survive and supplant their 
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