234 DARWINISM STATED BY DARWIN HIMSELF. 



tempts to civilize the natives. "If left to themselves to 

 roam as they were wont and undisturbed, they would 

 have reared more children, and there would have been 

 less mortality." Another careful observer of the natives, 

 Mr. Davis, remarks : " The births have been few and the 

 deaths numerous. This may have been in a great meas- 

 ure owing to their change of living and food ; but more 

 so to their banishment from the mainland of Van Die- 

 men's Land, and consequent depression of spirits " (Bon- 

 wick, pp. 388, 390). 



Pa^e 191 Although the gradual decrease and ulti- 



mate extinction of the races of man is a highly 

 complex problem, depending on many causes which differ 

 in different places and at different times, it is the same 

 problem as that presented by the extinction of one of the 

 higher animals — of the fossil horse, for instance, which 

 disappeared from South America, soon afterward to be 

 replaced, within the same districts, by countless troops 

 of the Spanish horse. The New-Zealander seems con- 

 scious of this parallelism, for he compares his future fate 

 with that of the native rat, now almost exterminated by 

 the European rat. Though the difficulty is great to our 

 imagination, and really great, if we wish to ascertain the 

 precise causes and their manner of action, it ought not 

 to be so to our reason, as long as we keep steadily in mind 

 that the increase of each species and each race is con- 

 stantly checked in various ways ; so that, if any new 

 check, even a slight one, be superadded, the race will 

 surely decrease in number ; and decreasing numbers will 

 sooner or later lead to extinction ; the end, in most cases, 

 being promptly determined by the inroads of conquering 

 tribes. 



