CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE. 



differences in the degrees of civilisation through 

 which these races have paised within the historic 

 period. We may admit that the mental endow- 

 ments of the Negro are so far inferior to those of 

 the European, that it would be impossible to say 

 the former was capable of doing the strong intel- 

 lectual work of the latter. But the two races are 

 passing through different stages of civilisation, 

 and cannot possibly be expected to have the same 

 intellectual capacity. Then the intellectual capac- 

 ity of a race denotes not the work it is capable of 

 doing at a given time, but the best possible work 

 it might be able to achieve if existing in the best 

 possible circumstances. It has yet to be shewn 

 that, if the lower races were placed in the same 

 favourable circumstances as the European, and 

 that, too, for the same length of time, they would 

 manifest any inferior capacity for intellectual de- 

 velopment We not only find at different periods 

 the greatest differences as regards the degree of 

 intellectual development they have attained, but 

 we find these differences characteristic of different 

 races at the same period of history, and in no case 

 do we find them greater or less than those that 

 exist in the various ' races of men ' now peopling 

 the earth. It has been asserted, and the asser- 

 tion has been denied, that there are no races 

 so low as to have no vestige of religion amongst 

 them. The controversy is chiefly a war of words. 

 If it is meant that all races believe in a god 

 or gods, the assertion is not absolutely true, 

 and the natives of New Caledonia may be cited 

 as one amongst many examples we might bring 

 forward in support of the literal godlessness of 

 savages. Yet even they have their magic and 

 magicians ; and the Dyaks of Borneo, who have 

 neither priests, temples, nor images, believe in 

 augurs and omens. Indeed, we find that the proof 

 of the alleged want of traces of a religion gradually 

 fades away as we get more information about the 

 race of whom it was asserted. In every tribe, 

 no matter how degraded, we find a belief, not in 

 gods perhaps, but in the Supernatural in viewless, 

 mystic powers or spectres, capable of not only 

 controlling the forces of nature, but making and 

 marring the fate and fortunes of man. 



In the lowest races, we find traces of the power 

 of design, and crude ideas of beauty. The black 

 intertropical races are not all equally low in the 

 scale of civilisation and mental development, but 

 they have a tendency to idleness, want of prudence, 

 and energy, which renders them incapable of 

 coping with the races that inhabit more tem- 

 perate climates. The Negroid races are the 

 lowest ; the black aborigines of Australia being 

 lowest of all, possessing in many cases but rudi- 

 mentary notions of a social community. The 

 American Indians, especially those of the north, 

 are powerful and warlike, and often display moral 

 and mental qualities of the highest kind. The 

 Mongolians are higher still, and possess a literary 

 culture, and powers of invention, together with 

 capacity for persevering industry, which, were it 

 not for their stationary character, might enable 

 them to cope fairly with Europeans. Europeans 

 have, in addition to their other high mental 

 qualities, the desire and capacity for progress and 

 improvement, which, with their greater moral and 

 intellectual weight and energy, make them soon 

 become masters of whatever part of the world 

 they settle in. 



14 



GENERAL QUESTIONS. 



The vast number of these makes it impossibl 

 that we should do more than glance at a few of 

 the most prominent 



Migrations and Extinctions of Races. 



Man has the power of adapting himself to all 

 varieties of climate, and the human race being in 

 its early stage of development nomadic and 

 pastoral, we may easily understand how migra- 

 tions of races from their original centres to more 



; fertile places would soon occur, and how, when 

 two races came thus into collision, the weaker 

 would be displaced or absorbed by the stronger. 

 Examples of migrations, from the Celtic migra- 

 tions from Asia already mentioned, down to the 

 modern emigrations of Europeans to America, 

 must occur to every one. Early migrations of 

 peoples with but the rude elements of culture, 

 account for the fact that it is the most primitive 

 arts that are most widely distributed all over the 

 world. As the arts rise in the scale of perfection, 

 their areas of distribution become more and more 

 limited. 



Some have thought it impossible to extinguish 

 a race. That it is possible, is proved by the fact, 

 that in 1872 the last of the Tasmanian race 

 disappeared for ever from the face of the earth. 

 If the races that come into collision are widely 

 divergent, the weaker dies out If not, inter- 

 mixture takes place, and a new, and probably 

 stronger, race is formed, both parent races dis- 

 appearing. The most remarkable example of 

 extinction of races, regarding which most con- 



; tradictory views are abroad, is that of the 

 American Indians. The aborigines of the West 

 Indian Islands were swept away by the barbarity 

 of European conquerors. Dr Robert Brown, the 



; author of one of the ablest works on the Races of 

 Mankind in our language, and one of the best 

 authorities living on the anthropology of the 

 North-west American Indians, holds that the 

 extinction of these tribes is due to (i) frontier 

 wars with white emigrants ; (2) the greater fatality 



i of inter-tribal wars, due to the introduction of fire- 

 arms among them ; (3) alcoholic excesses; (4) dis- 

 eases, such as smallpox and syphilis, which the 

 white man brings to them from Europe ; (5) 

 diseases the scantily clothed savage contracts 

 after getting to wear the white man's heavy 

 clothing, diseases such as consumption, which are 

 due to his being less able, in consequence of ac- 

 customing himself to European clothing, to stand 

 exposure to cold and wet ; (6) diseases of the diges- 

 tive system for example, dysentery, introduced 

 amongst them after they change their food, and use 

 that used by the whites. To these causes, rather 

 than to any proved inherent incapacity for civil- 

 isation, would this traveller attribute the decay of 

 savage tribes that come into collision with the 

 white man. 



Miscegenation. 



The mixture of different races gives rise to 

 half-breeds, to which various names are given. 

 Europeans and Negroes produce Mulattoes ; Euro- 

 peans and American Indians produce Mestizoes ; 

 Negroes and Indians produce Zamboes. The 

 European and Mulatto produce the Terceron ; the 



