I PROLEGOMENA 17 



thenceforward, a competitor in the struggle for 

 existence, to conquer or be vanquished. 



Under the conditions supposed, there is no 

 doubt of the result, if the work of the colonists 

 be carried out energetically and with intelligent 

 combination of all their forces. On the other 

 hand, if they are slothful, stupid, and careless ; or 

 if they waste their energies in contests with one 

 another, the chances are that the old state of 

 nature will have the best of it. The native 

 savage will destroy the immigrant civilized man ; 

 of the English animals and plants some will be 

 extirpated by their indigenous rivals, others will 

 pass into the feral state and themselves become 

 components of the state of nature. In a few 

 decades, all other traces of the settlement will 

 have vanished. 



VI 



Let us now imagine that some administrative 

 authority, as far superior in power and intelligence 

 to men, as men are to their cattle, is set over the 

 colony, charged to deal with its human elements 

 in such a manner as to assure the victory of 

 the settlement over the antagonistic influences of 

 the state of nature in which it is set down. He 

 would proceed in the same fashion as that in 

 which the gardener dealt with his garden. In 

 the first place, he would, as far as possible, put a 



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