vin THE DEVELOPMENT OF HUMAN RACES 177 



almost immutable, a new series of causes would come into 

 action and take part in his mental growth. The diverse aspects 

 of nature would now make themselves felt, and profoundly 

 influence the character of the primitive man. 



When the power that had hitherto modified the body had 

 its action transferred to the mind, then races would advance 

 and become improved, merely by the harsh discipline of a 

 sterile soil and inclement seasons. Under their influence a 

 hardier, a more provident, and a more social race would be 

 developed than in those regions where the earth produces a 

 perennial supply of vegetable food, and where neither fore- 

 sight nor ingenuity are required to prepare for the rigours of 

 winter. And is it not the fact that in all ages, and in every 

 quarter of the globe, the inhabitants of temperate have been 

 superior to those of hotter countries ? All the great invasions 

 and displacements of races have been from North to South, 

 rather than the reverse ; and we have no record of there ever 

 having existed, any more than there exists to-day, a solitary 

 instance of an indigenous inter -tropical civilisation. The 

 Mexican civilisation and government came from the North, 

 and, as well as the Peruvian, was established, not in the rich 

 tropical plains, but on the lofty and sterile plateau:: of the 

 Andes. The religion and civilisation of Ceylon were intro- 

 duced from North India ; the successive conquerors of the 

 Indian peninsula came from the North-west; the northern 

 Mongols conquered the more Southern Chinese ; and it was 

 the bold and adventurous tribes of the North that overran 

 and infused new life into Southern Europe. 



Extinction of Lower Races 



It is the same great law of " the preservation of favoured 

 races in the struggle for life," which leads to the inevitable 

 extinction of all those low and mentally undeveloped popula- 

 tions with which Europeans come in contact. The red Indian 

 in North America and in Brazil ; the Tasmanian, Australian, 

 and New Zealander in the southern hemisphere, die out, not 

 from any one special cause, but from the inevitable effects 

 of an unequal mental and physical struggle. The intellectual 

 and moral, as well as the physical, qualities of the European 

 are superior ; the same powers and capacities which have 

 N 



