TERM OF HUMAN RACE. 231 



regarding the lower animals. He has not only a wider geo- 

 graphical range, but is more omnivorous in his diet than other 

 creatures, the while that his structure and intellect enable 

 him to combat with difficulties of food and climate to which 

 they must at once succumb. Submerge Australia, and you 

 at once annihilate almost the entire division of marsupial 

 mammals, while as regards the aboriginal tribes you destroy 

 only a very small, and that by no means an important, section 

 of the human family. Alter the climate of Europe so as to 

 place it beyond the growth of the fruits and grains on which 

 its people now chiefly subsist, and, while its high civilisation 

 might be destroyed, and its dense population reduced to a 

 few nomadic races struggling with the rigours of the new 

 climate, still you do not annihilate them, nor greatly affect 

 the inhabitants of the other quarters of the globe. Direct 

 the Gulf-stream from its present course across the Atlantic, 

 and you at once destroy whole families of marine life de- 

 pendent on its thermal waters, and whole phases of vegeta- 

 tion that border the shores where its climatic influence 

 impinges ; but, so far as man is concerned, you only make 

 him shift ground and seek in other localities the congenial 

 conditions that have been withdrawn. Unless, therefore, 

 the human species has a limited creational term assigned to 

 it in accordance with that law which the more highly 

 organised existences seem to obey, we at once perceive that 

 the adaptability of man's constitution, and the inventive 

 powers of his intellect, give him, geologically speaking, 

 every chance of a prolonged tenure of this earthly domain. 

 It must be borne in mind that speculations such as these 

 refer to man only in his geological bearings, and touch not 

 at all on the rise, progress, and decay of nationalities, or 

 types of civilisation. These obey an altogether different set 

 of laws, having reference to that Moralism which separates 

 him from other living beings, and confers on him his highest 

 and most distinctive characteristics. 



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