402 HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT 



existing species, Homo sapiens. Race exter- 

 mination has been witnessed in relatively re- 

 cent times and on a large scale in the West 

 Indies, North and South America, Africa, 

 Australia, New Zealand and the Islands of the 

 Pacific. But in the disappearance of native 

 races extermination is usually supplemented 

 by amalgamation. After the most warlike 

 members of a race have been destroyed the 

 more peaceful remnants are generally incor- 

 porated in the conquering race. Thus the 

 Maoris of New Zealand, the finest native race 

 with which the English have come in contact in 

 their colonies, were estimated to number more 

 than a quarter of a million at the end of the 

 eighteenth century. Owing to destructive 

 wars among the tribes and with the English 

 there are not fifty thousand of them today, 

 and these are being gradually absorbed into 

 the white race. 



From the way in which primitive races have 

 gone down before more cultured ones there is 

 reason to believe that in general the principle 

 of the elimination of the unfit and the sur- 

 vival of the fit has characterized human evolu- 



