298 Heredity. 



European and half Polynesian. If we admit, with seme authors, 

 that it needs several generations, or even several centuries, for 

 a crossed race to adapt itself to its surroundings, and for the 

 reversional heredity, which goes back to the primitive types, to 

 be firmly established, we can foresee the time when the number 

 of half-breeds will be far larger than it is at present. 



But what is their mental value? Do they stand much above 

 the inferior race or much below the superior race ? 



Darwin notes in some half-breeds a return towards the habits of 

 savage life ; but this, as it seems to us, may be only a mere phe- 

 nomena of atavism. ' Travellers speak of the degraded state and 

 savage disposition of crossed races of man. That many excellent 

 and kind-hearted mulattoes have existed no one will dispute; and 

 a more mild and gentle set of men could hardly be found than the 

 inhabitants of the island of Chiloe, who consist qf Indians com- 

 mingled with the Spaniards in various proportions. On the 

 other hand, many years ago, long before I had thought of the 

 present subject, I was struck with the fact that in South America 

 men of complicated descent between Negroes, Indians, and 

 Spaniards, seldom had, whatever the cause might be, a good 

 expression. Livingstone, after speaking of a half-caste man, on 

 the Zambesi, described by the Portuguese as a rare monster of 

 inhumanity, remarks, "It is unaccountable why half-castes, such 

 as he, are so much more cruel than the Portuguese ; but such is 

 undoubtedly the case." An inhabitant remarked to Livingstone, 

 " God made white men, and God made black men, but the devil 

 made the half-castes." When two races, both low in the scale, are 

 crossed, the progeny seems to be eminently bad. Thus the noble- 

 hearted Humboldt, who felt none of that prejudice against the 

 inferior races now so current in England, speaks in strong terms of 

 the Zambos, or half-castes between Indians and Negroes ; and this 

 conclusion has been arrived at by various observers. From these 

 facts we may perhaps infer that the degraded state of so many 

 half-castes is in part due to reversion to a primitive and savage 

 condition, induced by the act of crossing, as well as to the 

 unfavourable moral conditions under which they generally exist* 1 



Variation, etc., ii. p. 46. 



