230 SOCIAL EVOLUTION 



not mean that all members of the White race had the 

 power of originating or developing the essential elements 

 of civilization with equal rapidity. But the White race 

 does show a remarkable power of assimilation, which 

 does not seem to have manifested itself to an equal de- 

 gree in any other race. 25 The problem is therefore one 

 of explaining why the tribes of ancient Europe readily 

 assimilated the civilization that was offered to them by 

 Rome and Greece, while at the present time we find primi- 

 tive peoples dwindling away before the approach of mod- 

 ern civilization. 



In the first place these barbarous peoples were in their 

 appearance, like the civilized men of their times. The 

 stigma of inferiority, because they had not developed a 

 civilization like the ancient civilization, did not attach to 

 these peoples. The colonies of ancient times grew by 

 accretion from among the more primitive people. Then, 

 in ancient times, the devastating influences of diseases 

 which nowadays begin to ravage the inhabitants of ter- 

 ritories newly opened to the whites, were not so marked. 

 These peoples lived in more permanent contiguity, and, 

 being always in contact with one another, were subject 

 to the same influences ; consequently no isolated portion 

 of the race had opportunity to become immune to cer- 

 tain diseases through natural selection. In modern 

 times, the settling of an area near the habitation of some 

 primitive folk is followed by epidemics among them con- 

 tracted from the whites which sweep away large numbers, 

 disturbing or completely destroying the whole social or 

 economic structure of the people. 



But the most potent fact which accounts for the ap- 

 parently greater powers of assimilation possessed by 



