388 THE riJESENT EVOLUTION OF MAN — MENTAL 



malaria few — comparatively few — West Africans perish, 

 but more natives of India, whereas comparatively few 

 Englishmen survive, even when placed undei* the most 

 favourable conditions. In the presence of abundant 

 alcohol few — very few — South Europeans perish, more 

 North Europeans, but few savages, of such races as 

 have had no experience of the poison, survive. Such 

 savage races, when introduced to concentrated modern 

 forms of alcohol, are in as evil case as when introduced 

 to tuberculosis under modern conditions — they cannot 

 then accomplish in a few years, and a generation or two, 

 that amount of evolution which other races, under 

 stringent Alcoholic Selection, accomplished only after 

 the lapse of scores of generations and thousands of years ; 

 and therefore they suffer extinction. 



To sum up and complete the foregoing, it is plain (1) 

 that races differ from one another in respect to the 

 craving for alcohol as a result of a process of evolution 

 due to Alcoholic Selection ; (2) that the direction of 

 this process has been towards a lesser craving from a 

 greater craving ; and (3) that in some cases — c. g. among 

 the English — the process has been very rapid, since, 

 side by side with individuals who have but a little 

 craving for alcohol, are found others with a very great 

 craving, and since it frequently happens that parents 

 who crave but little for the poison have offspring that 

 crave very greatly for it, i. e. offspring who have reverted 

 to the ancestral type, in which the craving was very 

 great, the greatness of reversion being due to tlie 

 swiftness of the evolution, owing to which reversion to 

 a not very remote ancestor results in a considerable 

 change of type. 



