MR. MI V ART AND MR. DARWIN. 287 



island inhabited by negroes, and to have established 

 himself in friendly relations with a powerful tribe, 

 whose customs he has learnt. Suppose him to possess 

 the physical strength, energy, and ability of a dominant 

 white race, and let the food of the island suit his con- 

 stitution ; grant him every advantage which we can 

 conceive a white to possess over the native; concede 

 that in the struggle for existence, his chance of a long 

 life will be much superior to that of the native chiefs ; 

 yet from all these admissions there does not follow the 

 conclusion, that after a limited or unlimited number of 

 generations, the inhabitants of the island will be white. 

 Our shipwrecked hero would probably become king; he 

 would kill a great many blacks in the struggle for 

 existence; he would have a great many wives and 

 children. ... In the first generation there will be 

 some dozens of intelligent young mulattoes, much 

 superior in average intelligence to the negroes. We 

 might expect the throne for some generations to be 

 occupied by a more or less yellow king ; but can any 

 one believe that the whole island will gradually acquire 

 a white, or even a yellow population? . . . Darwin 

 says, that in the struggle for life a grain may turn the 

 balance in favour of a given structure, which will then 

 be preserved. But one of the weights in the scale of 

 nature is due to the number of a given tribe. Let 

 there be 7000 A's and 7000 B's representing two 

 varieties of a given animal, and let all the B's, in virtue 

 of a slight difference of structure, have the better 

 chance by ^Vir part. We must allow that there is a 

 slight probability that the descendants of B will sup- 



