232 SOCIAL HEREDITY AND SOCIAL EVOLUTION 



kingdom has been absorbed by the stronger. Nations 

 have absorbed the kingdoms, and whole races of men 

 have disappeared from the face of the earth when 

 brought into competition with more successful rivals, 

 who for some reason were able to make better use of 

 nature's treasures. The history of the world has 

 been one of constant extermination of those most 

 poorly equipped for perpetuation. The victors in 

 this endless conflict, however, have not been those 

 best equipped for supporting their own life by obtain- 

 ing food for themselves and families, but, rather, 

 those best equipped for producing offspring and 

 rearing them to maturity. 



The factors involved in this process of elimination 

 have been numerous and complex. It is not possible 

 to select any one which can be regarded as funda- 

 mental. Certainly it was not the size of the contend- 

 ing groups, for gigantic Persia yielded to little 

 Greece. It was not valor, since the Greeks yielded to 

 the Romans, and no men of any race have exceeded 

 the Greeks in valor. The American Indian disap- 

 peared before the white man, but it is an unques- 

 tioned fact that the valor, the personal bravery, and 

 the willingness to sacrifice life, shown by the Amer- 

 ican Indian, have not been surpassed by any race of 

 men that ever lived. The white man who conquered 

 the Indian was not his superior in valor, nor in will- 

 ingness to sacrifice his life. Nor was it intellect which 

 determined the victor and the vanquished, since it 

 was frequently the less intellectual nation that over- 

 came and eventually exterminated the more intellec- 

 tual. Nor was it reproductive power. The world is 

 full of instances of a small, slowly multiplying race 

 overcoming and taking the place of those that multi- 



