ORGANIC EVOLUTION 65 



for existence, and are typical of the influence of ex- 

 ternal conditions, upon the organism in producing new 

 variations. These facts are apparent to any observer, 

 who has in view the causes, in nature, that produce 

 favorable changes in organisms. This is especially 

 noticeable in the children of sharp-featured, awkward, 

 heavy-minded types of immigrants; those children, 

 especially born sometime after arrival in this country. 

 It is natural to conclude that the difference in the 

 physical features of the United States, compared with 

 those of the eastern continent, has produced these im- 

 provements in the body and mind of these individuals. 

 At least, this difference is a large factor. There is 

 also a difference in the social environment. These 

 immigrants have come from a different form of govern- 

 ment, a monarchy, or empire, where military service is 

 compulsory, -where the heavy hand of power is con- 

 stantly felt, where real personal liberty is a fiction, 

 where labor is poorly compensated, and biting want, 

 and poverty are always in evidence; because the 

 sources of life, such as land, and its precious mineral 

 deposits of great value, are monopolized by a few, and 

 a conditional form of slavery, of a great majority of 

 the people always exists. They have come to a repub- 

 lican form of government, where the military spirit is 

 feeble, where the land is yet open, in places, to the 

 home-steader, where there is little restraint of per- 

 sonal liberty; where, as yet, there is ample room to 

 spread and grow; where the means of sustentation are 

 easily procured, leaving some leisure to the worker, 

 with a fuller stomach, and less fear, than in the old 

 world. It is natural, under these changed conditions 

 to attribute to these better conditions of life the new 

 and better physical and mental variations, which are 

 apparent in the offspring of immigrants. 



