GROWTH OF AGRICULTURAL SOCIETIES. 23 



due chiefly to the invention of steam. "As a general rule," 

 says Hittell, "population has been nearly stationary ; century 

 after century has passed, with little difference, until we come * 

 within the magic influence of steam, and then suddenly the 

 Ay ran race, acquiring the power to draw larger crops from 

 the soil, to distribute them more evenly, thus preventing 

 disease and famine, and also to visit new and more profit- 

 able fields of industry, multiplies so as to keep pace with the 

 increased supply of food, and with the demand for labor." 



But with all this development, with all this unparalleled 

 progress within one hundred years, there are elements of 

 weakness in our civilization. Let us consider for a moment 

 some of the characteristics of this Aryan race. It is not only 

 the most active and intelligent, it is also the most stalwart of 

 races. More even than this, the Aryan of to-day is more 

 robust than his Greek and Roman predecessors. His civiliza- 

 tion is more destructive, but his power of resistance is greater. 

 Luxury is not enervating. A proof of this is seen in the fact 

 that wherever the modern Aryan goes, among inferior races, 

 he destroys them. Such was not the case in ancient times. 

 We read of conquests then ; of whole provinces overrun and 

 subdued, but the inferior race survived ; yes, survived, and 

 assimilated with its conquerors. Now it is destroyed ; it 

 disappears not by the agencies of force, of cruelty, of blood- 

 shed, but by simple contact with a superior civilization. In 

 the words of Mr. Bageshot, " Savages waste away before 

 modern civilization ; they seem to have held their ground 

 before the ancient. There is no lament in any classical 



writer for the barbarians Modern science 



explains the Avasting away of savage men ; it says that we 

 have diseases which we can bear, though they cannot, and 

 that they die away before them as our fatted and protected 

 cattle died out before the rinderpest, which is innocuous, in 

 comparison, to the hardy cattle of the steppes." Mr. Francis 

 Galton, upon the same point, though in a different vein, 

 remarks : " The number of the races of mankind that have 

 been entirely destroyed under the pressure of the require- 

 ments of an incoming civilization reads us a terrible lesson. 

 Probably in no former period of the world has the destruc- 

 tion of the races of any animal whatever, been effected over 



