COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



from intercourse with the outside world, and 

 adapting themselves to an environment which 

 altered but little, there was nothing which could 

 serve to shake them loose from their monotony 

 of discipline. A more extreme instance of a kin- 

 dred phenomenon is seen in the fact that in those 

 protected corners of the world where competi- 

 tion has always been at a minimum, we find the 

 smallest conceivable amount of progress from 

 utter bestial savagery. That same isolation 

 which has kept the flora and fauna of Australia 

 in such a backward state that they are now melt- 

 ing away before the imported plants and animals 

 of Europe as snow melts under a vernal sun, 

 — that same isolation has retained the Austra- 

 lian man until this day at the lowest level of 

 humanity. Similar things might be said of the 

 Fuegians, the Andaman Islanders, and some of 

 the hill tribes of aboriginal non- Aryan Hin- 

 dus. Where there has been least competition 

 and least natural selection, there has been least 

 progress from savagery. Now returning to the 

 immobile civilizations, when we bear in mind 

 that of the two conflicting elements of military 

 advantage, uniformity was likely to be of most 

 importance at first and flexibility afterwards, we 

 may begin to discern, I think, that where com- 

 petition ceased at an early date, uniformity may 

 well have carried the day and crushed out flexi- 

 bility altogether. Herein we have an excellent 

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