SOCIAL AND WORLD ASPECTS 233 



tance, and more or less complete segregation, still 

 appear as regards single characters. The various 

 types of modern Italian, viewed in the light of their 

 history, appear to show the same thing. Although 

 innumerable racial unions have taken place in the 

 histor}^ of mankind, yet the elements distinguish- 

 ing the original races appear, for the most part, 

 to retain their separate identity and independent 

 transmission in inheritance. The resulting race con- 

 sidered as a population will be a blend of the original 

 races, yet, for a long period at least, the elemental 

 differences continue to be separately inherited. 

 Whether, ultimatel}^ a real blend occurs is uncertain, 

 but if it ever does this mav be onlv after a thousand 

 years or so of interbreeding within the hybrid race. 

 In any case the racial elements of the more primitive 

 stock will dilute and weaken the better elements of 

 the more progressive stock, with a retarding or 

 degrading effect on the progressive stock as a whole. 

 It is, therefore, clear that miscegenation between, for 

 example, the white races and African races — which for 

 ages have been undergoing separate evolution which 

 must have been at ver}' different rates, assuming that 

 both are descendants from the same original stock — 

 is wholly undesirable from a eugenic or any other 

 reasonable point of view. 



Yet it cannot be gainsaid that the negro in the 

 United States, through interbreeding chiefly with the 

 lowest strata of whites, is already producing a visible 

 effect on the colour and features, and surely also on 

 the mentalit}' of those elements. Unless this process 

 is checked, the ultimate result would appear inevitably 

 to be a gradual incorporation of these more primitive 

 elements in the whole population. The brain of the 

 average negro weighs 3 or 4 ounces less than that of 

 the average white man, but this in itself does not 

 necessarily prove a lower intelligence, because it is 



