12 DARWINISM AND RACE PROGRESS. 



comparing the facts obtained at one decade with 

 those of another we can observe many racial changes 

 as they take place. 



These more exact inquiries are, however, but 

 slowly accumulating, for man is a long-lived 

 animal, and our impatience is great. We must 

 wait often for many generations, before small, though 

 no doubt important, changes are revealed by our 

 methods of research. For this reason much attention 

 has been given to the race histories of the lower 

 animals, for in their case we may in a few years have 

 many generations under observation, and we can 

 follow out their histories in a comparatively short 

 period of time. We are justified in making use of 

 the facts so obtained and of utilising them cautiously 

 for the interpretation of human race history, for we 

 constantly and in every day life assume points of 

 similarity between man and the lower animals. The 

 blow or the spear thrust which injures us we know 

 will also injure them, and we infer that the contortions 

 which follow their application are symptoms of the 

 pain that we, too, should feel. We know, and scien- 

 tific inquiry has vastly extended our knowledge, 

 that animals have all of them many points of struc- 

 tural similarity, and that their life and race histories 

 are in many ways strikingly like our own. The chief 

 muscles and nerves in man may be recognised in the 

 dog ; the main lines of development are in both cases 



