INTRODUCTORY. 



comparable in some slight degree to senility; or, 

 on the other hand, we may have before us a question 

 entirely apart from this, that of the struggle of a 

 people against obstacles which have at last become 

 insuperable. It will be necessary to examine the 

 facts of history in greater detail in order to find out 

 whether a race undergoes of necessity any organic 

 change comparable to growth, maturity and decay, 

 exclusive of the changes which may occur in the 

 political organisation of the race and its fortuitous 

 position in respect to other organisations. 



The Muscles and Brains of a Race are not bound to 

 decay. 



We are dealing in the following pages with race 

 rather than nation ; with muscle, blood and brain, 

 rather than with political power and influence ; let 

 us turn then to history in order to find out whether 

 or not organic deterioration must actually close the 

 history of every race, for if this is the case, our studies 

 of racial change, though of none the less intellectual 

 interest, will have lost their promise of practical 

 utility. But, fortunately for the hopefulness of our 

 future work, we may anticipate by saying that history 

 shows us that the innate and organic is that which 

 is most permanent and lasting, and that change 

 and catastrophe in a nation's career have in most 



