INTRODUCTORY. 



tent with their neighbours. If we can find amongst 

 these a single example in which their physical and 

 mental powers have shown undiminished activity, 

 this will serve to establish the fact that racial decay 

 is not a necessary termination to the history of a 

 people. 



The Permanence of the Scandinavian and Jewish 

 Types. 



Bearing this in mind, it is interesting to turn to 

 the Scandinavian races from which we spring. 

 These races, when kept as far as possible from inter- 

 breeding with other races, have shown wonderfully 

 persistent characteristics for a great many centuries. 

 For their powers of conquest and settlement, witness 

 their early occupation of the sea borders of Britain, 

 Iceland and Normandy, their expeditions to the 

 Mediterranean, and even to North America, of which 

 they were the first discoverers : these are the precur- 

 sors of our British colonisation on a larger scale. The 

 Lothians of Scotland are to-day peopled by almost 

 as pure a type of Scandinavian as you will find in 

 Bergen or Trondhjem, and they are perhaps the 

 hardest headed, as they are the longest limbed, of all 

 the British. In Iceland, a country peopled by those 

 who fled from the rule of Harold, the first king of 

 Norway, because they were not used to kings, and 



