II.J INCIPIENT STRUCTURES. 7X 



average individual; the odds in their favor will, tlierefore, 

 be less than that of their parents; but owing to their 

 greater number, the chances are that about one and a half 

 of them would survive. Unless these breed together, a 

 most improbable event, their progeny would again approach 

 the average individual ; there would be 150 of them, and 

 tlieir superiority would be, say in the ratio of one in a 

 quarter to one ; the probability would now be that nearly 

 two of them would survive, and have 200 children, with an 

 eiglith superiority. Rather more than two of these would 

 survive; but the superiority would again dwindle, until 

 after a few generations it would no longer be observed, and 

 would count for no more in the struggle for life than any 

 of the hundred trifling advantages which occur in the ordi- 

 nary organs. An illustration will bring this conception 

 home. Suppose a white man to have been wrecked on an 

 island inhabited by negroes, and to have established him- 

 self in friendly relations with a powerful tribe, whose cus- 

 toms he has learned. Suppose him to possess the physical 

 strength, energy, and ability of a dominant white race, and 

 let the food and climate of the island suit his constitution ; 

 grant him every advantage which we can conceive a white 

 to possess over the native ; concede that in the struggle for 

 existence his chance of a long life will be much superior to 

 that of the native chiefs ; yet from all these admissions, 

 there does not follow the conclusion that, after a limited or 

 unlimited number of generations, the inhabitants of the isl- 

 and will be white. Our shipwrecked hero would probably 

 become king ; he would kill a great many blacks in the 

 struggle for existence ; he would have a great many wives 

 and children." ..." In the first generation there will be 

 some dozens of intelligent young mulattoes, much superior 

 in average intelligence to the negroes. We might expect 

 the throne for some generations to be occupied by a more 

 or less yellow king ; but can any one believe that the whole 



