INTERMINGLING OF RACES 255 



yellow race 4000 years ago were as marvellous in their 

 time. Yellow-white amalgamation may not be fraught 

 with the evil consequences in the wake of the yeUow- 

 blaek and the white-black crosses. At the same time it 

 should be pointed out that the Caucasian and the Mon- 

 golian are far apart in descent, and the advantages to be 

 gained by either in thus breaking up superior hereditary 

 complexes developed during an extended past are not 

 clear. At any rate, there seems to be no prospective bene- 

 fit to the superior yellow peoples in mating with some 

 of the inferior existent whites, and no presumable good 

 to the superior white in intermingling with the poorer 

 yellow offshoots, as has been done to the south of the 

 United States. 



Our first conclusion may be said to be a decision 

 against the union of races having markedly different 

 characteristics — particularly when one is decidedly the 

 inferior. Through the operation of the laws of heredity 

 such unions tend to break apart series of character com- 

 plexes which through years of selection have proved to 

 be compatible with each other and with the persistence 

 of the race under the environment to which it has been 

 subjected. Because of the transmission of factors in 

 linked groups, the low probability of obtaining a single 

 recombination equal or superior to the average of the 

 better race does not warrant the production of multitudes 

 of racial mediocrities which such a mixture entails. 



Our second thesis is seemingly paradoxical. It asserts 

 that the foundation stocks of races which have impressed 

 civilization most deeply have been produced by inter- 

 mingling peoples who through one cause or other became 

 genetically somewhat unlike. Theoretically, this theorem 



