1 8o THE EVOLUTION OF MAN 



higher and the poorer classes." Tenny Frank 2 concludes that 



in Nero's day, about 90 per cent of the plebeians on the streets 



of Rome had oriental blood, while the whole Empire was a 



"melting pot" in which the oriental was a large part of the 



ore: 



Race suicide curtailed the stock of the more sophisticated, 

 the aristocracy, and the rich. Before our day, only at Greece 

 and Rome was reproduction under rational control and there 

 the race went under. Of forty-five patricians in Caesar's day 

 only one is represented by posterity when Hadrian came to 

 power. Of the families of nearly four hundred senators re- 

 corded in 65 A. D. under Nero, all trace of a half is lost by 

 Nerva's day, a generation later. The voluntary choice of 

 childlessness accounts largely for the unparalleled condition 

 and is probably the most important phase of the whole question 

 of the change of race. 



A striking parallel to what is found in most of the civilized 

 world to-day! Whatever may have been the causes of the 

 decline of former civilizations, it is plain that there were left 

 in other parts of the world strong human reserves that could 

 carry forward the standard of civilization which was dropped 

 by a dying race. But in a world where practically all western 

 nations are suffering from this sickness of civilization, and in 

 which racial amalgamation is fusing all into a common type, 

 where are the reserves that can be rallied to the standard, if 

 civilization should again decay? If history should repeat 

 itself and the western nations should go down as did Greece 

 and Rome, possibly Russia, or China, or Japan might take up 

 the banner and civilization once more begin its westward 

 march around the world. 



But there is this important difference between present con- 

 ditions and those of any former age, our knowledge of and 



control over nature are vastly greater than ever before and the 



t 



2 American Historical Review, 21, 1916. 



