no THE THRESHOLD OF EVOLUTION 



whole course of civilisation the Mongolian Races are con- 

 stantly degenerating in true wisdom, honour, justice, mercy 

 and morality at the same time as by their arts of knowledge and 

 civilisation they are advancing the culture of the world as they 

 evolve the female qualities of Art, Comfort and Pleasure, 

 cruelty, greed and avarice, on the one hand, and the northern 

 races are evolving the male qualities of Knowledge, Peace, Joy, 

 Sport and moral rectitude. 



But it is well to remember that these separate evolutions of 

 civilisation have been progressing on their separate roads for 

 eighty to one hundred thousand years prior to about ten thou- 

 sand years B.C., when they commence to come into violent 

 collision and alternately conquer and reconquer each other, so 

 that we must not expect the permanent advancement in either 

 direction to be greatly marked or wisdom to be largely dis- 

 seminated to such a degree as to make men reasonable beings 

 in less than twenty or thirty thousand years hence, except in 

 a few instances ; but we may be justified in hoping that in time 

 to come this continuous intermingling of these two forms of 

 civilisation may produce some higher form of civilisation in 

 which wisdom may abound over folly. When both the Mon- 

 golian form of Government, " Democracy," and the Aryan 

 form of Autocracy will be finally replaced by government by 

 mental Aristocracy in place of physical Autocracy. 



But one of the most striking characteristics of these 

 evolutions of civilisation is that where the Mongolian 

 Race push their victorious march, they destroy all previous art 

 before them and leave desolation and waste in their wake. That 

 this is still one of the distinguishing marks of the race, as 

 it was in the days of Ancient Egypt, is seen by the destructive 

 tendency of our enemies to-day, but we must not jump to the 

 conclusion that there is no destructive tendency in the Aryan 

 Races ; only that the tendency is very much less strongly 

 developed. So we find that although it is not till the last two 

 thousand years that the Aryan Races have been able to add, 

 to any noticeable extent, to the enrichments of art and manu- 

 facture, except by their tendency to preserve it from destruc- 

 tion, and then it has been mainly due to their superior power 

 of control, management and invention, rather than to their 

 skill and genius, for skill and genius are amongst Mongolian 

 rather than Aryan evolutions. I remember reading the account 



