196 RACE 



doubt assisted by the action of infertility. In a 

 population which is increasing in numbers but 

 slowly, fertility is almost balanced by infertility. 

 If we cast our eyes round the circle of our 

 acquaintances how many are the families we shall 

 find to be verging upon extinction, after perhaps 

 a transient burst of fecundity ! Infertility very 

 speedily disembarrasses a race of an admixture of 

 alien blood that is of lower reproductive vitality 

 or is unsuited to the local environment. The immi- 

 grant strain may for a time revolutionize society 

 by setting up an eddy of abnormal activity, or by 

 the introduction of new arts or ideas. The survival 

 of foreign elements may from time to time be 

 disclosed by the birth of exceptional individuals, 

 whose character approximates more closely to 

 that of other races than to that of their own. But 

 as time advances, the occurrence of these irregu- 

 larities will become rarer, until the blended race 

 settles down into homogeneity. These reflections 

 assist us in understanding how a race may retain 

 its peculiar character although it has interbred 

 with alien immigrants ; or may revert to its 

 ancient type after temporary bursts of eccen- 

 tricity caused by the admixture of alien blood. 



Infertility, it may be added, contributes to the 

 levelling effect of marriage in preventing a race 

 from improving itself by the breeding of men of 

 talent or " supermen." Persons of exceptional 

 talents are not as a rule of prepotent reproductive 

 fertility, and it is upon less abnormal individuals 

 that the race depends for the continuity of its 

 existence. 







The earliest of our historical records arc con- 

 cerned with little else than wars of invasion, and 

 there is no reason why we should believe that 

 these movements of population only commenced 



