SECT. III.] DENSITY OP POPULATION. 349 



unjust in applying the standard of European culture to these 

 mixed races. There are neither in the North nor in the 

 South of America instances wanting of these mixed people 

 having taken the initiative in the civilization of the natives ; at 

 any rate, they confirm the theory that the mental capacity of 

 mongrels is generally greater than that of the lower of the 

 two races from which they sprung. There are even cases which 

 render it probable that two peoples of an equally low degree, 

 by intermixture produce mongrels of greater capacity ; just as 

 is asserted that by the engrafting of a wild sapling upon a wild 

 fruit tree, the fruit is improved. 



Density of population, so essential an element of progress, 

 is determined by surrounding nature, for everywhere we find 

 them combined, so that the former has been considered both 

 the result and the cause of civilization. 



It has often been suggested, that the cradle of mankind 

 must have been in a hot country, because there only prevailed 

 the conditions necessary for man's existence in a primitive 

 state ; and that the East Indies, which possess all animals fit 

 to become domesticated, were probably the home of these ani- 

 mals, as of all our cultivated plants. We have also seen that 

 nature, however rich, gives originally no positive impulse to 

 civilization. 



Secondarily, but not primarily, does it favour civilization, 

 i. e. } not its first origin, but its progress only ; and only in 

 this respect is it true that the great table-lands alone, like 

 Thibet and Abyssinia in the Old, Mexico and Peru in the New 

 World, were the natural cradles of civilization. 1 Rich table- 

 lands only indirectly promote civilization, by inducing a rapid 

 increase of the population, which compels the people to spread, 

 to leave their original habitations, to take the most useful 

 plants and animals with them and import them into poorer 

 regions. 



Griitzlaff has observed, that in China the great mass of the 

 population has too much bodily labour to obtain the necessaries 

 of life, to evince any mental activity. This shows that too 



Pickering, " The Races of man," p. 300, 1849. 



