180 



and these point broadly and unmistakably to unin- 

 terrupted ascension. 



It may also be questioned, and has, indeed, 

 already been questioned, whether any one variety 

 of man, however highly organised or nobly endowed, 

 could be truly cosmopolitan; or, in other words, 

 whether the white man — all the others being ex- 

 tinct — is fitted to inhabit and make progress alike 

 under every clime and every latitude 1 This objection, 

 put in the form of a question, is easily met and replied 

 to. No advocate of progressional development has 

 ever contended for universal uniformity of race ; no 

 one knowing the physical causes that are ever tending 

 to produce variety could entertain the notion that 

 present progress would terminate in the obliteration 

 of racial distinctions. The whole history of the past 

 is marked by the existence of races and varieties ; 

 every stage of human progress has been characterised 

 by higher and lower ; and so long as climate, physical 

 surroundings, and other influencing conditions con- 

 tinue to differ, so long will ethnic differences prevail 

 among mankind. These differences, taken in their 

 totality, may become less and less at every succeeding 

 era of progression ; but tropical, temperate, and boreal 

 conditions — ^favourable and unfavourable — will ever 

 continue to stamp their impress ; and all that can be 

 fairly indicated is, that mankind will rise higher and 



