4 DISPLACEMENT AND EXTINCTION OF EACES. 



fruits of their well-organised system of mutual cooperation. These 

 first efforts cannot be otherwise than feeble, and the steps of their 

 progress slow and unequal. But if the progress be real, however 

 slow, they are well contented to find their reward in the hope that 

 other men shall enter into their labours, and reap where they have 



DISPLACEMENT ASD EXTINCTION AMONG THE 

 PRIMEVAL EACES OE MAN. 



BT DANIEL WILSON, LL.D. 



PEOFEESOK OF HISTORY A5T> ENGLISH LITERATURE, UXIYEESITY COLLEGE, TORONTO. 



Head before the Canadian Institute, December 1st, 1855. 



Among the many difficult problems which the thoughtful observer 

 has to encounter, in an attempt to harmonise the actual with his ideal 

 of the world as the great theatre of the human race, none assumes a 

 more intricate and inexplicable aspect than the displacement and 

 extinction of races, such as the Anglo-Saxon has witnessed on this 

 continent for upwards of two centuries. In all ages history discloses 

 to us unmistakeable evidence, not only of the distinctions which 

 civilization produces, but of the fundamental differences whereby a 

 few highly favoured races have outsped all others ; triumphing in the 

 onward progress of the nations, not less by an innate constitutional 

 superiority, than by an acquired civilization, or by local advantages. 

 And if we are still troubled with the perplexities of this dark riddle, 

 whereby the Colonists of the new world only advance by the retro- 

 gression of the Bed Man, and tread, in our western progress, on the 

 graves of nations, it may not be without its interest to note some 

 unmistakeable evidences of this process of displacement and extinction, 

 accompanying the progress of the human race from the very dawn of 

 its history. 



One, and only one record supplies any authoritative or credible 

 statement relative to the origin of the human race. Geology has 

 indeed, by its negative evidence, confirmed in its response the inspired 

 answer of the patriarch : "Enquire of the former age, and prepare 

 thyself to the search of their fathers, for we are but of yesterday ;" but 

 it is to the Mosaic record we must turn for any definite statement on a 

 subject concerning which the mythologies of all nations have professed 

 to furnish some information. Every attentive reader of the Bible 

 must have observed that the Book of Genesis, or the Beginning, is 



