372 REVIEWS — NOTES ON CENTRAL AMERICA. 



From the foregoing facts and observations, it may be deduced generally that 

 Central America is relatively the most populous portion of Spanish America; that 

 while its population is increasing in a constant and rapid ratio, the exotic or Euro- 

 pean element is not only decreasing relatively, but in fact ; and that the direct 

 tendency of things is to its speedy absorption in the indigenous or aboriginal 

 races. In this respect, as indeed in its moral and intellectual condition, Central 

 America, not less than all Spanish America, seems to furnish a striking illustration 

 oi the laws which have been established as the results of anthropological inquiries 

 during the past fifty years. Neither the statesman nor the political economist can 

 safely overlook or disregard these results, since by the course of events, and the 

 multiplication of means aDd facilities of communication, nation? and races are more 

 and more brought in contact, and the question of the nature and character cf their 

 relationship made of immediate and practical importance. 



It may be claimed without hesitation that the wide physical, intellectual and 

 moral differences which all history and observation have distinguished as existing 

 between the various families of man, can b^ no longer r< g . rded as the consequences 

 of accident or circumstances; that is to say, it has come to be understood that 

 their physical, moral, and intellectual traits are radical and permanent, and that 

 there can be no admixture of widely -separated families, or of superior with inferior 

 races, which can be harmonious, or otherwise than disastrous in its consequences. 

 Anthropological science has determined the existence of two laws of vital impor- 

 tance in their application to men and nations: 



First. That in all cases where a free amalgamation takes place between two 

 different stocks, unrestrained by what is sometimes called prejudice, but which is, 

 in fact, a natural instinct, the resultis the final and absolute absorption of one in the 

 other. This absorption is more rapid as the races or families thus brought in contact 

 approximate in type, and in proportion as one or the other preponderates in 

 numbers ; that is to say, Nature perpetuates no human hybrids, as. for instance, a 

 permanent race of mulattoes. 



Second. That all violations of the natural distinctions of race, or of those in- 

 stincts which were designed to perpetuate the superior races in their purity, in- 

 variably entail the most deplorable results, affecting the bodies, intellects, and moral 

 perceptions of the nations who are thus blind to the wise designs of Nature, and 

 unmindful of her laws. In other words the offspring of sich combinations or 

 amalgamations are not only generally deficient in physical constitution, in intellect, 

 and in moral restraint, but to a degree which often contrasts unfavorably with any 

 of the original stool.-. 



In no respect are these deficiencies more obvious than in matters affecting gov- 

 ernment. We need only point to the anarchical states of Spanish America to verify 

 the truth of the propositions here laid down. In Central and South America, and 

 Mexico, we find a people not only demoralized from the unrestrained association of 

 different races, but also the superior stocks becoming gradually absorbed in the 

 lower, and their institutions disappearing under the relative barbarism of which 

 the latter are the exponents. If existing causes and conditions continue to ope- 

 rate, many years can not pass before some of these countries will have relapsed 

 into a state not far removed from that in which they were found at the period of 

 the conquest. 



In Mexico there are less than two millions of whites, or of persons having a pre- 

 ponderance of white blood, out of a population of eight millions ; in Central Araeri- 



