178 THE DESCENT OF MAN. 



Extinction follows chiefly from the competition of tribe with 

 tribe, and race with race. Various checks are always in action, 

 serving to keep down the numbers of each savage tribe, — such 

 as periodical famines, nomadic habits and the consequent deaths 

 of infants, prolonged suckling, wars, accidents, sickness, licen- 

 tiousness, the stealing of Vomen, infanticide, and especially les- 

 sened fertility. If any one of these checks increases in power, 

 even slightly, the tribe thus affected tends to decrease; and 

 when of two adjoining tribes one becomes less numerous and less 

 powerful than the other, the contest is soon settled by war, 

 slaughter, cannibalism, slavery, and absorption. Even when a 

 weaker tribe is not thus abruptly swept away, if it once begins 

 to decrease, it generally goes on decreasing until it becomes 

 extinct.'^ 



When civilized nations come into contact with barbarians the 

 struggle is short, except where a deadly climate gives its aid to 

 the native race. Of the causes which lead to the victory of 

 civilized nations, some are plain and simple, others complex and 

 obscure. We can see that the cultivation of the land will be 

 fatal in many ways to savages, for they cannot, or will not, 

 change their habits. New diseases and vices have in some cases 

 proved highly destructive; and it appears that a new disease 

 often causes much death, until those who are most susceptible 

 to its destructive influence are gradually weeded out;^ and so it 

 may be with the evil effects from spirituous liquors, as well as 

 with the unconquerably strong taste for them shown by so many 

 savages. It further appears, mysterious as is the fact, that the 

 first meeting of distinct and separated people generates disease.'* 

 Mr. Sproat, who in Vancouver Island closely attended to the 

 subject of extinction, believed that changed habits of life, conse- 

 quent on the advent of Europeans, induces much ill health. He 

 lays, also, great stress on the apparently trifling cause that the 

 natives become "bewildered and dull by the new life around them; 

 "they lose the motives for exertion, and get no new ones in their 

 "place.""' 



The grade of their civilization seems to be a most important 

 element in the success of competing nations. A few centuries 

 ago Europe feared the inroads of Eastern barbarians; now any 

 such fear would be ridiculous. It is a more curious fact, as Mr. 



== Gerland (ibid. s. 12) gives facts in support of this statement. 



^ See remarlts to this effect in Sir H. Holland's 'Medical Notes and 

 Renections,' 1830, p. 390. 



=' I have collected ('Journal of Researches, Voyage of the "Beagle," ' 

 p. 435) a good many cases bearing on this subject: see also Gerland, 

 ibid. s. 8. Poeppig speaks of the "breath of civilization as poisonous 

 "to savages." 



^ Sproat, 'Scenes and Studies of Savage Life,' 1S6S, p. 2S-1. 



