1 68 Eugene Rollin Corson 



amples of colored men who have attained considerable reputa- 

 tion, and have shown, perhaps, fine mental parts, to show the 

 beneficial influences of education and civilization upon the 

 African, and the possibilities of the race, and ignore the in- 

 fluence of the white admixture, and the credit due thereto. 



And with this evident inferiority what can we learn further 

 from biology ? 



A deterioration in physique may be looked upon as the 

 natural result of the many influences at work arising from the 

 transporting of the race to a foreign soil to be thrown into the 

 struggle for existence against a superior race, a struggle which 

 can have no ultimate issue but defeat, and by defeat I mean 

 an inability to maintain the distinctive characteristics of the 

 race. The struggle will be a slow process of fusion by which 

 the weak and unstable elements will disappear while that 

 which has any pernianenc}^ will become so blended wiih the 

 dominant race as to lose its individualitj'. Of the stable and 

 the unstable the latter is by far the greater ; its instability 

 can be measured by the physical degeneracjr. Even to-day to 

 call the colored race the African race is something of a mis- 

 nomer because it has undergone many modifications. A 

 change in language, in soil, and in climate, a change of sur- 

 roundings and associations are potent influences to eventuall}' 

 destroy the original African traits. This struggle may, per- 

 haps, be better described as a process of assimilation b}^ which 

 the elements ill-adapted to the growth of the dominant race 

 are thrown off, while that which is assimilable becomes grad- 

 ually absorbed into the main growth. 



L,et us glance a little more minutely into these factors of 

 change and decay. The change of habitat alone, a change of 

 soil and climate, has a certain influence. Man, like the ani- 

 mals and plants, bears the stamps of geographical areas. A 

 race indigenous to a certain countrj' acquires through many 

 generations characteristics the formation of which can be 

 traced to climatic and telluric causes. One of the most inter- 

 esting departments of biology is the study of the geographical 

 distribution of animals and plants ; and man is no exception, 

 for in him, too, we can trace the influences of the ground he 



