THE PRESENT EVOLUTION OF MAN — PHYSICAL 265 



zymotic diseases of the non-malarial type have been 

 increasing amongst us ; during all that time these dis- 

 eases have been claiming their many victims among the 

 ranks of the unfit, and our races have been undergoing an 

 evolution in relation to them which, notwithstanding the 

 vast lapse of time, has yet been so rapid, owing to the 

 severity of Disease Selection, that we constantly meet 

 individuals, who, lapsing the evolution of their imme- 

 diate ancestry, have reverted to the condition of greater 

 susceptibility which characterized their remoter ances- 

 tors, and who, therefore, perish in the presence of 

 zymotic disease. It is altogether impossible that the 

 New World races can in so short a time accomplish an 

 evolution which it took the Old World races so long to 

 achieve. 



It is probable that most if not all of the still persist- 

 ent races of America, Australia, and Polynesia are 

 doomed irretrievably to extinction. In the presence of 

 zymotic disease, and of conditions that ever grow 

 increasingly favourable to it, they are as unfit as was 

 the dodo when man invaded Mauritius. But at least 

 we need not favour their extinction by means that are 

 ignorantly intended to prevent it. We need not crowd 

 the American Indians, the Australians, and the Poly- 

 nesians into school-rooms and churche^, and so subject 

 them to conditions the most favourable for acquiring 

 zymotic disease. We need not teach such of them as 

 dwell in warm climates that morals are inseparably 

 connected with clothes, and that the wearing of garments 

 is a necessary prelude to eternal bliss. We need not 

 persuade such of them as are nomadic to form death- 

 traps for themselves in the shape of settled communities. 

 In fact, we need not attempt to civilize them, at least in 

 so far as civilization depends on settled and crowded 

 communities, air-tight houses, and unnecessary clothes. 

 Above all, we need not send to them as teachers and 



