414 HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT 



their colonies, were estimated to number more 

 than a quarter of a million at the end of the 

 eighteenth century. Owing to imported dis- 

 eases and to destructive wars among the tribes 

 and with the English there are not fifty thou- 

 sand of them todajr, and these are being grad- 

 ually absorbed into the white race. 



Undoubtedly there has been a great growth 

 of altruism in the modern world; there is a 

 relatively new feeling among men that nothing 

 so becomes a strong nation as the exercise of 

 justice toward weaker ones, and many idealists 

 maintain that every race and every people has 

 the right to live its life in its own way. But 

 however philanthropic they may be in theory, 

 the practice of all nations demonstrates that 

 weaker and inferior peoples are not permitted 

 to stand in the way of dominant ones. When 

 such peoples occupy territory which is desired 

 by more powerful neighbors, they are either 

 exterminated, expelled, exploited or amalga- 

 mated with the conquering race. In practice 

 their rights are usually of small concern as 

 compared with the desires of the invaders, and 

 the inaccessible or undesirable parts of the 



