On the Changes the Races of Man are undergoing. 267 
Observations on the Gradual Changes that the Human Races 
| appear destined to pass through. 
Nature marches steadily towards perfection; and it at- 
tains this end through the consecutive destruction of living 
beings. Geology and paleontology prove a succession of crea- 
tions and destructions prior to any effacements of man; and 
it is contended by Hombron and other naturalists, that the 
inferior races of mankind were created before the superior 
types, who now appear destined to supplant their prede- 
cessors. Albeit, whatever may have been the order of crea- 
tion, the unintellectual races seem doomed to eventual dis- 
appearance in all those climates where the higher groups of 
fair-skinned families can permanently exist. 
The entire race of the Guanches, at the Canary Islands, 
was exterminated by the Portuguese during the thirteenth 
and fourteenth centuries ; not a living vestige remaining to 
tell the tale. Some of the pre-Celtic inhabitants of Britain, 
Gaul, and Scandinavia, seem to have shared a similar fate ; 
16,000,000 of aborigines in North America have dwindled 
down to 2,000,000 since the “ Mayflower” discharged on 
Plymouth Rock ; and their congeners, the Caribs, have long 
been extinct in the West Indian Islands. The mortal destiny 
- of the whole American group is already perceived to be run- 
ning out, like the sand in Time’s hour-glass. Of 400,000 in- 
habitants of the Sandwich Islands, far less than 100,000 
survive, and these are daily sinking beneath civilization, 
missionaries, and rum. In New Holland, New Guinea, many 
of the Pacific Islands, and other parts of the world, the same 
work of destruction is going on; and the colours of pro- 
selytism are vain, save to hasten its accomplishment. 
* Pourquoi cela?” asks Bodichon. “Jt is because their 
social state is a perpetual strife against humanity. Thus, 
murder, depredations, incessant useless strifes of one against 
another, are their natural state. They practise human 
sacrifices and mutilations of man; they are imbued with 
hostility and antipathy towards all not of their race. They 
maintain polygamy, slavery, and submit women to labour in- 
compatible with female organization. 
