c «ap. vii. tiib races op man. 239 
fact, that the first meeting of distinct and separated 
People generates disease . 33 Mr. Sproat, who in Man- 
euver Island closely attended to the subject of extinc- 
tion, believes that changed habits of life, which always 
follow from the advent of Europeans, induces much ill- 
health. He lays, also, great stress on so trifling a cause 
as that the natives become “ bewildered and dull by the 
“ new life around them ; they lose the motives for exer- 
tion, and get no new ones in their place.” " i 
The grade of civilisation seems a most important 
dement in the success of nations which come in compe- 
tition. A few centuries ago Europe feared the inroads 
°f Eastern barbarians ; now, any such fear would be ridi- 
culous. It is a more curious fact, that savages did not 
formerly waste away, as Mr. Bagehot has remarked, 
hefor e the classical nations, as they now do before 
Modern civilised nations; had they done so, the old 
' n °i'alists would have mused over the event ; hut there 
ls Uo lament in any writer of that period over the perish- 
111 § barbarians . 36 
Although the gradual decrease and final extinction 
°f the races of man is an obscure problem, we can see 
fhat it depends on many causes, differing in different 
Pieces and at different times. It is the same difficult 
Problem as that presented by the extinction of one of 
tl| e higher animals— of the fossil horse, for instance, 
' v hich disappeared from South America, soon afterwards 
f° be replaced, within the same districts, by countless 
tr °ops of the Spanish horse. The New Zealander seems 
^ I have Uce toil (‘Journal of Researches, Voyage of the “Beagle,”’ 
j Jo) a good many oases bearing on this subject : see also Gerland, 
s. 8. Poeppig speaks of tho “ breath of civilisation as poisonous 
w savages.” 
^ kproat, ‘ Scenes and Studies of Savage Life,’ 1868, p. 284. 
1 On ® a gehot, <* Physics and Politics,” ‘ Fortnightly Review,’ April 1, 
lb6s > p. 455. 
