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quite understand what has been said with regard to the negro race, but I have 
thought, and I think I have met with the opinion in some books I have read, 
that the negro race is, perhaps, as well able to adapt itself to the climatic con- 
ditions under which it exists as most races. This may not seem to agree with 
what I have just said about mind being the great factor in this matter, but 
I think we may say of the negro race, that if the mind were more developed 
it would be still more able to adapt itself to all the various circumstances in 
which it may find itself placed than it is even at the present moment. There 
certainly does seem to be a singular power of adaptation to exceedingly 
variable conditions of climate in that race. It does not melt away from the 
face of the earth as many races do, and, notwithstanding the fact that the 
descendants of the African negro may become liable to the diseases of 
temperate climates, we, nevertheless, find that where they become settled they 
flourish. You will find magnificently grown coloured men in nearly all the 
northern States, and, although some places are doubtless a little too bleak, 
yet, speaking generally, they do well throughout the States of America. It 
maybe that when they are sent to the West Indies they are more amenable 
to the baneful influences of climate there than the British soldiers ; but this 
is possibly owing to sanitary conditions, and not merely to the question of 
physical adaptation. It is hard to suppose that on the ground of physical 
adaptation they could be less healthy at the West Indies than English 
soldiery ; and, as a matter of fact, we find that they easily adapt them- 
selves to altered conditions of climate extending over a very wide area in 
Africa and other parts of the world. So that there are some races which 
are peculiarly tenacious of life ; and, over and above this, I think it worth 
while to consider whether the mere development of mind and will in various 
races is not of itself an element tending to keep those races alive ? A 
great deal of rubbish has been talked about race destructibility and race 
decadence. You cannot go to America, and see the manifest difference of 
the American type from any type to which you may refer as having been 
the original type, without feeling that the development of continental in- 
fluences exercised on the various European races is taking away the 
characteristics of the original type and substituting a different set. You 
cannot take the very striking history of the Sikhs without noticing the 
singular illustration furnished by that race, of national individuality, and 
yet they are a new nation or race created out of very heterogeneous 
materials. Thus you see that there is a perpetual melting down of certain 
characteristics and raising up of others, while our own nation differs very 
materially in regard to the type that now prevails from the English nation 
as it was one thousand years ago. All this, however, is very much matter 
of opinion ; but I cannot help agreeing with the remark which fell from 
a gentleman who spoke a little while ago, and who told us it was a 
valuable lesson for us to learn, that we ought not to hazard strong 
assertions with regard to questions of this kind. There are a thousand 
things with regard to the influences of race, and climate, and diet, and 
occupation, and mental force, as to which we have no data to go upon, 
