Page:George Archdall Reid 1896 The present evolution of man.djvu/277

Rh zymotic diseases of the non-malarial type have been increasing amongst us; during all that time these diseases 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 immediate ancestry, have reverted to the condition of greater susceptibility which characterized their remoter ancestors, 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 persistent 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 Polynesians into school-rooms and churches, 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 deathtraps 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