Page:The Relations of the Advanced and the Backward Races of Mankind.djvu/23

 world, replacing the losses which the original population suffered through war, pestilence, and various social and economic causes. It may well be that in the days of Diocletian two-thirds of the blood flowing in the veins of his subjects had come from a servile source.

But although we see no cases in which a large nation can claim pure blood, we also see cases in which races whose close juxtaposition would permit them to mix do not in fact mix. The question follows: What are the causes which favour or check intermarriage between races brought into contact?

For intermarriage to take place, it is not necessary that the races should stand on the same or nearly the same level of civilization, still less be equal in mental gifts or physical force. Two colliding races are seldom equal, as indeed conquerors are presumably superior in force, colonizers presumably more active and enterprising. Neither does language form a serious bar. Neither have ethnological affinities, as measured by linguistic affinities, much to do with the matter. The Finnic peoples of North-eastern Europe have blent easily and naturally with the Teutonic Swedes and the Slavonic Russians, though the ethnographer would place them far from both these races. So in Hungary, both Germans and men of Jewish stock intermarry freely with the Magyars, ethnologically remote from both, and the offspring are usually ardently Magyar in sentiment. Celts, Teutons, and Slavs are so far from being repelled by differences of race that the difference frequently operates as an attraction, making the union complementary.