Page:The Relations of the Advanced and the Backward Races of Mankind.djvu/50

 Still it changes. It has changed as regards torture. It has changed as regards slavery.

Let me sum up the conclusions to which we have been led:

The races of mankind have been and are being reduced in number by Extinction, by Absorption, and by Admixture.

The races that remain, fewer in number, but nearly every one of them larger, are being brought into a closer contact with one another, and the lower races are being raised in the arts of life, in knowledge, and in intelligence.

The various races may, if friendly, help one another, more than ever before, and so accelerate the progress of the world.

But closer contact and the increase of population bring with them a more severe economic struggle for life between races, and may bring hostile conflicts, in which the Backward races may prove less conspicuously weaker than heretofore.

What can be done to mitigate antagonism and to reduce the risks of collision?

A larger philosophy may do much. A deeper and more earnest faith, which should strive to carry out in practice that sense of human brotherhood which Christianity inculcates, might do still more.

In dealing with the topic which has occupied us to-day, I have proceeded upon the basis of the conditions which now actually prevail in the world. But, before closing, a word or two needs to be said as to the changes in those conditions which may come