Page:The advancement of science by experimental research - the Harveian oration, delivered at the Royal College of Physicians, June 27th, 1883 (IA b24869958).pdf/44

40 intermediate condition is found in the varied countries and localities of the world. An insufficient supply of nourishment soon tells not only upon the growth and nutrition of the body, but upon the energy and power of the mind. The poor half- starved peasant in the Connemara bog and desolate land deteriorates not only in his physical organism, but in that which is man's proudest endowment, his faculties of thought and his power of reason. The struggle to obtain a meagre existence drags the man down to a lower level, and the same painful fact is demonstrated among the tribes of Africa, the degraded inhabi- tants of Terra del Fuego, or the famine- stricken inhabitants of India or China. The condition of man may change in a descending scale instead of advancing to the civilization of more privileged races. The circumstances of social life add other modifying conditions to man in his national existence. Compare the lithe athletic Indian with the phlegmatic Turk, the Bedouin Arab in his wild nomadic life with the quiet cultivator of the soil; the