The Origin of Human Races and the Antiquity of Man Deduced from Natural Selection

As an animal, he would remain almost stationary; the changes of the surrounding universe would cease to have that powerful modifying effect on him which they exercise over other parts of the organic world. But from the moment that his body became stationary, his mind would become subject to those very influences from which his body had escaped. Every slight variation in his mental and moral nature which enabled him to better guard against adverse circumstances and combine with others for mutual comfort and protection would be preserved and accumulated. The better and higher specimens of our race would therefore increase and spread, while the lower and more brutal would give way and successively die out. This would lead to that rapid advancement of mental organization which has raised even the lowest human races so far above the animals (although they differ so little from some of them in physical structure) and, in conjunction with barely perceptible modifications of form, has developed the wonderful intellect of the Germanic races.

But from the time when this mental and moral advance commenced, and man’s physical character became fixed and immutable, a new series of causes would come into action and take part in his mental growth. The diverse aspects of nature would now make themselves felt and profoundly influence the character of the primitive man.

When the power that had hitherto modified the body transferred its action to the mind, then races would advance and become improved merely by the harsh discipline of a sterile soil and inclement seasons. Under their influence, a hardier, more provident, and more social race would be developed than in those regions where the earth produces a perennial supply of vegetable food, and where neither foresight nor ingenuity are required to prepare for the rigors of winter. And is it not the fact that in all ages, and in every quarter of the globe, the inhabitants of temperate countries have been superior to those of tropical countries? All the great invasions and displacements of races have been from North to South, rather than the reverse; and we have no record of there ever having existed—any more than there exists today—a solitary instance of an indigenous inter-tropical civilization. The Mexican civilization and government came from the North, and, like the Peruvian, was established not in the rich tropical plains, but on the lofty and sterile plateaus of the Andes. The religion and civilization of Ceylon modern Sri Lanka were introduced from North India; the successive conquerors of the Indian peninsula came from the Northwest; and it was the bold and adventurous tribes of the North that overran and infused new life into Southern Europe.

It is the same great law of “the preservation of favored races in the struggle for life,” which leads to the inevitable extinction of all

• M. Guizot François Guizot (1787–1874), a French historian and statesman. says: “If we regard the immediate influence of climate upon men, perhaps it is not so extensive as has been supposed. But the indirect influence of climate—that which, for example, results from the fact that in a warm country, men live in the open air, while in a cold country they shut themselves up in their houses; that in the one case they nourish themselves in one manner, and in the other in another—these are facts of great importance, facts which, by the simple difference of material life, act powerfully upon civilization.” (History of Civilization in Europe.)