206 galton.org
206 Inquiries into Human Faculty
The West Indian Islands have had their population absolutely swept
away since the time of the Spanish Conquest, except in a few rare
instances, and African Negroes have been substituted for them.
Australia and New Zealand tell much the same tale as Canada. A
native population has been almost extinguished in the former and is
swamped in the latter, under the pressure of an immigrant population of
Europeans, which is now twelve times as numerous as the Maories. The
time during which this great change has been effected is less than that
covered by three generations.
To this brief -sketch of changes of population in very recent periods, I
might add the wave of Arab admixture that has extended from Egypt and
the northern provinces of Africa into the Soudan, and that of the yellow
races of China, who have already made their industrial and social
influence felt in many distant regions, and who bid fair hereafter, when
certain of their peculiar religious fancies shall have fallen into decay, to
become one of the most effective of the colonising nations, and who may,
as I trust, extrude hereafter the coarse and lazy Negro from at least the
metaliferous regions of tropical Africa.
It is clear from what has been said, that men of former generations
have exercised enormous influence over the human stock of the present
day, and that the average humanity of the world now and in future years is
and will be very different to what it would have been if the action of our
forefathers had been different. The power in man of varying the future
human stock vests a great responsibility in the hands of each fresh
generation, which has not yet been recognised at its just importance, nor
deliberately employed. It is foolish to fold the hands and to say that
nothing can be done, inasmuch as social forces and self-interests are too
strong to be resisted. They need not be resisted; they can be guided. It is
one thing to check the course of a huge steam vessel by the shock of a
sudden encounter when she is going at full speed in the wrong direction,
and another to cause her to change her course slowly and gently by a
slight turn of the helm.
