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davidford
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Darwin, chapter 7 - “On the Races of Man,” two paragraphs in the section “On the Extinction of the Races of Man”
literature.org/authors/darwin-charles/the-descent-of-man/chapter-07.html
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Immediately following “conquering tribes” is the section “On the Formation of the Races of Man,” which has early on the first of these Darwin remarks:
literature.org/authors/darwin-charles/the-descent-of-man/chapter-07.html
Code:
"Extinction follows chiefly from the competition of tribe with
tribe, and race with race. Various checks are always in
action, serving to keep down the numbers of each savage
tribe,-- such as periodical famines, nomadic habits and the
consequent deaths of infants, prolonged suckling, wars,
accidents, sickness, licentiousness, the stealing of
women, infanticide, and especially lessened fertility. If
any one of these checks increases in power, even
slightly, the tribe thus affected tends to decrease; and
when of two adjoining tribes one becomes less numerous
and less powerful than the other, the contest is soon
settled by war, slaughter, cannibalism, slavery, and
absorption. Even when a weaker tribe is not thus abruptly
swept away, if it once begins to decrease, it generally
goes on decreasing until it becomes extinct.*
* Gerland, ibid., s. 12, gives facts in support of this
statement.
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Finally, although the gradual decrease and ultimate
extinction of the races of man is a highly complex
problem, depending on many causes which differ in
different places and at different times; it is the same
problem as that presented by the extinction of one of the
higher animals-- of the fossil horse, for instance, which
disappeared from South America, soon afterwards to be
replaced, within the same districts, by countless troups of
the Spanish horse. The New Zealander seems conscious
of this parallelism, for he compares his future fate with
that of the native rat now almost exterminated by the
European rat. Though the difficulty is great to our
imagination, and really great, if we wish to ascertain the
precise causes and their manner of action, it ought not to
be so to our reason, as long as we keep steadily in mind
that the increase of each species and each race is
constantly checked in various ways; so that if any new
check, even a slight one, be superadded, the race will
surely decrease in number; and decreasing numbers will
sooner or later lead to extinction; the end, in most cases,
being promptly determined by the inroads of conquering
tribes."Immediately following “conquering tribes” is the section “On the Formation of the Races of Man,” which has early on the first of these Darwin remarks:
- [1871/ 74/ 88 Darwin]“Europeans and Hindoos… belong to the same Aryan stock… Jews… belong to the Semitic stock”
- [1872 Darwin]“Blushing is evident in all the Aryan nations of Europe… The
Semitic races blush freely, as might have been expected, from their
general similitude to the Aryans.” - [Darwin]“Dr. Saviotti in… 1871… remarks that it more frequently
occurs in prognathous skulls, not of the Aryan race, than in others”
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