Rise and Fall of Nations.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume xx, Issue 6637, 29 March 1893, Page 4

Rise and Fall of Nations.

English reviewers have lately devoted considerable attention to a very remukable book by Mr C. H. Pearson, entitled 41 National Life and Character." The author gives us a very gloomy oullook for the future of tho great races of Europe, which differs widely, at least, from the average Anglo-Saxon's notion of the future of his family. He tells us that the greater people of the world are losing ground, and that the "inferior races," such as the Chinese, the Hindoos, the Malays, and the mixed races of the South American continent must in the end gain upon them, nnd finally oust tham from their present position of importance, that tho very " advances " upon which wo pride ourselves most - such as the greater humanity which has made war much less cruel and famine much less terrible -will work against us and tell in favour of the inferior races. We are assured that tho supposed fading of the lower races before the advance of the higher is but a dream into which we have been lulled by the failure of ono or two non-typical cases — such, for instance, as the non-industrial Indians of North America. Further still we are told that the higher races can never flourish in Africa nor in tropical Asia and America, though they may for a time exist there until the native people have learnt enough from their example to advance without further aid. All these depressing forecasts Mr Pearson supplements by arguments from the social tendencies of modern democracy, which point to the decay of powerful forces exerted by individuals, which will be replaced by an average of mediocrity induced by the absence of necessity for the severe struggles that existed in the earlier ages before the very advantages which now point to our doom could be won, Democracy, in fine, tends to the levelling of the multitude, and not to the exertion of the highest qualities of political and individual life. Literature is descending to a common-place level, and to the amusement merely of the vacant minded. The epic and the drama are growing into decay, and even lyric poetry is losing something of its freshness and simplicity. The novel is gradually taking tho place of the higher flights of gcniuH, and ivt the same t'rne it is adapting itself

to tho tastes of those who read eimply to b© amused and who seleot such matter as is not likely to exert their thinking powers. These aro the influences Mr Pearson says are to undermine the groat races of modern times, but gloomy as they undoubtedly are It is not at all certain that a single individual in any of the races concerned will, for knowing them be one jot less satisfied of the great future before the identical people to whioh he has the good fortune^to belong.

A certain dean recently speaking on the nature of man as distinguished from tho lower orders of creation, remarked : " Man is a progressive being ; the others are stationary. Think, for example, of the nss ! Always and everywhere it is tho same creature, and you never saw and never will aoe a more perfect ass than you see at the present moment !" There was a general titter.