The Outcome of the Present Civilization.

New Zealand Illustrated Magazine, Volume 1, Issue 8, 1 May 1900, Page 587

The Outcome of the Present Civilization.

By W. T. Mask field.

fHE contemplative mind will sometimes ask itself the question : What is to be the outcome of the present civilization, which now em- *~ braces for the first time within our knowledge a majority of the human race ? Other civilizations have risen within our own historical period, and there are evidences which give undisputed proof of many prior ones. Bur both the former and the latter have decayed, and, in the natural course of events, been wiped out in the advance of races rendered, or kept more vigorous than they by the natural selection, or survival of the fittest in the struggle for existence of barbarous humanity. Our present European races, composed mainly of descendants of a people who, a few centuries ago, were barbarians,* still show only the earlier signs of that physical decay which must eventually come upon them. The more vigorous individuals among them, like the Eoman of the early Empire, are quite able to hold their own against savage races in spite of that gradual failing

*At least, the vigorous nations. There was no doubt a numerous remnant of the Koman provincials (Celtic and Tiberian) left in Spain, southern Italy, and parts of France, but their treatment in the hands of their Vandal, Gothic, Frankish, Lombard, and Arab conquerors, would soon sweep away most of the traces of physical degeneration by killing all the weakly off.

of teeth, nerves, eyesight, and digestive apparatus, which is coining more plainly into evidence with each decade of tho civilized existence of their race. Moroovor, by the help of an increasing proficoncy in cookery, surgery, and medicine, combined with enlightened use of exercise and suitable diet, a certain amount of vitality is likely to be assured for a long future period if these favourable circumstances can bo depended upon ; especially as, unlike the older and smaller civilizations, our present one in too large to be suddenly overrun by a more hardy and numerous people The invention and improvement of machinery, steam, (irearms, etc., has also done much to equalize the struggle between effeminate and vigorous nationalities. Hut all this is not putting oft" tho chief evil, but even hastening the race-degenera-tion. Science now teaches that all bodily organs of animated beings which are not necessary in the struggle for existence have a tendency to degenerate and fail. In our present civilization some of our important organs are not necessary, and many of them need not even nearly be in a sound condition. A man can now live to old age with a weak stomach and no teeth, whilst begetting children to inherit, increase, and transmit those infirmities This carried on unchecked in an uncivilized tribe would soon cause the latter to be swept from the face of the earth

by the first great hardship, or race struggle it encountered, leaving, perhaps, a few hardy survivors to propagate a more suitable offspring, and so regenerate the race. A weakly child of the Anglo-Saxon race that, only a few years ago, could not haye survived is now by surgery, careful nursing, and suitable diet, saved to grow to maturity and to beget still more unhealthy issue. It is sometimes almost absurd to hear the popular theories about the cause of the present partial failure of the human organs. Take, that dental decay, which will, without doubt, at its present rate of increase, soon make the Anglo-Saxon' a toothless race. Insufficient lime, too much sugar, hot tea, are some of the causes given. The fact is not considered that any number of an uncivilized or lately civilized race may be put under the same conditions, or even worse ones, as the Polynesians on the sugar plantations of Queensland, and their teeth will show no signs of failure. The same may be said of the negro of the West Indies. Yet, when the negroes of America have been as long removed from the natural selection in the struggle for existence of the savage as has the Saxon, his teeth and- other organs not necessary to his existence, or the due propagation of his race will show the same decay, for the very same reason that the larger birds of New Zealand and the islands to the south-east of Africa became wingless. Wings were not necessary to those birds, which found their food on the ground, because they had no large carnivorous mammal or reptile to escape from. But on the arrival of man, dog, and cat, these flightless birdß, not having the saving speed of the ostrich family, were soon swept from the face of the land of their degeneration.

One great advantage the inhabitants of that great tri-continent, called the Old "World, have hitherto had over the races of America, the Pacific islands, and Australia, is that by the same law of survival of the fittest; they were inured, or proof against diseases that were fatal to the later races to whom they were a novelty. There can be little doubt that many of the numerous

diseases now prevalent, such as measles, whooping-cough, scarlet fever, etc., that have proved so fatal to the natives of newlydiscovered countries, were once much more malignant to the inhabitants of the Old World than they are at present. But as each of these ancient diseases ran its course, it carried off all whose particular organisms made it fatal to them, leaving a remnaut who were able to resist its fatal effect. And as like begets like, their descendants, children of father and mother whose constitutions were proof against the disease, would become still less liable to fatal results from the epidemic. These, being culled again and again by the same disease, would leave an offspring still more capable of resistance. This was shown in the first, at least in modern times, and terrible diphtheria epidemic of some 40 years ago in England. Also amongst domestic mammals in the same country, when pleuro-pneumonia, in its first visit, killed enormous quantities of cattle, fully four-fifths of those attacked dying, leaving a remnant, the offspring of which, on a later occasion, were able to resist the disease with much smaller loss. See also the late fatal results of a first visit of rinderpest across the equator in Africa. It has now carried off all cattle that are particularly liable to take that epidemic, and will never again, unless after a total absence of centuries, have such fatal effect upon a stock bred from the survivors, whose blood corpuscles have successfully resisted the diseasefKeeping all this in mind, one can imagine the effect on newly-discovered races brought into contact with all the — to them — unknown diseases of the Old "World at the same time. Such a shock totally deprived Van Dieman's Land of its native race in a few years. Nearly all Australian Aborigines brought into contact with any white centre went the same way in nearly as short a period. And earlier, in America, millions were swept away in a few years by the influx of ff he writer understands in the Russian home of rinderpest it does comparatively little harm.

Europeans. But the Europeans did not come off quite so scatheless there as in the South Pacific. Yellow fever that, according to their own records, had formerly been disastrous to the American Indians, allowed them some little retaliation upon the Spaniards, at least in and near the tropics ; whilst another awful disease, communicated by them to their conquerors, J has given them ample revenge, having up till now proved, with perhaps the exception of phthisis, more permanently disastrous to the people of Europe than any contagion which has hitherto visited their continent. From this, and from Boccaccio's or Petrach's account of the invasion of another new disease of a less permanent type— the Black Death— one can judge what the effect of a number of new' epidemics, all let loose at about the same time, would have on a white race. Such an event would simply depopulate Europe, and put an end for ever to the question, why newly-discovered races disappear so quickly before Old World colonists ?

Yet the aborigines of the older coloured parts of America now appear to have bred, or are breeding, themselves out of thenliability to succumb to Old World maladies, and are now increasing in due, or in close proportion, as compared with the European colonists. Two-thirds of the population of Mexico, the oldest European settlement on the mainland, are now said to be pure-blood Indians. The Indians of the later colonised United States seem likewise bidding fair to become again a prolific race. A late wnter§ concerning them, finishes his clever article in the Arena with : "We should, therefore, in the interest of truth, relegate the disappearance of the North American Indian race to its proper place amongst the disproved fallacies of history." Looking also at the last annual report (iS9B) of the Canadian Department of Indian Affairs, that document shows that the Indian population of Canada is estimated at 99,364, and states

JDr. Eobertson's " History of America." §T. W. Pope.

that the birth-rate and doath-rato now about balance each other. Going- to tho South Pacilic, and taking Otaheito, one of tho first islands visited by Europeans in that part of the world, we find that on the arrival of tho missionaries in the eighteenth century it had a population of 20,00 J. Twenty years after, this had shrunk to 5,000. Vet it lias since obtained its old level of 20,0U0.||

The Polynesian races seem to brood out the first fatal effects of new diseases more quickly than the American Indians did, but the older and longer isolated Negroid races, such as the natives of Australia and Tabmania, appear incapable of resistance, and are simply annihilated And one often liearH tales of the Southern seas, of small isolated tropical islands whore a few of the Molanesian inhabitants have volunteered for Queensland sugar plantations. Tho labour schooner returns all that are loft ol a band of them to their island a year or two after, as per contract, with, to the simple islanders, wealth beyond the dreams of avarice, but alas! also with the bacillus of tuberculosis in their lungs. A few years afterwards, when the island is again visited, many of the natives are dying. Another visit, and tho little coral island is found silent and depopulated.

Perhaps the moat intellectual and vigorous of the Pad lie races is the Maori of New Zealand. A. Polynesian, with, pomibly, a dash of M.-lanesian, lie can compare favourably with the averaged European, either physically or mentally. They, like all Polynesians, average above the height and much above the weight of the white num. Though their legs are proportionatelyshortor, their deep-chested body is much longer than the averaged Briton's. Thoir one fault, in European eyes, is, that they run too much to flesh. They do not have the large stomach of the fat white man, but, whilst always possessing very large arms, shoulders, and legs, these often get very ponderous and fat in the men at from 30 to 40 years of age.

"jjTravels in the Sandwich and Society Islands — S. S. Hill.

The males are handsome, but the hugehipped women, who seem to show more of the Nenroid type, can seldom be called so when over 25. The half-castes are very handsome, but seem to have a liability as yet to disease as great as the pure blood. Perhaps because, as a rule, they are brought more into contact with the European. Before the advent of the white man, if we except the enormous percentage that perished in their remarkably sanguinary tribal wars, this people died of old age and accident only.* Considering all things, they may be looked upon as the most successful in combatting the diseases brought into their country with such shockin.' suddenness. They had every disadvantage in the linht for existence, beins^ mixed up with, and quite surrounded by, the white man in a narrow country with a great coast-line, to which, moreover, the Maori had emigrated from much warmer latitudes. But fchouyh an enormous number of them perished at first from phthisis, measles, typhoid, etc., they seem to be now, like the Indians of Canada, near the turn of the tide. The census of 1891, after deducting those destroyed by the Tarawera volcanic eruption, gave them a small increase. The 189(5 census, a loss of about 2,000. Owing to the difficulties in getting information from the natives, these figures are confessedly incorrect, t The truth lies probably between the two, which is, that in ten years ilie 4»,000 Maoris of New Zealand have decreased by about 1,000, chiefly in the later settled districts. The returns show a distinct increase in the Queen Charlotte's Sound district of the South Island, where the Maori had the first f r-.olonged communication with the white h' q where tlie census *Many Maoris perishev t)Cy drowning, for when a canoe capsized, the water on the New Zealand coast was too cold for long swims. ". f'New Zealand Official Year-book ('9B).

has been correctly taken. This is a verygood record for a race, many tribes of which have only lately been brought into close contact with the white man. This vitality of the Maoris, when thought over, leads one to believe if they can survive in any number for the next 20 years, they are yet destined to become a numerous people. They have the advantage of having all their organs perfect, having sprung from barbarism to an advanced civilization at a single bound, and it will probably be centuries before, in middle life, they will want such appendages as spectacles, false teeth, and artificial hair, or such aids to digestion as pills and pepsine, or suffer like the white man from the pangs of rheumatism, gout, neuralgia, etc. They, moreover, seem to resist diseases such as diphtheria and the virulent modern influenza — new to the white man — as well or better than the European. All this seems to show that if all things were equal, the Maori is much more constitutionally robust, and that he will continue so up to a period when the European, at the present rate of increase of his infirmities, will be the most wretched example of the evil effects of long continued civilization the world has yet known. Any nation which alone passed laws preventing the unhealthy and weakly amongst its inhabitants from propagating their species, thus substituting artificial for the old barbarous natural selection, would, without doubt, in time dominate the world. To the thinker of Anglo-Saxon descent, there is, indeed, something melancholy in the idea, when the remedy is so plain, that the " Mail on the Bridge," as shadowed forth by one of our greatest historians and poets, may yet be a Polynesian, and that his described surroundings may contain more elements of truth than were every dreamt of as within the bounds of possibility by thousands who have hackneyed the prophetic words.