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Hereditary Genius
xxv
jects may lie in the opposite direction; and so on indefinitely. My object
now is merely to urge inquiries into the historical fact whether legislation,
which has led to the substitution on a large scale of one race for another,
has not often been the outcome of conflicting views into which the question
of race hardly entered at all, and which were so nearly balanced that if the
question of race had been properly introduced into the discussion the result
might have been different. The possibility of such being the case cannot be
doubted, and affords strong reason for justly appraising the influence of
race, and of hereafter including it at neither more nor less than its real
value, among the considerations by which political action will be
determined.
The importance to be attached to race is a question that deserves a far
larger measure of exact investigation than it receives. We are exceedingly
ignorant of the respective ranges of the natural and acquired faculties in
different races, and there is too great a tendency among writers to
dogmatise wildly about them, some grossly magnifying, others as greatly
minimising their several provinces. It seems however possible to answer
this question unambiguously, difficult as it is.
The recent attempts by many European nations to utilize Africa for their
own purposes gives immediate and practical interest to inquiries that bear
on the transplantation of races. They compel us to face the question as to
what races should be politically aided to become hereafter the chief
occupiers of that continent. The varieties of Negroes, Bantus, Arab half-
breeds, and others who now inhabit Africa are very numerous, and they
differ much from one another in their natural qualities. Some of them must
be more suitable than others to thrive under that form of moderate
civilization which is likely to be intro-
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