tion which we possess as to the
lower races, meagre and fragmentary as it unfortunately is, all seems to
point to the conclusion that on the whole even the most savage tribes
have reached their low level of culture from one still lower, and that
the upward movement, though so slow as to be almost imperceptible, has
yet been real and steady up to the point where savagery has come into
contact with civilisation. The moment of such contact is a critical one
for the savages. If the intellectual, moral, and social interval which
divides them from the civilised intruders exceeds a certain degree, then
it appears that sooner or later the savages must inevitably perish; the
shock of collision with a stronger race is too violent to be withstood,
the weaker goes to the wall and is shattered. But if on the other hand
the breach between the two conflicting races is not so wide as to be
impassable, there is a hope that the weaker may assimilate enough of the
higher culture of the other to survive. It was so, for example, with our
barbarous forefathers in contact with the ancient civilisations of
Greece and Rome; and it may be so in future with some, for example, of
the black races of the present day in contact with European
civilisation. Time will shew. But among the savages who cannot
permanently survive the shock of collision with Europe may certainly be
numbered the aborigines of Australia. They are rapidly dwindling and
wasting away, and before very many years have passed it is probable that
they will be extinct like the Tasmanians, who, so far as we can judge
from the miserably imperfect records of them which we possess, appear to
have been savages of an even lower type than the Australians, and
therefore to have been still less able to survive in the struggle for
existence with their vigorous European rivals.

[Sidenote: Physical causes which have retarded progress in Australia.]

The causes which have retarded progress in Australia and kept the
aboriginal population at the lowest level of savagery appear to be
mainly two; namely, first, the geographical isolation and comparatively
small area of the continent, and, second, the barren and indeed desert
nature of a great part of its surface; for the combined effect of these
causes has been, by excluding foreign competitors and seriously
restricting the number of competitors at home, to abate the rigour of
competition and thereby to restrain the action of one of the most
powerfu